Chapter 10 – The Forgotten Chapel
The chapel had not appeared on any blueprint.
Not the city's archives.
Not the Moretti family's private records.
Yet the old raven key fit perfectly into the rusted iron gate hidden deep within the northern forest beyond the estate.
The lock turned with a heavy metallic groan.
Alessandro stood at the entrance, flanked by Luca and four trusted guards.
Clara remained behind with Emma.
Something about the place made Alessandro uneasy.
The stone walls were older than New York itself.
Vines crawled over cracked stained-glass windows, hiding faded images of saints whose faces had almost disappeared beneath time.
"This place wasn't abandoned," Luca whispered.
"It was erased."
Inside, rows of wooden pews sat untouched beneath a thick blanket of dust.
Everything looked frozen.
Except for one candle.
It was burning.
Someone had been there recently.
Alessandro walked slowly toward the altar.
Instead of a cross, a black raven had been carved into the stone.
Its wings stretched across the entire wall.
Beneath it stood a weathered marble pedestal supporting a sealed wooden chest.
No lock.
Only an inscription.
Truth is never inherited.
It is uncovered.
Luca carefully lifted the lid.
Inside lay dozens of baptism records.
Not ordinary church documents.
Every page listed children connected to powerful families across New York.
Some belonged to judges.
Some to senators.
Some to crime syndicates.
Every few pages, one name had been circled in black ink.
Emma.
Another circled name appeared several pages later.
Sophia Moretti.
Luca frowned.
"Why would someone archive baptisms like intelligence files?"
Before Alessandro could answer, another document slipped from the bottom of the chest.
It was much newer.
A newspaper clipping.
The headline read:
Historic Church Fire Claims Six Lives.
Date:
Twenty years earlier.
Someone had written across the article in red ink.
Official story: False.
Back at the mansion...
Emma wandered into the greenhouse while Clara answered a phone call from one of the house staff.
The glass walls shimmered beneath the afternoon sun.
Hundreds of exotic flowers filled the room with sweet fragrance.
Emma stopped beside a dying white orchid.
She gently touched one of its petals.
"It misses her."
The elderly gardener overheard.
"Who?"
Emma pointed toward an empty stone bench.
"The lady who sings."
The gardener's face drained of color.
"No one has sung here for years."
He stared at the bench.
Only one person had ever sung while tending the orchids.
Sophia Moretti.
The gardener hurried to Clara.
"Miss..."
"I think the child remembers this place."
Clara smiled politely.
"She's imaginative."
The gardener slowly shook his head.
"There was one song only Sophia knew."
Before Clara could respond, Emma softly began humming.
The melody echoed through the greenhouse.
The gardener's hands started trembling.
"It can't be..."
"That's her lullaby."
Clara froze.
It was the same melody she herself had hummed for years.
Yet no one had ever taught it to her.
Meanwhile...
Miles away, inside an abandoned bell tower overlooking the Hudson River, a lone figure listened through an old radio receiver.
Every word spoken inside the chapel came through clearly.
"They found the records," the figure murmured.
A second voice answered from the shadows.
"Earlier than expected."
"Should we move the Archive?"
"No."
The second voice calmly placed another chess piece onto a wooden board.
"Let them follow the breadcrumbs."
"They still believe they're hunting us."
A faint smile appeared beneath the stranger's hood.
"They haven't realized..."
"...they're walking exactly where we want them."
As dusk settled over the estate, Alessandro returned carrying the wooden chest.
He ordered every servant to leave the library.
Only Clara, Emma, and Luca remained.
One by one, they examined the documents.
Nothing explained why Emma's name appeared among records dating back decades.
Until Luca unfolded the final page.
It wasn't a church record.
It was a hand-drawn map.
At the center stood the Moretti estate.
A red line stretched north to the forgotten chapel.
Then farther east.
To a location marked only by a single symbol.
A lighthouse.
In the bottom corner, someone had written:
The chapel remembers names.
The lighthouse remembers faces.
But only the river remembers what truly happened.
Silence filled the library.
Emma looked at the map for a long moment.
Then she quietly placed one tiny finger on a bend in the river that no one else had noticed.
"There's another house."
Luca looked again.
Nothing was marked there.
"Where?"
Emma frowned.
"It isn't on the map anymore."
She looked up at Alessandro with surprising certainty.
"They buried it."
The room fell silent.
Because outside the library windows, beyond the dark trees lining the riverbank, the faint outline of a roof briefly emerged through the evening mist...
May you like
...and then disappeared again as though the earth itself had swallowed it.
End of Bonus Chapter 10
