CHAPTER 5 – The Room Beneath the Piano
The whisper came again.
"...Don't leave..."
It was so faint that, for a heartbeat, everyone questioned whether they had imagined it.
Then Emma squeezed my hand.
"See?"
"I told you."
"Someone is down there."
Alessandro didn't hesitate.
"Open it."
Two guards wedged steel bars beneath the iron hatch.
The ancient hinges groaned in protest.
Dust poured into the air.
A blast of cold, stale air escaped from below, carrying the smell of damp stone and something else...
Old paper.
The hatch finally swung open.
A narrow spiral staircase disappeared into darkness.
Luca aimed his flashlight downward.
"I'll go first."
"No," Alessandro replied.
"If this place has been hidden for years, whoever built it expected intruders."
He motioned to the bomb technicians.
"Check every step."
For the next ten minutes, the team scanned the staircase.
No explosives.
No pressure plates.
No tripwires.
Only age.
The walls were lined with hand-laid brick, far older than the mansion itself.
"This tunnel wasn't built by the Morettis," Luca murmured.
"It predates the house."
Alessandro descended first.
I stayed close behind, Emma in my arms despite every protest from the security team.
"I'm not leaving her."
"No matter what happens."
The staircase ended before a heavy oak door reinforced with iron bands.
Unlike the hatch above, it stood slightly open.
Someone had been here recently.
Fresh footprints covered the dusty floor.
One set belonged to a grown man.
The other...
Tiny.
About the size of a child's shoe.
Emma stared silently.
"I know this place."
I looked at her in surprise.
"You've never been here."
She frowned.
"I... dreamed it."
The room beyond looked less like a bunker and more like a forgotten library.
Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling.
Thousands of journals.
Leather-bound ledgers.
Maps.
Blueprints.
Photographs.
Everything carefully cataloged.
At the center stood a massive wooden table.
Upon it rested a single oil lamp.
Still burning.
Someone had lit it only minutes ago.
"They knew we were coming," Luca whispered.
Alessandro's eyes swept across the room.
"No."
"They wanted us to find this."
On the wall behind the table hung dozens of framed portraits.
Not paintings.
Photographs.
Every face belonged to a powerful figure.
Judges.
Business magnates.
Politicians.
Crime bosses.
Some had died decades ago.
Others were still alive.
A thin red string connected many of the frames.
Like pieces on an investigation board.
Then I noticed one photograph that didn't belong.
Mine.
A picture of me walking Emma to preschool.
Pinned among the others.
Underneath, someone had written:
Caretaker. Status: Unaware.
A chill raced down my spine.
"They've been studying me..."
For years.
Emma slipped from my arms before I could stop her.
She wandered through the room with strange confidence.
Almost as if she were following invisible directions.
Finally, she stopped before a locked cabinet.
"It's inside."
"What is?"
She simply pointed.
Alessandro nodded to a guard.
The lock was cut in seconds.
Inside the cabinet lay only three items.
A tape recorder.
A leather journal.
And an old Polaroid camera.
The recorder suddenly clicked.
Without anyone touching it.
A woman's voice filled the room.
"If you're hearing this..."
"...then I failed."
The room froze.
The voice was calm.
Gentle.
Tired.
"My name is Sophia Moretti."
Alessandro staggered backward.
His face drained of color.
Sophia.
His wife.
Emma's mother.
The woman everyone believed had died during childbirth.
His lips parted.
"That's impossible..."
The recording continued.
"If Alessandro is alive..."
"...don't tell him I died giving birth."
A long pause.
"I chose to disappear."
Luca looked stunned.
Alessandro clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"No..."
The voice trembled.
"There are people inside our family."
"They don't want my daughter."
"They want what she witnessed."
Everyone exchanged confused looks.
A newborn couldn't witness anything.
Could she?
Sophia answered the question herself.
"You'll think that sounds impossible."
"But Emma wasn't the witness."
"The witness..."
"...was hidden with her."
The tape abruptly stopped.
Silence swallowed the room.
"What does that mean?" Luca asked.
"The witness was hidden with her?"
Emma quietly picked up the old Polaroid camera.
She pressed the shutter.
Flash.
A blank photograph slowly slid out.
"There wasn't even any film," one guard muttered.
Yet, as everyone watched...
An image slowly appeared.
Not of the room.
Not of us.
A little boy.
Perhaps five years old.
Standing beside Sophia.
His face had been deliberately scratched away.
On the back of the photograph, words emerged as if written in invisible ink:
Find Daniel before they do.
"Daniel?"
Alessandro searched his memory.
"I don't know any Daniel."
Luca suddenly snapped his fingers.
"Wait."
He rushed to one of the bookshelves and pulled down a dusty ledger.
Inside were handwritten notes dating back thirty years.
Most entries listed names.
Payments.
Meetings.
Near the end of one page appeared a single line.
Daniel Ross. Age 5. Sole surviving witness. Relocated.
The rest had been torn out.
Before anyone could speak, the lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then darkness.
Complete darkness.
The emergency flashlights snapped on.
Every bookshelf...
Was empty.
The journals.
The maps.
The photographs.
Gone.
The room that had held decades of secrets only seconds earlier now looked abandoned.
As if someone had swept everything away in an instant.
Only the tape recorder remained on the table.
Luca stared in disbelief.
"That's impossible."
"No one could move all of this."
Then a metallic click echoed from above.
The hatch.
Someone had closed it.
Heavy footsteps thundered across the ceiling.
One...
Two...
Three...
Then silence.
Alessandro sprinted toward the staircase.
The hatch wouldn't move.
It had been locked from the outside.
Luca slammed his shoulder against it.
Nothing.
"We're trapped."
Emma looked toward the far corner of the room.
"There."
Everyone turned.
A narrow wooden door had appeared where moments ago there had only been bare stone.
No one had seen it before.
On the door, carved into the wood, was a single symbol.
A black raven holding a silver key in its beak.
Beneath it, in elegant handwriting, were six words:
Only the witness may open this.
Emma slowly raised her hand...
May you like
And the raven's carved eye began to glow.
End of Chapter 5
