Chương 5
The waiter stared at the floor.
“Name,” Matteo demanded.
The man said nothing.
Clara picked up the rabbit. One of its stitched eyes had torn loose and hung by a thread.
Emma made a broken sound.
“It’s all right,” Clara said, though it was not. “I can fix him.”
Rossi groaned near the cart.
Matteo glanced at the wound. “Through the muscle. He’ll live.”
“You shot your own man in darkness,” Don Ricci said.
“I fired at movement near the child.”
“You fired toward a child.”
Matteo’s face hardened. “And stopped him from taking the rabbit.”
Alessandro twisted the waiter’s wrist until the man dropped to his knees. “Who sent you?”
Silence.
Alessandro’s pressure increased.
The waiter grunted but did not answer.
Clara saw Emma watching. “Not here.”
Alessandro looked at her.
“She’s three.”
Something passed through his face—not shame, exactly, but recognition. He released the waiter to two guards.
“Take him to the lower office. Keep him alive.”
The guards dragged the man out.
“Move Rossi to the infirmary,” Alessandro added. “Disarm him until we know why the intruder moved directly toward Mrs. Bennett after the lights failed.”
Rossi looked up. “Sir, I didn’t—”
“Save your strength.”
Emergency lights flickered on along the ceiling, turning the room a dim red.
Clara’s hands shook as she examined the rabbit. The torn eye could be repaired. The folded ear remained open, the black symbol exposed.
Emma touched the dangling thread. “He can’t see.”
“He has another eye.”
“He needs both.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“When?”
Clara wanted to say soon. She had said soon about too many things since Daniel died.
“Tonight,” she promised.
Alessandro glanced toward the empty hollow. “Who knew you worked here before you were hired?”
“My sister. My landlord. The employment agency.”
“Did you tell them about the envelope?”
“No.”
“Did Emma?”
“She didn’t know.”
Emma looked at him. “Daddy’s paper?”
Clara’s stomach dropped.
Alessandro crouched. “What paper, Emma?”
Clara knelt quickly. “Sweetheart, what do you mean?”
Emma pointed beneath the pressing table.
A corner of white showed between the cabinet and the wall.
Clara reached under and pulled out a folded laundry inventory sheet. Nothing else.
Emma frowned. “Not that.”
“Where did you see Daddy’s paper?”
“In Mr. Bunny.”
Every adult in the room looked at the toy.
Clara turned it over. The belly had been patched long before Daniel brought it home, the stitches uneven and pale. She pressed the wool. Something stiff shifted inside.
Matteo took out his knife.
“No,” Emma said, pulling the rabbit away.
Clara held out her hand for the blade. “I’ll do it.”
She cut two stitches along the old patch. Her fingers entered the stuffing and touched waxed paper.
The packet was smaller than a matchbook. Daniel had wrapped it tightly and sealed the edges with clear tape. Inside was a brass key and a strip of paper bearing six numbers.
Don Ricci leaned closer. “A station locker.”
Matteo shook his head. “Could be a safe-deposit code.”
Alessandro took the paper without touching the key. “Daniel hid the envelope here as a decoy.”
“Or as a warning,” Clara said.
The room smelled suddenly of hot dust. The emergency lighting made everyone’s skin look bruised.
Alessandro examined the six digits. “Does this mean anything to you?”
She looked at them. 071814.
July eighteenth, fourteen years earlier? A date? A birth? Daniel used six-digit passwords, though he changed them whenever Clara guessed them. She had teased him that a security expert who used their anniversary deserved to be robbed.
Their anniversary was October third.
Emma’s birthday was July eighteenth.
“She was born on July eighteenth,” Clara said.
Alessandro looked at Emma, then the key.
“The last two digits?”
“Fourteen is the day Daniel died. February fourteenth.”
Valentine’s Day. The police officer had apologized twice for mentioning the date, as though death had breached a social rule.
Matteo stood. “We need to identify the key.”
A radio crackled at his shoulder.
This time a voice came through. “Backup power restored in the east wing. Main system remains down.”
“Report,” Matteo said.
“Paolo Greco’s access badge was used at the underground garage nine minutes ago.”
“Seal it.”
“It was sealed. Camera feed shows no vehicle movement, but the maintenance lift is open.”
Alessandro looked at the black symbol inside the rabbit’s ear. “They are not trying to escape.”
Don Ricci tapped the end of his cane once against the floor. “They are positioning.”
“For what?” Clara asked.
No one answered.
The twelve families had come to Villa Moretti because Alessandro intended to propose a binding agreement: no attacks on family homes, no recruitment from one another’s crews, shared access to specific port routes, and arbitration before retaliation. It was not peace. Men like Alessandro did not use that word. But it would reduce the number of sons buried because someone had misread a shipment manifest or insulted a cousin at a nightclub.
If the gathering ended in blood, every family would blame the others.
Clara looked at the disabled lights, the missing envelope, the waiter who had gone directly for the rabbit.
“They want everyone trapped,” she said.
Alessandro’s eyes met hers.
“Why cut communications before revealing themselves?” she continued. “Why leave the mark where it could be found? Daniel used to say a good thief doesn’t turn off the alarm until he knows what room he’s stealing from.”
Matteo frowned. “What are you suggesting?”
“The rabbit wasn’t supposed to be discovered tonight.”
Alessandro looked toward the doorway. “Vivian.”
Clara nodded. “She saw Emma with it four days ago. She pulled at the ear. Maybe she realized what it was. Maybe the slap wasn’t because of me.”
“She wanted you removed from the corridor,” Don Ricci said.
“She wanted the rabbit.”
A guard appeared at the door. “Signorina Romano is gone.”
Matteo stared at him. “Gone from a sealed room?”
“Her escort is unconscious. No gunshot. He was struck from behind.”
May you like
Alessandro’s face became very still. “Find her.”
The villa’s service passageways had been built in the nineteenth century so servants could move food, coal, bedding, and chamber pots without disturbing the Moretti ancestors or their guests. Clara knew more of them than most guards. Security had modernized the public spaces, the gates, the garage, and the upper floors. The narrow corridors behind the walls remained confusing even after months of use.
