Chapter 6
I do not remember screaming.
Luca told me later I did.
He said I tore through the cottage with such force that two officers thought I had been hit.
But all I remember is Ruby’s empty bed.
The open window.
The lavender stem on her pillow.
And Evelyn standing in the doorway, frozen so completely she looked like a child made of glass.
“Ruby?” she whispered.
I grabbed the blanket from the floor.
Still warm.
She had been there minutes earlier.
Minutes.
I had been downstairs reading Isabella’s letter while my daughter was taken from a supposedly safe room.
Every promise I had made shattered again.
Marta collapsed against the dresser.
Sofia called police.
Luca examined the window.
“No forced entry. Someone had a key or came from inside.”
Inside.
The word turned the room poisonous.
I looked at everyone.
Officers.
Staff.
Guards.
People I trusted because I needed to trust somebody.
Evelyn backed away from them all.
“Daddy,” she said, voice tiny, “Claudia knew about the cottage.”
I turned.
“What?”
“She came here once with Mom. Before. They argued. Mom said Claudia had no right to ask about our safe places.”
Sofia’s face went pale.
“Claudia knew the layout.”
My phone buzzed with a video.
Marco.
I opened it.
Ruby sat in the back seat of a moving car, crying quietly, hands free but face terrified.
Marco’s voice came from offscreen.
“Say hello to Daddy.”
Ruby shook her head.
“Say it.”
She whispered, “Daddy, I want Evelyn.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
Marco appeared on screen, smiling.
“Bring the original memory card and Isabella’s letters to the old conservatory by midnight. No police. No Luca. If I see anyone, Ruby disappears into a custody network Claudia’s family uses very well.”
The video ended.
Evelyn screamed.
I caught her before she fell.
“No,” she sobbed. “No, no, no.”
I held her while my own body shook.
Sofia looked at me.
“Alessio, we can’t give him originals.”
“I know.”
Marta stood suddenly.
Her face changed from grief to something hard.
“He said old conservatory?”
“Yes.”
She wiped her tears.
“That place has tunnels.”
Luca looked at her.
“What tunnels?”
“Service tunnels from Prohibition. Isabella found the map when she restored the greenhouse records.”
“Where?”
Marta pointed toward the stairs.
“In Ruby’s favorite book.”
Evelyn ran before any of us moved.
She came back with a worn copy of The Secret Garden.
Inside the cover, tucked behind the paper lining, was a folded map.
Isabella again.
My wife had turned our children’s world into a trail of breadcrumbs because she had known adults might fail them.
I had failed.
But I still had the map.
The old conservatory sat on abandoned Ventresca land, thirty minutes north.
My grandfather bought it decades ago and let it rot after a fire.
The map showed three tunnel entrances.
One behind the boiler room.
One near the old fountain.
One beneath the west wall.
Police wanted to surround the place.
Marco had warned against it.
Sofia made a plan with federal agents instead.
Silent approach.
Trackers in the fake evidence bag.
A drone from the tree line.
Luca and I through the tunnel.
Evelyn grabbed my arm.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“She’ll be scared. She needs me.”
“You are twelve.”
“Ruby is six.”
The room went silent.
I crouched in front of her.
“I cannot lose both of you.”
Her face crumpled.
“And I can’t stay here picturing her alone.”
Sofia touched my shoulder.
“She can come in the command van. Not inside.”
I hated even that.
But I saw Isabella’s words again.
Listen when Evelyn goes quiet.
And Evelyn was not quiet now.
She was telling me what she needed.
So I nodded.
“Command van. With Sofia. You do exactly what she says.”
Evelyn threw her arms around me.
“Bring her back.”
“I will.”
This time, I did not say promise.
Promises had become too small.
At 11:32 p.m., I crawled through a wet stone tunnel beneath the old conservatory with Luca ahead of me and a wire under my shirt.
The air smelled like rust and mold.
Above us, faint voices echoed.
Marco.
Claudia.
And Ruby crying.
I nearly broke into a run.
Luca grabbed my arm.
“Slow.”
We reached a vent grate beneath the main hall.
Through the slats, I saw Ruby sitting on a dusty chair near Claudia.
Her wrists were not tied.
Small mercy.
Claudia crouched before her.
“If your father loved you more than dead Isabella, he would already be here.”
Ruby’s chin trembled.
“My daddy loves me.”
Claudia smiled.
“Then why did he marry me?”
The words hit my daughter like a slap.
I moved toward the grate.
Luca stopped me again.
Marco stood near the old fountain, holding Isabella’s letters in a plastic bag he must have taken from some copy or decoy? No. He was waiting for mine.
Matteo Leone stood beside him.
My father’s fixer.
Older now.
Calm.
Dead-eyed.
“The girl is unnecessary,” Matteo said.
“She’s leverage,” Marco replied.
“She’s noise.”
Claudia looked sharply at him.
“What does that mean?”
Matteo pulled a gun.
Not at me.
Not at Luca.
At Ruby.
My body moved.
Luca kicked the grate out first.
I came through the opening like the floor itself had broken.
Ruby screamed.
Matteo turned.
I hit him before he could aim.
The gun skidded across the stone.
Luca tackled Marco.
Claudia grabbed Ruby’s arm.
Ruby bit her hand.
Claudia shrieked.
I swept Ruby behind me and shoved Claudia away hard enough that she fell into the old fountain, water and dust splashing over her white coat.
Federal agents flooded in through the doors.
Marco screamed.
“You brought police!”
I held Ruby against my chest.
“You took my child.”
Matteo reached for the gun.
A shot cracked.
Not from him.
From an agent.
The gun spun away, shattered at the grip.
Matteo froze.
Cuffed.
Alive.
Marco pinned.
Claudia sobbing in the fountain.
Ruby clung to my neck.
“Daddy,” she cried, “Claudia said you didn’t love Mom anymore.”
I closed my eyes.
May you like
Then I looked at my brother and my wife as agents dragged them upright.
“I love your mother enough to finish what she started.”
