Chapter 6 - TEN MINUTES
Vittorio Romano stood beneath the burning sky as though he owned it.
He was sixty-two, tall, silver-haired, and dressed in a charcoal suit.
Thirty armed men spread across the courtyard behind him.
More waited beyond the destroyed gates.
The guests of the twelve families gathered beneath the stone arcade.
Their guards moved closer to them.
No one wanted to choose a side.
Not yet.
Alessandro descended the chapel steps.
“You entered my home with weapons.”
Vittorio smiled.
“You locked my daughter inside it.”
“She took a priest hostage.”
“She was frightened.”
“She shot two guards.”
“They survived.”
“She conspired with my security chief.”
“You have proof?”
“I have Marco.”
Vittorio’s smile thinned.
“Then bring him here.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you will kill him before he speaks.”
Several Romano men raised their weapons.
Moretti guards responded.
The courtyard filled with the sound of safeties clicking.
Clara carried Emma beneath the arcade.
Don Ricci stood beside her.
Cesare Bellandi remained near the chapel doors.
Vittorio’s eyes moved toward Clara.
“So this is Daniel’s widow.”
Clara felt Emma hide against her shoulder.
“You knew my husband.”
“I knew many men.”
“You knew him well enough to send your daughter into our home.”
Vittorio glanced toward Vivian’s silver shoes lying near the chapel entrance.
“She visited him on business.”
Vivian had denied ever meeting Daniel.
The lie was now exposed.
Clara took one step forward.
“What business?”
Vittorio smiled.
“Adult business.”
“Say it.”
“She asked him to return something he stole.”
“The ledger?”
“The future.”
Alessandro watched Vittorio carefully.
“What did Daniel steal?”
“A list of names.”
“Whose names?”
“Men and women who had agreed to prevent chaos.”
Don Ricci gave a cold laugh.
“You mean people who selected which of us would die.”
Vittorio looked toward him.
“Isabella drove too quickly.”
“My daughter’s brakes were cut.”
“Can you prove it?”
“I intend to.”
Vittorio turned back toward Alessandro.
“Nine minutes.”
Alessandro did not look at a clock.
“You will leave without Vivian.”
“Then I will leave with your body.”
Vittorio’s men moved forward.
Cesare Bellandi stepped between the two groups.
“No one fires.”
Vittorio raised an eyebrow.
“You believe you command this courtyard?”
“I believe twelve families came here under a truce.”
“The truce ended when Alessandro imprisoned a Romano.”
“The truce ended when your men destroyed the gate.”
Vittorio looked toward the gathered families.
“How many of you are prepared to die for a servant and her child?”
No one answered.
The silence enraged Clara.
They had watched Vivian slap her.
They had watched a frightened child lose her father’s last gift.
They had heard evidence that murders had been arranged.
Yet when danger entered the courtyard, their courage disappeared behind expensive suits.
Vittorio saw their fear.
“Exactly.”
He pointed toward Clara.
“Give me the woman, the child, and the rabbit.”
Alessandro moved in front of her.
“No.”
Vittorio laughed.
“You barely know them.”
“I know enough.”
“Then you are more foolish than your brother.”
Alessandro’s expression became deadly.
“What did you say?”
“Luca also believed protecting weak people made him honorable.”
Vittorio adjusted his cuff.
“It only made him easy to predict.”
Alessandro crossed the courtyard before anyone could react.
He seized Vittorio by the throat and slammed him against a stone pillar.
Weapons rose everywhere.
Emma screamed.
Clara held her tighter.
Vittorio’s men aimed at Alessandro.
Moretti guards aimed at Vittorio’s men.
Don Ricci lifted both hands.
“The first man who fires will bury his grandchildren before winter.”
The courtyard froze.
Alessandro stared into Vittorio’s eyes.
“You ordered Luca’s death.”
Vittorio smiled despite the hand around his throat.
“You already knew.”
“I suspected.”
“Suspicion is the punishment of men too weak to act.”
Alessandro tightened his grip.
Clara looked toward the burning archive wing.
A figure moved behind one of the upper windows.
The flames had not reached that section.
Someone stood watching.
A woman.
Blonde hair.
Clara’s blood ran cold.
“Alessandro.”
He did not hear her.
“Alessandro!”
He turned.
Clara pointed upward.
Vivian stood behind the window.
She was no longer restrained.
Her hands were free.
Marco appeared behind her.
His face was no longer blood-covered.
His injuries had been exaggerated.
He placed one hand on Vivian’s shoulder.
Then both disappeared from view.
Alessandro released Vittorio.
“You came here to distract us.”
Vittorio adjusted his collar.
“I came here to collect my daughter.”
“She was never below.”
Alessandro turned toward the guards.
“Seal the underground exits.”
A Moretti guard touched his earpiece.
His face went pale.
“The lower cells are empty.”
“What about Marco?”
“Gone.”
Alessandro looked toward Vittorio.
The older man smiled.
“Seven minutes.”
A shot came from the upper window.
The bullet struck Cesare Bellandi in the shoulder.
He fell against the chapel steps.
His guards fired upward.
Glass shattered.
The gathered families scattered.
Gunfire erupted across the courtyard.
Clara dropped behind a stone bench with Emma.
Don Ricci crouched beside them.
Moretti guards formed a shield around Alessandro.
Romano men fired toward the balconies.
No one could tell which side had started the chaos.
That was exactly what Vivian wanted.
Clara pressed Emma’s face against her chest.
“Do not look.”
“I want Daddy.”
The words broke something inside her.
“I know.”
A bullet chipped the stone above them.
Don Ricci drew a pistol from beneath his jacket.
“You said the numbers may identify a locker.”
“Yes.”
Clara held Emma tighter.
“Daniel hated train stations.”
“Perhaps because that was where he hid the evidence.”
A man fell near the fountain.
Another screamed for a doctor.
Smoke mixed with gunpowder.
Don Ricci looked toward Alessandro.
“We cannot stay.”
“Where do we go?”
“Daniel said the dead travel but never arrive.”
Clara tried to think through the noise.
Trains carried the living.
Hearses carried the dead.
But the dead also traveled through underground service tunnels in old railway stations during wartime.
Daniel had once told her about Milan’s abandoned central mail depot.
A place where letters arrived for people who had already died.
“The dead-letter office.”
Don Ricci stared at her.
“What?”
“There was an old postal railway beneath Milano Centrale.”
Clara remembered Daniel describing it during dinner.
“Undeliverable letters were stored there.”
“The dead traveled but never arrived.”
Don Ricci nodded.
“The numbers may be a sorting code.”
Alessandro reached them as gunfire continued.
“We are leaving.”
Clara rose.
“Through which exit?”
“The lake tunnel.”
“Vivian knows your passages.”
“She knows the official ones.”
He looked toward Don Ricci.
“You have the key?”
The old man held up the brass key.
“Yes.”
Alessandro guided them toward the chapel.
A guard opened a trapdoor behind the altar.
Stone stairs descended into darkness.
Clara entered with Emma.
Don Ricci followed.
Alessandro turned back to the courtyard.
Vittorio stood behind the fountain.
His men had stopped firing.
He lifted his phone.
A message arrived on Alessandro’s device.
He read it.
Then his expression changed.
“What?” Clara asked.
He showed her the screen.
The message contained a photograph of the dead-letter office beneath Milano Centrale.
A man sat tied to a chair in the center of the room.
His face was older.
His hair was streaked with gray.
But Clara recognized him.
Daniel Bennett was alive.
May you like
Beneath the photograph, Vivian had written four words.
BRING ME THE CHILD.
