Chapter 3 - THE HOUR OF THE WOLF
The basement was silent, save for the dripping of a pipe somewhere in the deep shadows behind the boiler.
I didn't cry. There was no time for tears. My mind was racing, pieces of a puzzle I had never wanted to solve falling into place with terrifying speed.
My grandmother, Elena Rossi. A family of dead ghosts. A war that had ended before I was even born, yet its blood was still wet on the hands of the man who had just locked me in his cellar. And Leo... God, Leo. He had always been stupid, always looking for the easy way out. Had someone targeted him? Had someone used his gambling debts to get me into this house?
No. If they wanted to kill the twins, they wouldn't have waited for me to sing them to sleep. They would have hit the house already.
The locket in the dead man's pocket. A layout of the nursery.
The layout of the nursery.
A sudden, chilling realization hit me. The Moretti mansion was a fortress. It had state-of-the-art security, armed guards, and motion sensors. The only way anyone could get a detailed layout of the nursery—including the blind spots of the cameras—was if someone on the inside had given it to them.
Someone who had access.
Suddenly, the floorboards above me didn't creak with the heavy steps of guards.
It was a different sound.
A soft, dragging slide. Like someone pulling something heavy across the carpet.
I stood up, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I crept toward the wooden stairs, my cheap shoes making no sound on the damp stone. I pressed my ear against the cold oak of the basement door.
The house was too quiet.
At this hour—it must have been around two in the morning—the night shift guards should have been patrolling. There should have been the occasional murmur of static from a walkie-talkie, the heavy footsteps of Viktor’s men in the hallways.
Instead, nothing.
Then, a faint, high-pitched creak. It was the sound of the old floorboard right outside the nursery door—the one I had stepped over when I carried the twins to bed.
Someone was in the nursery.
"Help!" I screamed, banging my fists against the heavy oak door. "Viktor! Dante! Someone! They're in the house!"
My voice echoed uselessly in the damp basement. No one answered. The wood of the door was three inches thick, reinforced with iron straps. I threw my shoulder against it, but it was like running into a stone wall.
"Think, Clara, think," I whispered to myself, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I turned around, staring into the pitch-black corners of the basement. The single bulb didn't reach the far walls. I remembered the smell of coal dust and old grease. This house was built in the nineteen-twenties. Houses like this—especially those owned by old bootleggers—always had more than one way out. They had coal chutes. They had escape tunnels.
I scrambled into the dark, my hands scraping against the rough limestone walls. I tripped over a pile of rusted iron pipes, skinning my knees, but I didn't care. I kept crawling, feeling the air, looking for a draft.
There.
Behind the old, disused coal boiler. A faint movement of cold air, smelling of wet earth and autumn leaves.
I shoved myself into the narrow gap between the boiler and the wall. My fingers caught on a wooden latch. I pulled, and with a sickening groan of rusted hinges, a small, square door swung open. It was a coal chute, leading up to the side yard.
I didn't hesitate. I dragged myself into the soot-stained metal tunnel, clawing my way upward. The metal scraped against my arms, tearing my shirt, but the adrenaline overrode the pain. I squeezed through the narrow opening at the top, tumbling out onto the wet grass of the estate's side garden.
The night air was freezing, shocking my lungs.
I looked up at the towering facade of the Moretti mansion. Nearly all the windows were dark. But on the third floor—the nursery—a faint, flickering light was moving.
Not a lamp. A flashlight.
And then, I saw the guard.
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He was slumped against the stone fountain in the center of the garden, his head tilted back at an unnatural angle. A dark stain was spreading across his chest, turning the white water of the fountain a deep, terrible crimson in the moonlight.
They were already here. And they were already inside.
