Chapter 16 - THE EMPTY CHAPEL
Carla screamed her daughter’s name until her voice cracked.
“Nina!”
The pink basin lay upside down near the chapel pew.
The stuffed rabbit was gone.
“Dean knew about this?” Marco asked.
“Only family.”
Anthony lowered his eyes.
Massimo turned on him. “You told him.”
“I told him years ago.”
Massimo grabbed his uncle by the collar and nearly fell doing it.
“If she gets hurt—”
“I didn’t know he’d take a child!”
“That’s the problem with cowards. You never know what the monster will do after you feed it.”
Carla shoved past them into the passage.
Massimo caught her wrist. “No.”
“That is my daughter.”
“And this tunnel exits near the old greenhouse. Dean will expect us to rush in blind.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
She slapped him.
The hallway went silent.
Carla’s chest heaved. “You don’t get to tell me to wait while my baby is with the man who tried to kill us.”
Massimo touched his cheek.
Then he nodded. “You’re right.”
He handed her a small radio. “Stay behind Marco.”
They moved through the tunnel in darkness.
Massimo refused the wheelchair. He used the cane, one hand on the wall, every step brutal and slow.
Halfway through, Nina’s voice crackled from a speaker hidden overhead.
“Mommy?”
Carla stopped so suddenly Marco nearly hit her.
“Nina!”
Dean’s voice followed.
“She’s fine.”
Massimo stared upward.
“Dean.”
“You sound taller.”
Massimo’s grip tightened on the cane.
Dean laughed. “I’m impressed.”
“What do you want?”
“The codes are incomplete. Your father split them. Half in the chapel. Half in your memory.”
Massimo understood.
Dean could not move the money without him.
“You trade a three-year-old for numbers now?”
“I trade whatever works.”
Nina cried in the background.
Carla covered her mouth.
Dean’s voice sharpened.
“Come to the greenhouse alone, Massimo.”
May you like
A beat.
“Or Carla gets to hear her daughter die.”
