Chapter 10 - The Mausoleum Trap
I went anyway.
Not because I trusted Matteo.
Because whoever printed that warning expected fear to control me.
I was done being controlled.
Carlo stayed two hundred yards away with Enzo and a rifle locked in the trunk. I entered the family cemetery alone.
Matteo stood beside our father's mausoleum.
His hands were empty.
"You saw Grace's video," he said.
"Where is she?"
"First, you need to know Nicholas is alive."
My chest tightened.
"Where?"
"With Sister Elena at a convent north of the city. Grace chose the place."
He gave me a photograph.
A newborn slept inside a blue blanket.
My son.
I stared at his tiny face until the cemetery blurred.
"Why separate him from Grace?"
"Because Mother found the first safe house. We had minutes. Grace made me take him."
"And Grace?"
Matteo's eyes dropped.
"She was supposed to be moved somewhere else by people I trusted. They never arrived."
"Meaning?"
"Mother got there first."
A gunshot cracked.
Stone exploded beside my head.
Matteo tackled me behind the mausoleum.
More shots followed.
Two men appeared between the graves.
I recognized neither.
Matteo fired back with a pistol hidden at his ankle.
"Still think I'm with her?" he shouted.
"Ask me later."
We escaped through the rear gate and reached Carlo's car.
Inside, Matteo handed me a folded piece of paper.
Grace had written it after giving birth.
The words were shaky.
Luca, if anything happens to me, Sofia wants the company more than she wants a grandson.
Below that was one address.
Our family's old hunting lodge.
Carlo stared at it.
"That place burned down ten years ago."
Matteo shook his head.
"The house burned."
May you like
He looked at me.
"The bunker under it didn't."
