Chapter 8 - The Blue Rabbit Vanishes Again.
Fresh ink does not prove a dead man is alive.
That is what Alessandro said.
I hated him for being sensible.
"It could have been written by someone copying Matteo's hand."
"Daniel's hand."
"Clara."
"His name was Daniel to me."
Alessandro nodded.
"Then Daniel's hand."
Marco sealed Carlo's room.
The note was photographed, bagged, and taken to the estate office for comparison against old documents.
I kept the wedding ring.
Nobody tried to stop me.
I slipped it onto a chain around my neck.
It felt heavier than gold should feel.
Carlo remained missing.
The service passage behind his wardrobe connected to three floors, the laundry basement, the chapel, and an exterior drainage corridor that should have been sealed years earlier.
Moretti security had known about two of those exits.
They had not known about the third.
That was becoming a pattern.
Villa Moretti was full of secrets built into stone.
So was my marriage.
By late morning, Emma had recovered enough to demand toast with strawberry jam.
I sat with her in the secured breakfast room while four guards stood outside.
She fed tiny pieces of toast to the blue rabbit.
"Mr. Bunny is hungry."
"Mr. Bunny is made of wool."
"He still has feelings."
I looked at Alessandro across the table.
He lowered his coffee to hide a smile.
Emma noticed.
"You can feed him too."
"I don't think he likes me."
"He likes sad people."
Alessandro's expression changed.
"Why?"
Emma shrugged.
"Daddy said sad people need friends."
I looked down at my plate.
There was Daniel again.
Not Matteo the operative.
Not the ghost in photographs.
My husband.
The man who taught our daughter kindness.
A guard entered.
"Sir, Don Ricci is requesting to leave."
Alessandro did not look up.
"Denied."
"He says his wife is ill."
"His wife is currently eating breakfast in the blue salon."
The guard almost smiled.
"Yes, sir."
Emma whispered to me,
"That was a silly lie."
"Very silly."
Alessandro looked toward the rabbit.
"Sometimes people lie because they want to know whether you are paying attention."
Emma considered that.
"Then you should pay attention."
"I intend to."
After breakfast, I asked Alessandro why he trusted Marco.
The question surprised him.
"He has protected this family for fifteen years."
"That's history, not an answer."
Alessandro leaned back.
"He was with me the night Luca died."
"Where?"
"At the hospital."
"Before or after?"
His eyes narrowed.
"After."
"Who told you Luca had been attacked?"
"Marco."
That answer sat between us.
Alessandro looked toward the door.
"You're doing it again."
"What?"
"Making me suspicious of people I've trusted longer than I've known you."
"I'm not making you anything."
"You're asking questions."
"That seems to be causing enough damage."
He rubbed a hand across his face.
"Marco was twenty-seven."
"Young enough to make mistakes?"
"Young enough to be manipulated."
I thought about Paolo.
Maybe that was how networks like Ricci's grew.
Not by recruiting monsters.
By finding ordinary people at exactly the moment fear, debt, pride, or resentment made betrayal feel reasonable.
Alessandro studied me.
"You don't trust anyone here."
"I trusted my husband."
He had no answer to that.
The fire alarm began thirty seconds later.
A harsh bell tore through the room.
Red lights flashed along the ceiling.
Emma screamed and covered her ears.
I grabbed her immediately.
Guards opened the door.
Smoke drifted from the far corridor.
"Kitchen fire," someone shouted.
Marco's voice came over the radio.
"Evacuate west wing to courtyard."
Alessandro stood.
"No."
The guard looked at him.
"Sir?"
"Take Clara and Emma to the stone room."
"That's opposite protocol."
"Exactly."
He turned to me.
"Someone has spent all night studying our procedures."
That made sense.
It also terrified me.
We moved through a private corridor toward a windowless archive room.
Smoke thickened behind us.
Emma clung to my neck.
The rabbit hung from her hand.
A housemaid stumbled around the corner carrying towels.
"This way!"
One guard moved to help her.
She dropped the towels.
The lights went out.
It happened in two seconds.
A body slammed into me.
Emma cried out.
I held her with both arms.
Then the emergency lights came on.
The maid was gone.
So was the rabbit.
"No!"
Emma began crying.
"Bunny!"
Alessandro's face hardened.
"Get them into the stone room."
"I'm coming with you."
"No."
"That toy contains something my husband died protecting."
"Your daughter is alive."
His words stopped me.
"Choose correctly."
I looked at Emma.
Her face was wet with tears.
He was right.
I hated him for that too.
I entered the stone room with Emma and two guards.
The door locked behind us.
Emma cried into my shoulder.
"Bunny doesn't like dark places."
"Alessandro will find him."
"How do you know?"
I did not know.
"Because he's very stubborn."
One guard laughed softly.
The other received a radio message.
"Sir found a trail near the laundry stairs."
My pulse jumped.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
No update.
Emma eventually stopped crying and asked for paper.
One of the guards found a stack of old inventory sheets and a pen.
She lay on her stomach and began drawing.
First the rabbit.
Then me.
Then a tall man in black with very long arms.
"Is that Mr. Moretti?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Why are his arms so long?"
"He reaches things."
I almost laughed.
Then she drew a red triangle beside him.
"Who's that?"
"The mean lady."
Vivian.
The simplicity of children can be merciless.
No titles.
No alliances.
No reputation.
Just who made them feel safe and who did not.
Emma added a black circle in the corner.
"And that?"
She frowned.
"The man who smells funny."
My pulse changed.
"What man?"
"The old one."
"Don Ricci?"
She shrugged.
"He has smoke clothes."
Cigar smoke.
Ricci's jackets always carried it.
"Did he talk to you?"
"At dinner."
I had not seen that.
"What did he say?"
Emma kept drawing.
"He asked Bunny's name."
My skin went cold.
"What did you tell him?"
"Mr. Bunny."
"Anything else?"
"He asked if Daddy gave him to me."
I sat very still.
Ricci had questioned Emma before the rabbit was ever stolen.
He had known enough to ask about her father.
I reached for the radio.
Before I could speak, voices traveled through the wall.
The stone room had one old ventilation grate near the floor.
Through it, faint voices traveled from the service corridor.
I heard Vivian.
"You said nobody would touch the child."
A man's voice answered.
Carlo.
"Nobody touched her."
"They lured her through the house."
"She wasn't harmed."
"She's three!"
I lowered Emma onto a chair and crawled toward the grate.
The guards came closer.
I raised a finger for silence.
Vivian continued.
"Ricci is losing control."
My skin prickled.
Carlo swore.
"Keep your voice down."
"Why?"
"Because there are microphones everywhere."
"Then maybe someone should finally hear the truth."
A pause.
Carlo's voice softened.
"Your father thought the same thing."
"And he died."
"Exactly."
"So did Luca."
"Yes."
"And maybe Matteo."
Silence.
Then Carlo said,
"Matteo is dead."
My hand pressed against the grate.
Vivian whispered,
"You don't know that."
"I saw what Ricci did to him."
My heart stopped.
The guards looked at me.
I could barely breathe.
Vivian spoke first.
"At Lugano?"
"Three days later."
"You told me he escaped."
"I lied."
"Why?"
"Because Ricci told me if I spoke, you would be next."
Vivian made a broken sound.
"All these years?"
"All these years."
I stood so quickly I hit my shoulder on the wall.
"Open the door."
The guard hesitated.
"Mrs. Bennett—"
"Open it."
"We have orders."
I pointed toward the grate.
"Carlo Romano just confessed that he knows what happened to my husband."
That was enough.
The guard contacted Marco.
Seconds later, the lock released remotely.
We stepped into the passage.
The voices had stopped.
Carlo and Vivian were gone.
On the floor lay Emma's rabbit.
I picked it up.
The zipper had been opened.
The memory card was missing.
But someone had placed something else inside.
A small brass key.
Around it was a strip of paper.
One line.
BASEMENT ARCHIVE - BEFORE RICCI FINDS IT.
May you like
The handwriting was not Daniel's.
It was Vivian's.
