Chapter 13 The Move
I didn't sleep because every time I started to drift off I’d hear a noise like a floorboard settling or the wind hitting the glass and I’d jolt awake clutching the knife until my knuckles turned white.
The photo of my mother burned under the mattress like a radioactive isotope contaminating the whole room, and the words on the back kept spinning around in my head until I felt dizzy.
Ask him about the key.
I stared at the dark ceiling with my eyes burning and I felt the hatred boil in my stomach like acid because I wasn't going to ask him anything.
I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing someone got inside his fortress because if I told him he would just tighten the leash and look at me with those cold dead eyes and think I was weak or worse, he would think I was working with them.
I would find the key myself and I would find out what Rinaldi wanted and I would use it to bury Dante Caravelli.
Morning came grey and heavy like a wet wool blanket smothering the house.
I got dressed in the dark and hid the photo inside the lining of my boot right next to the knife because I wasn't leaving it in the room where the locksmith could find it again.
If he could get in once he could get in again and nothing was safe.
The guard knocked at 4:00 AM sharp and barked "Kitchen" without even looking at me, so I walked with my head down feeling like a wire pulled tight and ready to snap.
I scrubbed the floors and chopped the vegetables and did the work of a servant while my mind was running through layouts and escape routes because I needed to get to the library or the archives.
If there was a key there had to be a record of what it opened and I needed to find it before Rinaldi decided to stop playing games.
But the guard never left my side. He stood there by the sink while I washed dishes and watched me with bored dead eyes that missed nothing.
I lingered too long near the service door trying to see if the hallway was clear and he stepped forward and said "Move" in a voice that promised violence.
I hated him and I hated all of them and I hated the way my life had shrunk down to the size of a mop bucket.
Around noon the air in the kitchen changed completely, going silent and heavy like the pressure drop before a storm. I turned around and saw Giovanni standing there, looking out of place in his expensive suit among the grease and the steam.
He wasn't looking at the staff or checking the rosters, he was looking straight at me with an expression I couldn't read.
"Rosetti," he said, and his voice cut through the silence. "Come with me."
My stomach dropped to my feet because I thought they found the photo or caught the intruder on camera and I was about to be dragged to the basement.
I wiped my hands on my apron and walked over to him keeping my chin high because I refused to let him see me shake.
"What did I do," I asked.
"You exist," he said flatly, turning on his heel. "That seems to be enough."
He didn't take me to the office or the holding cells. He took me to the main staircase and started climbing past the second floor.
"Where are we going?"
"Up."
We climbed past the library and the guest suites and kept going until the air got cooler and smelled like cedar and silence. The third floor. The family wing.
Panic spiked in my chest and I stopped on the landing because I wasn't supposed to be up here, Dante had said I was restricted and if he caught me he would kill me.
"Plans changed," Giovanni said when I hesitated, grabbing my arm and pulling me forward with a grip that bruised. "Keep moving."
He marched me down the hallway that was silent and empty. The carpets were thick enough to swallow our footsteps and the doors were heavy oak.
We passed Dante's office where the door was closed and I wondered if he was in there watching on the cameras and laughing at me.
Giovanni stopped at a door across the hall and punched a code into a keypad on the wall. The electronic lock beeped three times and clicked open with a heavy mechanical thud that sounded like a vault.
"Get in," he said and pushed me inside.
I stumbled into the room and looked around. It was huge and expensive, with a four-poster bed and heavy velvet curtains and a balcony that looked out over the grounds. It looked like a hotel room for a queen but it felt cold and sterile like a hospital room.
"I don't understand," I said, backing away from him until I hit the edge of the bed. "Why am I here?"
"Because the Don is tired of worrying about his investment," Giovanni said, leaning against the doorframe.
"The servant quarters are too accessible and there are too many people coming and going. Up here there is only one way in and one way out and only the Don has the code."
"This isn't a room," I said, my voice rising as the panic set in. "It's a high-security cell with nice furniture."
"Call it what you want," Giovanni said with a shrug. "Your things are already in the closet and meals will be brought up. You don't leave this floor unless the Don escorts you."
"I can't work from here," I argued, desperate to keep some freedom. "I can't scrub floors if I'm locked in a tower."
"You don't work anymore," he said. "You sit and you stay safe and you wait."
"Wait for what?"
"For the war to be over."
He stepped back into the hall and reached for the handle to pull the heavy door shut.
"Wait!" I shouted and ran toward the door but I was too slow. "You can't just lock me in here! I'm not a prisoner!"
"You are whatever he says you are," Giovanni said through the crack, and then he slammed the door.
I heard the lock engage and it was the loudest sound in the world. I threw myself against the wood and pounded on it with my fists and screamed until my throat hurt but nobody came.
I kicked the door until my foot ached and then I slid down to the floor and buried my face in my hands because he had won.
He moved me closer to him and closer to the danger and stripped away the last tiny bit of freedom I had.
Now I couldn't search for the key and I couldn't spy and I couldn't do anything but sit here and wait for Rinaldi to come and kill me. I hated him so much it felt like poison in my blood, hot and suffocating.
I stood up and wiped my face because I wouldn't cry and I wouldn't let him break me. I looked around the gilded cage.
I walked to the balcony doors and found them locked tight. I checked the bathroom and found marble and gold fixtures but no windows.
I went to the closet to check my bag because I needed to make sure the knife was still there and that they hadn't found the photo in my boot.
I opened the closet door and saw my bag on the floor and my few clothes hung up like sad grey ghosts next to the expensive robes.
But something was wrong.
There was a smell in the closet, faint and sharp like ozone and sweat that shouldn't be there in a room this clean.
I froze and looked at the back of the closet where the wall was paneled wood. One of the panels was slightly askew, just a fraction of an inch off from the others.
I reached out with a hand that was shaking and pushed on the panel. It slid back smoothly on hidden tracks revealing that it wasn't a wall at all but a service hatch, a maintenance access for the pipes that ran between the walls.
And sitting on the ledge inside the hatch resting on a layer of grey dust was a single object.
A silver key.
It looked old and heavy with a head shaped like a skull and it sat there gleaming in the shadows like it was waiting for me. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird because I didn't find this key and I didn't hunt for it.
Someone left it here. Recently.
I reached out to touch the cold metal and that’s when I saw the writing scrawled in the dust next to it. Finger marks that looked crude and hurried like someone had written them in the dark.
Use it before midnight.
I looked at my watch and the red numbers glared back at me in the dim light.
11:45 PM.
I had fifteen minutes to make a choice that would probably get me killed.