Chapter 121 The Door Beneath the Roots
Valentina
I didn’t let go of Matteo’s hand.
Not when the front doors creaked closed behind us.
Not when the silence swallowed the echo of our footsteps.
Not even when my pulse roared so loud in my ears it drowned out everything but him.
Because I wasn’t ready.
Not for what was coming.
Not for the part of myself I was about to meet.
He stopped just short of the grand staircase, the one I’d floated down like a fucking duchess for the past several months.
“You’re sure you’re ready for this?” he asked.
I wasn’t.
But I nodded anyway.
He let go of my hand—slow, like he was peeling off a bandage—and stepped to the side.
And then he reached for the ficus.
It was a stupid thing to notice, but the pot looked expensive. Solid stone, carved with some kind of Greco-Roman pattern that would’ve been impressive if my heart wasn’t galloping into my throat.
He gripped the trunk and dragged the whole tree aside.
That’s when I saw it.
The wall… wasn’t a wall.
It was flush—smooth, seamless, painted in the same ivory tone as everything else. No knob. No hinges. Just a barely visible vertical line and a tiny metal latch—painted over to disappear in plain sight.
He slid it open.
It vanished like a whisper into the wall, revealing something colder. Meaner.
A steel door. Dark gunmetal gray. No handle—just a fingerprint scanner beside it, glowing faint blue.
“That’s been here the whole time?” I asked, voice dry and brittle.
Matteo didn’t answer.
He just stepped forward, placed his thumb on the pad, and waited. A soft beep sounded. The lock clicked.
He didn’t open it yet.
Instead, he turned to me. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“Do you want me to?”
His jaw flexed. “No.”
I stepped forward. My hand brushed the door before I even realized I’d moved. It was cold. Not just in temperature—but in intent.
“How long has he been down there?” I asked.
“Ten years.”
“The full ten years, and no one knew?”
“Only the ones who needed to.”
I stared at that door and thought about all the times I’d slept here. The times I’d eaten in the dining room above this. The times I’d had sex with Matteo in the bedroom upstairs, thinking the monsters were behind me.
No.
They were beneath me.
Right here. Right under my goddamn feet.
My father—no. Not even going to call him that.
Stefano.
A man who forged my death certificate like a receipt. Who was going to sell me to the highest bidder. Who let my sister be born and buried the same day without blinking.
I felt something shift in my spine. A new steel. One I hadn’t needed until now.
“I want to see him.”
Matteo nodded once, opened the door, and motioned for me to go first.
The air that rushed up wasn’t just stale—it reeked of mildew. Damp rot. Something like rust and something like death.
A single switch clicked behind me.
Light buzzed to life above the stairs, faint and flickering like it wasn’t sure it wanted to help us.
The staircase descended steeply, narrow and cold, concrete instead of marble. The kind of stairs that made your calves ache on the way down—and your instincts ache even more.
Each step echoed like a countdown.
At the bottom, there wasn’t a cell. No monster in a cage. Not yet.
Just a wide corridor.
Shelves lined both sides of the walls—cheap metal racks filled with what looked like janitorial supplies.
I stopped, eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”
Matteo gave a low grunt behind me. “Carrol tries to keep it as clean as possible down here. Critters like roaches and mice… once they get in, they don’t stay in the basement. They move upstairs. We can’t have that.”
I glanced over the shelves again. Bottles of bleach, mops, rat traps, steel wool. But also… tools.
Not the kind from a hardware store.
Heavy-duty restraints. A pair of bolt cutters. A rusted wrench stained with something dark. My stomach twisted.
The corridor kept going.
Dark.
There was a light at the far end, but it wasn’t bright—not even enough to see outlines. Just a dull glow, like one of those old-school nightlights you plug into the wall to keep kids from crying.
It wasn’t comforting.
It was worse.
Like something waited in that dark.
I swallowed hard and kept walking. My footsteps slowed. Not from fear. From anticipation. From the knowledge that with every step I was unearthing something I’d buried ten years ago and sworn never to dig back up.
Matteo’s hand brushed my back lightly.
I didn’t flinch.
The light at the end grew larger—still dim, but closer. I could see where the corridor ended. A concrete wall, and a switch mounted beside it.
Matteo stepped past me.
He reached for the switch but didn’t flip it yet.
He turned to me instead.
“Last chance, regina mia.”
My chest rose once, sharp and full. Then I exhaled and nodded.
“I’m ready.”
He flipped the switch.
The corridor snapped into full light.
And there he was.
My father.
Stefano Maranzano.
The man who ruined everything.
The man I hadn’t seen in ten years.