Chapter 5: The Price of Knowing
I read the message twice.
Leo breathed against my collarbone.
"That came from inside the house," I said.
"Yes."
"How many people does Caruso have with him?"
Alessio was already moving — to the window, to the door, back to the desk.
Not panicking.
Calculating.
"He wouldn't bring more than one.
Too visible.
But one is enough."
"The door is locked."
"That lock is decorative." He said it without apology.
"My father used it for privacy, not security."
I looked around the room.
Bookshelves.
One window.
The desk.
The sofa.
"Is there another way out?"
"Behind the third shelf from the left.
There's a passage.
My grandfather built it.
It connects to the kitchen cellar."
"Does Caruso know about it?"
"He knows about most things." Alessio paused.
"But not that one.
My father never told the staff."
"Then that's where we go."
"You and Leo go.
I stay."
I looked at him.
"He's my head of security," Alessio said.
"I need to know how far this goes before I end it.
If I disappear, he reports to Voss that something went wrong and Voss disappears too.
I need Caruso talking."
"And if his partner reaches this room first?"
"Then I handle that."
"With what?
You left the g*n in the nursery."
He opened the desk drawer and I stopped asking.
"Take Leo through the passage.
There's a door at the end — it opens into the kitchen garden.
The groundskeeper's cottage is forty meters east.
His name is Brennan.
Tell him I sent you.
He'll know what to do."
"And if Brennan is also compromised?"
Alessio almost smiled.
It didn't reach anywhere near his eyes.
"Brennan is seventy-three years old and has hated every person I've ever employed.
He trusts no one.
That's why I kept him."
I stood.
Leo stirred, blinked, looked up at me with dark unfocused eyes and then closed them again.
"The passage," I said.
"Show me."
Alessio crossed to the third shelf and pressed the inner edge of the frame.
The shelf swung inward on a hinge so old it barely sounded.
Behind it was a narrow corridor, dark, smelling of stone and old wood.
He handed me his phone — screen off, locked.
"If I don't contact you in forty minutes, call the number saved as Ferro.
Tell him the name Voss and the word 'nursery.' He'll understand."
"Who is Ferro?"
"Someone Voss should have considered before he sent that text."
I stepped into the passage.
"Wait," Alessio said.
I turned.
He looked at his son.
Just for a moment.
The way a person looks at something they are not certain they will see again.
"His name is Leonardo," he said.
"After my father.
He's never slept more than four hours at a stretch.
He likes the sound of rain.
He doesn't like being put down while he's still awake." A pause.
"You already know that."
"I do."
"Keep him warm."
"I will."
The shelf closed behind me.
The passage was narrow enough that my shoulders brushed both walls.
I moved by feel, one hand on the stone, Leo held tight against my chest with the other arm.
He slept.
The sound of rain was muffled here, coming through the walls like something remembered.
I counted my steps.
At forty-two, I heard something above me.
Footsteps.
Then a voice — Caruso's, though I couldn't make out the words.
Then Alessio's voice.
Calm.
Almost bored.
"I was wondering when you'd come up."
I kept moving.
At eighty-one steps, my hand found a door.
May you like
It opened into cold air and rain and the smell of wet earth.
I ran.
