Chapter 6 - The Trap is Sprung
Thursday arrived with a biting New England frost that turned the autumn leaves into brittle glass across the Valenti lawns.
Mara was in the third-floor master suite, changing the linens on the four-poster bed, when the heavy oak door swung open without a knock.
It wasn't Nicholas.
It was Thomas, the estate manager, flanked by two armed enforcers wearing black tactical vests and holding suppressed submachine guns across their chests.
Mara dropped the pillowcase she was holding, her heart dropping into her stomach. “Thomas? What is this? Mr. Valenti is downstairs.”
“Mr. Valenti is currently indisposed,” Thomas said, his voice flat and devoid of any human warmth. He stepped into the room, his eyes scanning the space with clinical detachment. “Pack your bags, Miss Bellini. Your employment here is terminated.”
“Terminated?” Mara stepped backward, her hands curling into fists. “You can’t do that. Mr. Valenti hired me directly—”
“Mr. Valenti is no longer in a position to run this estate,” Vincent Moretti’s voice echoed smoothly from the hallway as he strolled into the room, wearing an expensive cashmere overcoat, a smug, triumphant grin plastered across his face.
Vincent stepped past Thomas, looking around the luxurious master suite with undisguised greed.
“What have you done with him?” Mara demanded, her voice shaking with a sudden, fierce spike of adrenaline.
“Relax, sweetheart,” Vincent laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “He’s safe. Locked in the downstairs walk-in vault where he belongs. Turns out a mafia boss with one leg isn't so terrifying when you cut the security cameras and lock the iron door from the outside.”
Mara’s blood ran cold. The vault. A reinforced concrete-and-steel tomb beneath the mansion with zero cell service, zero oxygen flow beyond the backup vents, and no way out without an override code known only to Nicholas and Thomas—who had clearly switched sides.
“You traitors,” Mara whispered.
“Call us what you like,” Vincent sneered, stepping closer to her, his eyes narrowing as he looked her up and down. “We call it restructuring. But you—you’ve been poking around where you don’t belong. We checked your background file, Mara. Little orphan girl from Ohio. A paralyzed brother in an expensive rehab facility funded by the Valenti family account.”
Vincent’s smile turned razor-sharp.
“It would be such a shame,” Vincent purred, stepping right up to her, “if the funding for your brother’s facility suddenly dried up starting tomorrow morning. Unless, of course, you sign a nondisclosure agreement and leave this property quietly in the next ten minutes.”
Mara looked at Vincent, then at the two armed enforcers standing by the door. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to run, to pack her bags, to save herself and let the violent, brutal world of the mafia consume its own.
Then she thought of Nicholas.
She thought of him sitting in the dark, fighting his own body, fighting his own demons, choosing to protect her brother without asking for a single word of gratitude in return.
She thought of the music.
“No,” Mara said.
Vincent blinked, his smug expression stuttering. “Pardon?”
“I said no,” Mara repeated, her voice rising, steady and ringing with absolute defiance. “I’m not signing a damn thing. And I’m not leaving this house.”
Vincent’s face darkened into a mask of pure rage. He raised his hand, gesturing to the guards. “Grab her. Throw her out on the highway and make sure she never comes back within fifty miles of—'
May you like
Before Vincent could finish his sentence, Mara didn't run toward the door.
She bolted toward the old mahogany piano in the corner.
