Chapter 5 - THE MAN ALESSANDRO TRUSTED MOST
Alessandro looked at Marco.
Neither man spoke.
Fourteen years.
That was how long Marco Bellini had stood beside him.
Marco had taken a bullet for Alessandro’s father.
He had carried Alessandro out of a burning car when Alessandro was twenty-seven.
If blood made Luca family, loyalty had made Marco something closer.
And now his code had opened the gate.
Marco removed his sidearm and placed it on the table.
“I didn’t do it.”
Alessandro stared at him.
“I know what the log says.”
“Then you know what I have to do.”
Marco nodded.
“Lock me down.”
Luca stepped forward.
“Alessandro.”
“No exceptions.”
Marco lifted one hand.
“He’s right.”
Two guards escorted Marco to a secure office.
He went without resistance.
That mattered.
But it did not prove innocence.
Elena was barely standing.
“Please find her.”
Alessandro looked at the frightened mother.
“I will.”
He turned the estate into a command center.
Road cameras were checked.
Local contacts were called.
Every vehicle leaving within the previous twenty minutes was traced.
One delivery van had departed through the west gate.
The company name was fake.
The plates were stolen.
Alessandro felt something colder than anger.
This had been prepared.
Sofia had not been taken because Isabella panicked.
Someone had already planned for the possibility of discovery.
A guard brought Sofia’s doll inside.
Elena grabbed it.
Then frowned.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“This isn’t Sofia’s.”
Alessandro looked closer.
The doll looked identical.
Brown cloth hair.
Blue dress.
One missing button.
Elena turned it over.
“Sofia writes an S under the shoe.”
There was no S.
A decoy.
Alessandro understood immediately.
“The tracks are false.”
Luca looked toward him.
“They want us following the van.”
“Exactly.”
Alessandro ran upstairs.
Sofia had disappeared from a bedroom inside a locked estate.
If she had not left through the west gate, she might still be inside.
They searched again.
This time Alessandro ignored bedrooms.
He searched the places a frightened six-year-old might hide.
Closets.
Laundry rooms.
Storage alcoves.
Then he remembered what Sofia said earlier.
I was under the table playing hide-and-seek.
He entered the old library.
Beneath the central reading table was nothing.
Then he heard a tiny sound behind the wall.
A cough.
Alessandro froze.
The Romano estate was nearly a century old.
His grandfather had installed hidden service passages during renovations.
Most had been sealed.
One entrance remained behind a bookcase.
Alessandro opened it.
Sofia was sitting in darkness with her knees against her chest.
Alive.
Elena fell to the floor crying when they carried her out.
Sofia clung to Alessandro’s coat.
“Someone told me to hide.”
“Who?”
She shook violently.
“A man.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No.”
“He covered it.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
Sofia looked toward the hallway.
“He said if I wanted my mommy to stay alive, I had to disappear.”
Alessandro’s blood went cold.
May you like
Then Sofia whispered.
“But I know his voice.”
