Chapter 6 - The Girl in the Locked Room
The private residence stood behind iron gates on a quiet road outside Oyster Bay.
Dante's men surrounded it before we reached the entrance, but he insisted on entering with only me and Bruno. He said the people inside might panic if they saw an armed team approaching.
I didn't argue.
My mind was fixed on one thing.
A little girl named Lily.
The front door opened before we knocked.
A woman in a nurse's uniform stood in the foyer, holding a clipboard. Her expression barely changed when she saw Dante.
“Mr. Moretti. We weren't expecting you.”
“Where is the child?”
The nurse glanced at me.
“Which child?”
Dante stepped closer.
“The one Antonio placed here.”
For a moment, I thought she would refuse.
Then a faint sound came from upstairs.
Three knocks.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
My knees nearly buckled.
The nurse led us to a bedroom at the end of the hall. A little girl sat on the floor arranging wooden animals into neat rows. She had dark curls, brown eyes, and a tiny crescent-shaped birthmark near her left ear.
Sophie had the same birthmark.
The girl looked up.
“Mama?”
The word escaped her mouth before I could move.
I knelt slowly.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
She studied my face with solemn curiosity.
“Are you the lady from the pictures?”
My heart shattered.
“What pictures?”
She pointed toward a shelf.
Photographs covered the wall. Me holding Sophie in the hospital. Me carrying groceries into our old apartment. Me leaving for work in the rain.
Someone had watched my life from the beginning.
Dante searched the room and found a small recorder hidden inside a teddy bear. When he played it, a man's voice filled the room.
Antonio Moretti.
“Lily, if you hear this, remember that your mother abandoned you because she was afraid. The Moretti family gave you everything. One day, you will help us recover what belongs to us.”
I felt sick.
Lily wasn't a weapon.
She was a child who had been taught to fear her own family.
I reached toward her, but she flinched.
“Don't touch me. Grandpa says strangers take children away.”
Dante's face went dark.
“Antonio isn't your grandfather.”
Lily looked frightened.
Then she whispered, “He said you would come.”
“Who?”
“The man with the silver watch.”
She pointed toward a narrow closet.
Bruno immediately stiffened.
Dante opened the door.
Behind a row of coats was a hidden staircase descending into darkness. Fresh footprints marked the dusty steps.
At the bottom, a metal door stood slightly ajar.
And from the other side came a voice I had spent three years believing I would never hear again.
“Clara?”
Miguel.
Alive.
I ran toward the door.
Dante caught my wrist.
“Wait.”
But the voice came again, weaker this time.
May you like
“Clara, if that's you, don't open the door.”
A gunshot rang out from somewhere below.
