Part 2: A four-year-old maid’s daughter used her last EpiPen to save the dying mafia boss everyone feared t1

Part 2: A four-year-old maid’s daughter used her last EpiPen to save the dying mafia boss everyone feared t1
PART 2

The scream from the east wing cut through the mansion like a blade.

Every guard in the study turned toward the corridor.

Luca did not.

He stared at me.

Until that moment, I had known him only as the quiet man who checked every window before dark and never smiled at the kitchen staff.

Mama always lowered her voice when he entered a room.

The other maids stopped whispering.

Even the armed men at the gates moved when Luca told them to move.

But now, beneath the firelight, he looked frightened.

Not angry.

Not surprised.

Frightened.

Alejandro Moretti noticed too.

Still struggling to breathe, he pushed himself higher against the desk.

One hand remained pressed to his chest.

The other rested protectively in front of me.

“Open the east wing,” he ordered.

Luca gave a short laugh.

“You nearly died,” he said.

“You’re confused.”

Alejandro’s eyes hardened.

“I gave you an order.”

Nobody in the room moved.

The guards looked from Luca to Alejandro as though the mansion itself had split in two.

For years, Luca Vieri had spoken with Alejandro’s authority.

He commanded the security teams, controlled the gates, approved every visitor, and kept the keys to rooms even Mama was forbidden to clean.

But Alejandro was still the master of the house.

And even half-conscious on the floor, he was terrifying.

“Marco,” Alejandro said.

The second guard stepped forward.

“Take Luca’s weapon.”

Luca’s expression changed.

It happened so quickly that I almost missed it.

His hand moved beneath his coat.

Marco lunged.

The two men crashed into the bookshelf, sending framed photographs and leather-bound books to the floor.

Another guard seized Luca’s arm before he could reach the pistol hidden against his ribs.

Mama ran to me.

She dropped to her knees and pulled me against her chest so tightly that my rabbit backpack pressed painfully between us.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

Her hands shook as she touched my face, my hair, my shoulders, as if checking that every piece of me remained where it belonged.

“I helped him breathe.”

Then she saw the empty injector on the carpet.

All the color vanished from her face.

“Emma,” she said softly, “that was your last EpiPen.”

I knew.

I had known the moment I pressed it into Alejandro’s leg.

But he had been making the same terrible sound I made when my throat closed.

I had remembered Mama crying in the back of the taxi, begging me to stay awake.

I had remembered how the hospital lights blurred above me while strangers placed a mask over my face.

I could not watch someone else disappear that way.

“He needed it,” I said.

Mama closed her eyes.

For one second, she looked as though she might cry.

Then Alejandro spoke.

“Your daughter saved my life.”

Mama turned toward him.

The most feared man in the city was still on the floor, his breathing uneven, his face pale beneath the dark shadow of his beard.

Yet his gaze remained fixed on me.

“She used her own medicine,” he continued.

“Knowing she might need it later.”

Mama’s arms tightened around me.

“She is four years old,” she said.

There was no pride in her voice.

Only terror.

Because Mama understood something I did not.

Saving Alejandro Moretti did not make us safe.

It made everyone notice us.

A distant siren rose beyond the gates.

One of the guards had called the private medical team.

Their vehicles swept through the courtyard moments later, headlights flashing across the tall windows.

Two doctors entered the study carrying emergency cases and oxygen equipment.

They pushed everyone aside, placed a mask over Alejandro’s face, and began checking his pulse.

While they worked, the screaming from the east wing stopped.

The silence afterward felt worse.

Alejandro pulled the oxygen mask down.

“Open that door,” he said again.

The older doctor frowned.

“Mr. Moretti, you need to remain still.”

“Then open it while I remain still.”

The doctor glanced at the armed men surrounding him and wisely stopped arguing.

Marco dragged Luca to the center of the room.

Two guards held his arms behind his back.

“Where are the keys?” Marco demanded.

Luca smiled.

“Ask the maid.”

Mama stiffened.

All eyes turned toward her.

“She has been wandering this house for years,” Luca continued.

“Going into rooms she was told to avoid.

Listening at doors.

Perhaps she knows more than she admiTS.”

“That is a lie,” Mama said.

Her voice was quiet, but I felt her heart pounding beneath my cheek.

Luca tilted his head.

“Is it?”

Alejandro pulled the oxygen mask away again.

“Search him.”

Marco found three keys in Luca’s inner pocket.

One opened the private armory.

One opened the security room.

The third was small, old, and silver.

I recognized it immediately.

“That one,” I whispered.

Marco looked at me.

“The lady in the video had it.”

Luca’s jaw tightened.

Alejandro saw.

“Take us to the east wing.”

The doctor stood.

“Absolutely not.”

Alejandro looked at him.

The doctor slowly sat back down.

Within minutes, Alejandro was placed in a wheelchair because he refused the stretcher.

The oxygen cylinder was secured beside him.

Marco pushed him into the hallway while four guards surrounded Luca.

Mama carried me.

The mansion seemed different as we moved through it.

Usually, its halls were quiet and beautiful, filled with polished marble, dark paintings, and chandeliers that sparkled like frozen rain.

Tonight, shadows gathered in every doorway.

The guards whispered into radios.

Servants watched from behind corners, their frightened faces vanishing whenever Luca looked toward them.

We crossed the main staircase and entered a corridor I had never seen before.

The east wing.

Mama had always told me it was empty.

The air smelled of dust and roses.

At the far end stood a pair of carved wooden doors with brass handles.

A chain had been wrapped through them and secured with a heavy lock.

Marco inserted the silver key.

Luca spoke for the first time since leaving the study.

“You should think carefully before opening that.”

Alejandro did not look at him.

“Why?”

“Because some truths destroy more than lies.”

Marco turned the key.

The lock clicked.

Behind the doors came a faint scraping sound.

Mama stepped backward.

I buried my face against her shoulder.

The chain fell to the carpet.

Marco opened the doors.

At first, I saw only darkness.

Then a woman stepped into the light.

She was thin and barefoot, wearing a gray dress that hung loosely from her shoulders.

Her dark hair had been cut unevenly, as though someone had hacked at it with scissors.

Bruises marked her wrisTS.

But her face—

Her face looked like Mama’s.

Not exactly.

Mama’s eyes were brown.

The woman’s were nearly black.

Mama’s mouth was soft.

The woman’s expression had been sharpened by fear.

Still, the resemblance was so strong that even Alejandro stopped breathing for a moment.

The woman stared at Mama.

“Isabella,” she whispered.

Mama made a sound I had never heard before.

It was not a scream.

It was the sound of something inside her breaking open.

“Lucia?”

The woman began to cry.

Mama lowered me to the floor and ran forward.

They collided in the middle of the corridor, their arms closing around each other.

The woman clung to Mama as though she had been drowning for years and had finally found land.

I stood beside Alejandro’s wheelchair, confused.

Mama had never told me she had a sister.

Not once.

Luca laughed softly behind us.

Alejandro turned.

“You locked her here.”

“I protected this house.”

“You imprisoned a woman in my home.”

Luca’s eyes shifted toward Lucia.

“She came here to destroy you.”

Lucia pulled away from Mama.

“No,” she said.

“I came to warn him.”

Her voice trembled from disuse.

Alejandro watched her carefully.

“Warn me about what?”

Lucia looked at Luca.

He stared back with such hatred that Marco tightened his grip on him.

“Not here,” Lucia whispered.

Alejandro’s breathing worsened.

The doctor hurried forward, replacing the oxygen mask and checking the monitor clipped to his finger.

“You need a hospital,” the doctor said.

Alejandro raised one hand.

“Five minutes.”

“You could collapse again.”

“Then use them wisely.”

Lucia wrapped her arms around herself.

Mama stood beside her, one hand on her shoulder.

“I worked at the Belladonna Hotel,” Lucia began.

“Seven years ago.”

A murmur passed through the guards.

Even I knew that name.

The Belladonna had burned down before I was born.

Mama said dozens of people had died, though nobody agreed on how the fire started.

Lucia continued.

“I was a bookkeeper.

I saw payments moving through the hotel accounTS. Money from Moretti businesses was being transferred into companies overseas.”

Alejandro’s expression did not change.

“Who authorized them?”

“No one from your family.”

Her eyes moved toward Luca.

“He did.”

Luca smiled.

“A frightened prisoner says my name, and suddenly it becomes truth?”

Lucia ignored him.

“I copied the records.

I planned to give them to Mr. Moretti.

But Luca found out.”

Mama covered her mouth.

Lucia’s eyes filled with tears.

“He set the fire.

He told everyone I died inside.”

The corridor became completely still.

Alejandro’s face turned colder than the marble beneath us.

“You have proof?”

Lucia nodded.

“I hid the original ledger before the fire.”

“Where?”

She looked toward Mama.

“In the only place Luca could never search without exposing himself.”

Mama seemed to understand.

Her hand flew to the silver necklace at her throat.

The necklace from the recording.

She had worn it every day of my life.

It held a tiny oval locket with a picture of me as a baby.

Lucia reached for it.

“That was our mother’s,” she said.

“The back opens.”

Mama shook her head.

“It does not.”

“It does if you press the hinge twice.”

Mama removed the necklace.

Her fingers trembled as she pressed the tiny hinge.

There was a faint click.

The back of the locket opened, revealing a narrow compartment.

Inside was a folded piece of paper no larger than my fingernail.

Marco took it carefully.

“It looks blank.”

“Heat,” Lucia said.

“The ink appears with heat.”

Luca stopped smiling.

Alejandro noticed.

“Take it to the security room.”

Marco handed the paper to another guard, who hurried away.

Alejandro turned back to Lucia.

“Why did you come here seven years later?”

“I did not.”

Her answer made Mama frown.

Lucia’s voice dropped.

“I came here six years ago.”

Mama stared at her.

“You were alive all this time?”

“I tried to find you.

Luca found me first.”

She looked toward the locked room behind her.

“He kept me there.”

Mama began shaking.

“You were in this house?”

Lucia nodded.

“All these years?”

“Yes.”

Mama crossed the corridor before anyone could stop her.

She slapped Luca across the face.

The sound echoed under the chandeliers.

“You let me grieve her,” Mama said.

“You watched me light candles for her every birthday.”

Luca slowly turned his head back toward her.

“You should be grateful.”

“Grateful?”

“She stayed alive.”

Mama struck him again.

This time Marco did not interfere.

Alejandro watched in silence.

Then Lucia looked at me.

Her expression changed.

She stared at my face, my pink backpack, and the rabbit ears peeking over my shoulder.

“How old is she?” she asked.

“Four,” Mama replied.

Lucia went pale.

“Four?”

Mama moved instinctively in front of me.

“What is it?”

Lucia did not answer.

She stepped closer.

Her eyes searched my face as though she were looking for something hidden beneath my skin.

Then she whispered, “What is her full name?”

“Emma Sofia DeLuca.”

Lucia staggered backward.

“No.”

Mama grabbed her arm.

“What?”

Lucia looked toward Alejandro.

Then at Luca.

Then back at me.

“No,” she repeated.

“That is impossible.”

Luca smiled again.

It was small and cruel.

“You should have left the child in the basement.”

Alejandro’s hand tightened on the wheelchair armrest.

“What does Emma have to do with this?”

Luca said nothing.

Lucia sank to her knees in front of me.

She touched my cheek with shaking fingers.

“Does she have allergies?”

Mama frowned.

“Yes.”

“To what?”

“PeanuTS. Certain tree nuTS. Bee stings.”

Lucia closed her eyes.

“Just like him.”

Alejandro’s gaze sharpened.

“Like whom?”

Lucia looked up.

“Your brother.”

The name seemed to fill the hallway without being spoken.

Gabriel Moretti.

Alejandro’s younger brother had died five years earlier.

Mama had once told me he was the only person in the mansion who laughed loudly.

His portrait hung above the grand staircase—a handsome man with dark eyes, a crooked smile, and a small scar near his left eyebrow.

Lucia looked at me again.

I had a tiny scar in the same place.

I got it when I fell from a chair at two years old.

At least, that was what Mama had told me.

Alejandro stared at the scar.

Then at Mama.

“Explain.”

Mama took a step back.

“I cannot.”

“You will.”

“I do not know what she means.”

Luca laughed.

“Isabella always was convincing.”

Mama spun toward him.

“You know nothing about my daughter.”

“I know everything about her.”

My stomach twisted.

I reached for Mama’s hand, but she did not notice.

Her eyes were fixed on Luca.

“What did you do?”

He leaned forward despite the guards holding him.

“I kept her alive.”

Mama’s face emptied.

“What?”

“The night she was born, the hospital records disappeared.

The nurse who delivered her left the country.

The physician received enough money to forget the mother’s name.”

Alejandro rose halfway from the wheelchair.

The doctor pushed him back down.

“Whose child is she?” Alejandro demanded.

Nobody answered.

Then Lucia stood.

“She is Gabriel’s.”

The world around me seemed to stop.

I did not understand every word, but I understood the way Mama’s hand slipped from mine.

I understood the expression on Alejandro’s face.

I understood that everyone was looking at me differently.

Mama shook her head.

“No.”

Lucia turned to her.

“Isabella, listen to me.”

“No.”

“Gabriel came to the hotel before the fire.

He knew the accounts were being stolen.

He was helping me collect evidence.”

Mama backed away.

“You told me you never met him.”

“I lied to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“From Luca.”

Luca’s smile disappeared.

Lucia continued quickly.

“Gabriel knew someone inside the Moretti organization was planning to kill Alejandro and take control.

He believed Luca was responsible.

Before Gabriel died, he gave me a letter.”

Alejandro’s voice became dangerously quiet.

“How did my brother die?”

Everyone in the Moretti household knew the official story.

Gabriel’s car had left the road during a storm.

The vehicle burned before help arrived.

Lucia looked directly at Luca.

“He did not die in an accident.”

The guards shifted.

Luca finally struggled.

“Enough.”

Marco forced him against the wall.

Lucia’s voice grew stronger.

“Gabriel discovered that Luca had been replacing loyal guards, redirecting money, and paying officials.

He planned to tell Alejandro.

Luca had his car sabotaged.”

“That is a lie!” Luca shouted.

Lucia flinched, but she continued.

“Gabriel knew he might not survive.

He said if anything happened to him, I had to protect the woman carrying his child.”

Mama stopped breathing.

Lucia looked at her.

“You.”

The hallway blurred around me.

Mama’s face had turned white.

“I never told anyone,” she whispered.

“You told me,” Lucia said.

“The night you found out.”

Mama closed her eyes.

A tear slipped down her cheek.

“I did not know he was Gabriel Moretti.

He told me his name was Gabriel Marino.”

Alejandro stared at her.

“You knew my brother?”

“For three monThS.”

Her voice cracked.

“He came to the café where I worked.

He was kind.

He made me laugh.

He said he was leaving the city after finishing dangerous work.

Then one night, he disappeared.”

Her hand moved to her mouth.

“A week later, I saw his photograph in the newspaper.

Gabriel Moretti.

Dead in a crash.”

Alejandro’s face changed.

The hardness remained, but grief moved beneath it.

“I was already pregnant,” Mama said.

“I was terrified.

I thought if your family knew, they would take the baby from me.”

Alejandro looked at me.

For the first time since I had found him on the floor, he did not look like a mafia boss.

He looked like a man seeing the last piece of someone he had lost.

“Why did you come to work here?” he asked Mama.

She wiped her tears.

“Because I needed to know whether Gabriel had been what the newspapers said.

A criminal.

A monster.”

“And?”

Mama looked around the mansion.

“I found men who frightened me.

Men who carried weapons.

Men who made people disappear.”

Luca smirked.

Then Mama met Alejandro’s eyes.

“But I also found a brother who kept Gabriel’s room untouched for five years.”

Alejandro looked away.

Mama continued.

“I found someone who paid hospital bills for employees without taking credit.

Someone who sent food to families whose names never appeared in any account book.”

Alejandro’s expression hardened again.

“You still hid her from me.”

“I was protecting my child.”

“From my enemies?”

“From your world.”

The words struck him harder than the poison.

Before he could respond, the guard who had carried the hidden paper returned.

His face was grim.

“We heated it,” he said.

He placed a transparent evidence sleeve in Alejandro’s hands.

Faint brown writing covered the small piece of paper.

Numbers.

Dates.

Names.

Alejandro read silently.

Then he looked at Luca.

“You transferred forty-eight million dollars.”

Luca shrugged.

“Money can be replaced.”

“You paid judges, police commanders, and three members of my council.”

“Loyalty is expensive.”

“You murdered Gabriel.”

Luca’s smile returned.

“You cannot prove that.”

Lucia stepped forward.

“The ledger names the mechanic.”

“The mechanic is dead.”

“I know.”

Her eyes filled with hatred.

“Because you killed him too.”

Alejandro handed the paper to Marco.

“Take Luca below.”

Luca laughed.

“You think this ends with me?”

Alejandro’s gaze did not waver.

“No.”

“It begins with you.”

Two guards started dragging him away.

He twisted around.

“You still do not understand the poison.”

Alejandro raised a hand.

The guards stopped.

Luca’s eyes moved toward the broken wineglass still lying in the distant study.

“You think I poisoned the bottle to kill you?”

“You did.”

“No.”

He looked at me.

“I poisoned it to reveal her.”

Mama pulled me behind her.

Alejandro’s voice became low.

“What does that mean?”

Luca smiled.

“The allergen in the wine was chosen carefully.

Fast enough to terrify you.

Slow enough for the medical team to save you.”

“You could not know Emma would be there.”

“I knew she was in the house.”

Mama stared at him.

“You watched her?”

“I watched everyone.”

He nodded toward the cameras hidden throughout the mansion.

“I knew the child carried an EpiPen.

I knew she had been taught how to use it.

I knew Isabella hid her in the basement whenever important guests arrived.”

The horror on Mama’s face deepened.

“You planned for her to find him.”

“I planned for the mansion to discover what she was willing to sacrifice for a Moretti.”

Alejandro looked at me.

My empty backpack suddenly felt heavier than stone.

Luca continued.

“Blood recognizes blood.”

“You risked her life,” Mama whispered.

“She was never in danger.”

“She has no medicine now!”

“Then buy another.”

Mama lunged at him, but Marco blocked her.

Luca’s eyes returned to Alejandro.

“The poison was not the murder attempt.”

A terrible silence followed.

Alejandro leaned forward.

“What murder attempt?”

Luca smiled wider.

“The one happening now.”

Every light in the mansion went out.

Darkness swallowed the corridor.

Someone shouted.

A burst of gunfire echoed from the courtyard.

Glass shattered downstairs.

Mama grabbed me and dropped to the floor.

Guards drew weapons.

Radios crackled with frantic voices.

“North gate breached!”

“Multiple vehicles!”

“Power system disabled!”

“Protect Mr. Moretti!”

The emergency lights flickered red.

In their glow, I saw Luca slam his shoulder into Marco.

Another guard reached for him, but Luca twisted free and ran toward the stairwell.

Alejandro shouted, “Stop him!”

Two men chased after him.

Mama lifted me into her arms.

“Lucia, stay close!”

We hurried toward a side room while guards formed a shield around Alejandro.

Outside, engines roared.

Men shouted across the grounds.

I heard more shots, closer this time.

The mansion that had always seemed impossible to enter was suddenly surrounded.

The doctors pushed Alejandro’s wheelchair toward the secure elevator.

He resisted.

“My people are outside.”

“You are barely breathing,” the older doctor snapped.

“You will die if you stay here.”

Alejandro looked toward Mama and me.

Then at Lucia.

“Bring them.”

The elevator opened.

We crowded inside: Alejandro, the doctors, Mama, Lucia, Marco, two guards, and me.

The doors began to close.

A hand shot between them.

Everyone raised a weapon.

It was Luca.

Blood ran from a cut above his eye, but he was smiling.

He threw something into the elevator.

A black device bounced across the floor.

The guards shouted.

Marco kicked it out just before the doors shut.

An explosion shook the hallway.

The elevator dropped.

Mama screamed.

The lights flickered.

For one terrifying second, we fell too fast.

Then the emergency brakes caught, slamming us against the walls.

I hit the floor.

My rabbit backpack slipped from my shoulders.

The oxygen cylinder rolled away from Alejandro’s chair, tearing the mask from his face.

The elevator stopped between floors.

Darkness returned.

“Emma?” Mama cried.

“I’m here.”

Her hands found me.

Someone turned on a flashlight.

The beam moved across frightened faces.

Alejandro was slumped in the wheelchair.

The doctor reached him.

“His airway is swelling again.”

Mama looked at the empty EpiPen still tucked into my backpack.

“There must be medicine in the medical case.”

The second doctor opened it.

His face changed.

“What?”

“The epinephrine is gone.”

Alejandro’s breathing became a thin whistle.

Mama stared at the doctors.

“How can it be gone?”

The older doctor searched the case again.

“Someone removed it.”

Lucia looked toward the ceiling of the trapped elevator.

“Luca.”

Marco struck the emergency panel.

“No response.”

He tried the radio.

Only static answered.

Alejandro’s fingers clawed at the wheelchair arm.

His eyes met mine.

They were beginning to lose focus.

Just as they had in the study.

Mama shook the doctors.

“Do something!”

“We need epinephrine!”

“There must be another injector in the house.”

“Not where we can reach it.”

Alejandro’s head fell back.

Lucia grabbed the flashlight.

“Wait.”

She aimed it at my backpack.

The pink fabric had torn along one side when I fell.

Inside the ripped lining, something plastic gleamed.

Mama pulled it free.

A second EpiPen.

She stared at it.

“That is impossible.”

I had never seen it before.

My backpack held only one injector.

Mama had checked it that morning.

Lucia turned the device under the light.

A strip of white tape had been wrapped around it.

Three words were written across the tape.

FOR GABRIEL’S DAUGHTER.

Everyone stared at me.

Mama’s hands began to shake.

“Who put this here?”

No one answered.

The doctor grabbed the injector.

He pressed it into Alejandro’s thigh.

A click filled the elevator.

Seconds passed.

Alejandro gasped.

Air moved into his lungs.

The doctor held the oxygen mask against his face.

Slowly, the terrifying whistle softened.

Mama sank against the wall, clutching me.

Lucia stared at the injector.

“This was planned,” she whispered.

Marco looked at her.

“By Luca?”

She shook her head.

“No.”

“How can you know?”

“Luca wanted Alejandro vulnerable.

He removed the medicine from the case.”

She pointed to the handwriting on the tape.

“And Luca never called Emma Gabriel’s daughter.”

Alejandro opened his eyes.

The flashlight cast deep shadows across his face.

“Then who knew?” he rasped.

The elevator shuddered.

Metal screamed above us.

Someone was forcing the doors open from the floor above.

Marco raised his weapon.

A narrow gap appeared.

Hands reached through.

“Mr. Moretti!” a familiar voice called.

“We are getting you out.”

It was Rosa, the elderly housekeeper.

With help from the guards above, the doors were pried apart.

A ladder was lowered into the elevator.

One by one, we climbed.

Alejandro went last, strapped carefully into a rescue harness.

The corridor above was filled with smoke.

Sprinklers poured water over the marble floors.

Guards rushed past us toward the north side of the mansion.

“The attackers are retreating,” one shouted.

“Who were they?” Marco demanded.

“No markings.

Professional team.”

“Luca?”

“Missing.”

Alejandro was placed on a stretcher.

The doctor finally took control.

“You are going to the hospital now.”

This time, Alejandro did not argue.

His eyes remained on me as the medical team carried him away.

Before they reached the stairs, he lifted one hand.

Mama hesitated.

Then she carried me closer.

Alejandro looked at the mysterious injector still in the doctor’s hand.

“Someone knew about Emma,” he said.

Mama held me tightly.

“Yes.”

“Someone knew the attack would happen.”

“Yes.”

“And someone wanted both of us alive.”

Lucia stepped beside us.

“Why?”

Alejandro looked toward the smoke drifting through his mansion.

“Because we are more useful alive than dead.”

Outside, the attackers disappeared beyond the estate walls.

Luca vanished with them.

By dawn, Alejandro was stable in a private hospital suite guarded by twenty men.

The police were told the mansion had suffered an electrical fire.

The staff were ordered to remain silent.

Lucia was placed under protection.

Mama and I were given a room beside Alejandro’s.

I could not sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the wineglass shatter.

Mama sat beside the window with Lucia.

They spoke in whispers, trying to recover six stolen years in a single night.

I lay on the bed with my stuffed rabbit.

My backpack rested on a chair.

Its torn lining hung open.

Something inside it scratched softly against the fabric.

At first, I thought it was part of the zipper.

Then I reached inside.

My fingers found a tiny object hidden deeper in the lining.

A silver memory card.

The same kind Marco had taken from the bookshelf camera.

There was a folded note wrapped around it.

I opened the paper.

The handwriting matched the words on the second EpiPen.

Emma,

If Alejandro survives, give this only to him.

Do not trust the woman who calls herself Lucia.

My heart began pounding.

Across the room, Mama’s sister turned her head.

Her dark eyes locked onto mine.

Then she smiled.

Not the frightened smile of a rescued prisoner.

A calm smile.

A knowing smile.

And beneath the blanket covering her lap, I saw a small silver key resting in her hand.

The same key that had opened the east wing.

…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.