Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN ON THE BALCONY
Bianca held the blue bundle over the balcony railing with one hand.
The distance between us was more than a hundred yards, but I could see the blanket moving.
A tiny leg kicked beneath the fabric.
Every rational thought left me.
I ran.
Lorenzo caught the back of my uniform before I cleared the mausoleum.
"Stop."
"She has Lily."
"She wants you in the open."
"Then let me go."
I twisted against him, but his grip tightened.
Leo cried beneath my uniform.
The sound cut through my panic.
I had one child in my arms and another hanging above a three-story drop.
The choice was impossible because it was not truly a choice at all.
A mother did not measure one life against another.
She reached for both even if it tore her apart.
Bianca's voice came through the SUV radio.
"Send Celeste across the garden with Leo."
"No weapons."
"No guards."
Lorenzo lifted the receiver.
"Put the baby inside."
Bianca smiled from the balcony.
"You are still giving orders."
"That is why you will lose."
"You sound like your father."
Her arm moved farther over the railing.
The bundle dipped.
I screamed before I could stop myself.
Bianca pulled it back against her chest.
"Your father always believed fear was loyalty," she continued.
"Then he died surrounded by men who hated him."
Lorenzo's expression never changed.
"You have five minutes before the east wing burns," Bianca said.
"If Celeste is not carrying Leo toward me by then, Mara's daughter goes first."
The radio went silent.
Matteo shoved Mason into the back seat of the SUV and tightened the bandage around his waist.
"The east wing has independent fire controls," he said.
"Bianca can flood the corridors with smoke and seal every door."
"Can we access the roof?" Lorenzo asked.
"From the north tower, but she will have shooters covering it."
Celeste leaned against the mausoleum wall with her wrists bound.
"She will kill the girl whether you cooperate or not."
I turned on her.
"How do you know?"
"Because Bianca doesn't leave witnesses."
"You are a witness."
"Exactly."
For the first time, Celeste looked frightened for herself rather than angry at us.
"She never intended to get me out."
Lorenzo walked toward her.
"Then earn your life."
"Tell me how to reach the east wing without crossing the garden."
Celeste looked at the mansion.
"There is a laundry conduit beneath the servants' quarters."
"It connects to a dumbwaiter shaft behind Bianca's dressing room."
"Why would a nurse know that?" Matteo asked.
"Because I used it to move the bottles."
My stomach turned.
"The drugged milk."
"Mercer prepared it off-site."
"I brought it through the shaft after the kitchen staff left."
"How long?" Lorenzo asked.
Celeste lowered her gaze.
"Since Leo came home from the hospital."
Lorenzo pressed the barrel of his pistol against her forehead.
"He was six weeks old."
"I followed orders."
"That answer has filled cemeteries."
I stepped between them before grief turned into an execution.
"She knows the route."
Lorenzo stared past me at Celeste.
"If my son stops breathing because of what you gave him, there will be no place on earth deep enough to hide you."
Celeste believed him.
So did I.
Matteo cut the plastic tie around her wrists and replaced it with a longer restraint, binding one wrist to his own.
"We use her as the decoy," he said.
"Wrap the wooden figure and send her across the garden."
"Bianca will watch through the cameras."
"While she watches Celeste, we take the conduit."
Lorenzo handed him the cream blanket containing the carved figure.
"Make it convincing."
Matteo tucked the bundle against Celeste's chest.
She held it with surprising tenderness.
Perhaps muscle memory remained even in people who had done terrible things.
Or perhaps she had once been someone else before money and fear hollowed her out.
I did not have room for sympathy yet.
Lorenzo opened the SUV's rear compartment and removed a compact medical bag.
Inside were sealed syringes, oxygen tubing, gauze, and emergency medication.
"Sofia insisted every vehicle carry one after Leo was born," he said.
He fitted a tiny oxygen tube beneath Leo's nose and opened the portable tank.
The baby's breathing eased.
"You know how to do that?" I asked.
"I spent forty-one nights beside his incubator."
The answer reminded me that behind the guards, guns, and stone walls was a father who had memorized every rise and fall of his son's chest.
Lorenzo wrapped Leo securely against me with a black scarf.
His hands paused near my shoulder.
"If we are separated, you follow Matteo."
"No."
"That was not a suggestion."
"Lily is in that room because of me."
"She is in that room because monsters discovered your pain could be used as a weapon."
His voice lowered.
"Do not help them use it twice."
A shot struck the stone angel above the mausoleum.
Marble fragments rained around us.
Bianca's shooters had found our position.
Matteo pulled Celeste toward the garden path.
She staggered into the open carrying the false baby.
Gunfire stopped.
The balcony cameras turned toward her.
Lorenzo motioned for me to follow him behind the mausoleum.
We ran along the outer cemetery wall until we reached a narrow service door hidden beneath ivy.
He entered a code.
The lock flashed red.
"Changed," he said.
I looked at the old iron hinges.
"The staff stores gardening tools nearby."
"There should be a bolt cutter."
I found one behind a rain barrel.
Lorenzo cut through the chain and forced the door open.
We entered a low corridor beneath the servants' quarters.
Steam pipes ran along the ceiling.
The air smelled of detergent and hot metal.
A row of industrial laundry carts stood abandoned beside a conveyor belt.
I knew this part of the estate.
For three weeks, I had sorted sheets here while trying not to think about the small blankets folded in the nursery upstairs.
I had never noticed the narrow iron door behind the linen press.
Celeste's directions led us through it.
The conduit beyond was barely tall enough to crawl.
Lorenzo went first.
I followed on my knees with Leo secured against my chest.
Every movement pulled at injuries that had not fully healed after the fall.
Pain burned across my hips and lower back.
I clenched my teeth and kept moving.
Above us, the mansion alarms began sounding.
A recorded voice announced a fire in the east wing.
Smoke filtered through the metal seams.
"Bianca started early," I said.
"She knows the garden trade is false."
Lorenzo crawled faster.
The conduit ended beneath a vertical shaft.
Old pulleys and cables disappeared into darkness overhead.
A wooden dumbwaiter platform rested at the bottom.
Lorenzo tested the rope.
"It will hold one person at a time."
"Take Leo."
He looked at me.
"You feed him."
"You know the rooms and the guards."
I loosened the scarf and placed Leo carefully inside Lorenzo's coat.
The baby settled against his father's chest.
For one second, Lorenzo's hand covered mine.
"I will come back for you."
"Bring my daughter first."
He stepped onto the platform and pulled the rope hand over hand.
The dumbwaiter rose through the shaft.
His face disappeared above me.
I waited in the smoke-filled darkness, listening to the pulley creak.
A faint metallic click came from the corridor behind me.
Someone had entered the conduit.
I turned.
A flashlight beam moved low along the floor.
There was nowhere to hide.
I grabbed a loose iron crank from beside the pulley and pressed myself against the wall.
The light approached.
A hand appeared through the opening.
I swung the crank.
The metal struck bone.
A man cursed and lunged toward me.
I hit him again across the temple.
He collapsed halfway through the conduit.
His mask slipped off.
I recognized him as one of Lorenzo's guards from the west wing.
His name was Paulie.
He had once carried a heavy laundry basket for me without being asked.
Now a black serpent ring gleamed on his finger.
The same symbol Mason had described.
Paulie opened his eyes and grabbed my ankle.
I kicked his wrist until he released me.
"Where is Lily?"
He smiled weakly.
"Not upstairs."
My heart sank.
"Bianca is holding a decoy."
"Where is my daughter?"
"Already gone."
I raised the crank again.
"Where?"
"Ask the dead woman."
He bit down hard.
Foam appeared at the corner of his mouth.
A hidden capsule.
Within seconds, his body went still.
I knelt beside him, furious and helpless.
Something protruded from his jacket pocket.
It was a hospital identification bracelet.
The printed name read LILLIAN BENNETT.
A second line contained a date from three weeks earlier.
A third line read DISCHARGED TO GUARDIAN.
The guardian's name had been cut away.
The dumbwaiter platform returned with a violent thud.
Lorenzo leaned down through the opening above.
"Mara."
"She's not there," I said.
"The baby on the balcony is a decoy."
He looked toward Paulie's body and the bracelet in my hand.
"How do you know?"
"One of your guards told me before he died."
Lorenzo descended and examined the serpent ring.
"Paulie served my father."
"Then your father may have built more than hidden passages."
A scream echoed from somewhere above us.
It was Bianca.
Then came three gunshots.
Lorenzo drew his weapon.
"Stay behind me."
We rode the dumbwaiter upward together.
Smoke thickened as the platform climbed.
At the top, Lorenzo forced open a painted panel.
We entered Bianca's dressing room.
The mirrors were shattered.
White curtains burned along one wall.
A trail of blood led toward the balcony.
Bianca lay near the railing with a bullet wound in her shoulder.
The blue bundle rested beside her.
Lorenzo kicked it open.
Inside was a realistic infant doll fitted with a speaker.
Bianca looked up at me through tear-filled eyes.
"She betrayed me," she gasped.
Lorenzo pressed the gun against her chest.
"Who?"
"Sofia."
The name seemed impossible.
"Sofia is dead," Lorenzo said.
Bianca laughed once, then winced from the pain.
"That is what she needed you to believe."
She reached into her robe and pulled out a small silver locket.
Inside was a recent photograph.
May you like
A woman with Sofia Rossi's face stood beside a blue bassinet.
In her arms was my living daughter.
