Under the Chapel
Chapter 05 - Under the Chapel
The old chapel stood behind the estate garden, abandoned except for Christmas Eve and the occasional family memorial. Leah had passed it hundreds of times without ever wondering what lay beneath its stone floor.
At midnight, she entered with Adrian.
Dante followed ten steps behind.
Leah did not ask him to come.
He came anyway.
The diary was hidden inside a narrow iron box beneath a loose stone. Adrian used a key his father had left him. Leah opened the cover with trembling fingers.
Bianca's first entry was dated nineteen years earlier.
I made a promise to a dying woman.
The second page named Leah's mother.
The third named Dante.
Leah read faster.
Bianca had discovered that someone inside the Raviieri organization had been stealing money from charities and using shell companies to hide it. Leah's mother had found the evidence accidentally. When she threatened to expose it, she became a target.
Bianca took Leah in.
But the diary contained another revelation.
Dante was not the person who caused Leah's mother's death.
He was the person Bianca had secretly asked to protect Leah.
Leah closed her eyes.
All these years, she had thought Bianca had simply saved her.
She had not understood that the decision had been deliberate.
Dante knelt beside the box.
“She knew they would come for you eventually.”
“Who?”
“Marco Vieri.”
Adrian's expression changed.
“The old family lawyer?”
Dante nodded.
“He disappeared after Bianca died.”
Leah looked at the diary again.
There was one final entry.
If Marco returns, Leah must leave the estate. Dante must not follow her. He will believe keeping her close is protection, but it will only make her a target.
Leah looked up.
Dante had read the same words.
Neither spoke.
Finally Leah whispered, “You knew.”
“I knew enough.”
“And you still kept me here.”
“I thought I could protect you.”
“You decided for me.”
His eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
It was the first time he had admitted it.
Leah stood.
“I can't stay.”
Dante reached for her hand.
She stepped back.
That hurt him more than she intended.
Outside, a car door slammed.
Adrian looked through the chapel window.
A black sedan had stopped beyond the garden wall.
Someone was watching the house.
Then Leah saw the driver's face.
May you like
It was Marco Vieri.
And he was holding a photograph of Leah's mother.
