The Rabbit Under the Piano
Chapter 05 - The Rabbit Under the Piano
Maria did not wait for permission.
She grabbed Lily, snatched the rabbit from the armchair, and ran toward the bathroom door instead of the hallway.
Adrian saw the choice and understood instantly.
A mother who had cleaned every room in his house knew passages his armed men forgot existed.
“Go with her,” he ordered Silas.
Silas hesitated.
“I said go.”
Dominic laughed softly from beside the wardrobe, blood at the corner of his mouth.
“Still giving orders like your hands don’t shake.”
Adrian turned back to him.
For three years, Dominic had measured his weakness drop by drop. He knew how much sleep Adrian had lost, how often his vision blurred, how many times he had forgotten the names of men he once commanded by memory.
He had counted on all of it.
What he had not counted on was a toddler who knew medicine smelled wrong.
A gunshot cracked downstairs.
The house answered with shouts, running footsteps, breaking glass.
Dominic’s smile faded when Adrian locked the bedroom door from the inside.
“You don’t want to be trapped in here with me,” Dominic said.
“No,” Adrian said. “You don’t.”
He crossed the room and struck him again, this time with the full weight of betrayal behind it.
Dominic fell against the bedpost.
“You think I wanted this?” Dominic spat. “Do you know what it was like watching you turn into him?”
“Into who?”
“Father.”
The word landed between them like an old corpse dragged from the ground.
“He chose you for everything,” Dominic said. “The business. The men. The name. I handled the work you were too proud to see, and he still looked at you like you were the only son he had.”
“So you poisoned me.”
“I corrected an imbalance.”
Adrian stared at him.
That, more than anything, chilled him.
Dominic believed it.
In the walls, the old service passages swallowed Maria’s footsteps.
She carried Lily down a narrow staircase with no railing, through dust and pipe heat and darkness smelling of old wood. Lily clung to her neck without asking questions now. Children knew when silence mattered.
Behind them, Silas limped quickly despite his bad knee.
“Where does this go?” he whispered.
“Music room.”
“Public side?”
“Yes.”
“Bad choice.”
“Only choice.”
They emerged behind a paneled wall near the old piano salon just as three armed men crossed the corridor outside. Maria pulled Lily beneath the grand piano and pressed a finger to her lips.
Lily’s eyes filled, but she nodded.
Silas crouched beside them, gun ready.
From beneath the piano, Lily spotted something wedged behind the brass pedal.
Her rabbit had lost one stitched eye months ago, so she noticed small things adults missed. A button on the floor. A penny under a rug. A silver bottle in a man’s hand.
Now she noticed a folded envelope taped beneath the piano.
She reached for it.
Maria caught her wrist.
“No.”
But Lily whispered, “It has Uncle Dominic’s D.”
Silas glanced down.
The envelope was marked with a black wax seal.
He tore it loose, opened it, and read the first line.
His face went grave.
“What is it?” Maria whispered.
Silas folded the paper slowly.
“A fallback instruction.”
“For what?”
His eyes moved to Lily.
“For what to do if the child talks.”
Maria pulled Lily closer.
Before Silas could say more, the salon door opened.
Dominic’s voice drifted in from the corridor.
“She’s here somewhere. Find the girl first.”
Maria stopped breathing.
Lily buried her face against her rabbit.
May you like
And under the piano, Silas silently turned the envelope enough for Maria to read one terrible sentence.
If Maria Carter resists, use the child and blame Adrian’s instability.
