🖤 THE MAFIA BOSS'S MOTHER SPOKE—THEN HIS DAUGHTER VANISHED

Chapter 06 - The Chapel Beneath the House

The chapel stood behind a row of overgrown yew trees, its narrow windows

clouded with dust. No one had used it since Luca’s wife, Isabella, died.

He had ordered the door locked after the funeral because Sophie had been

too young to understand why every room in the house seemed to hold her

mother’s absence. He had told himself he was protecting his daughter

from grief. In truth, he had been protecting himself from the sound of

her questions.

The handprint on the door was small and faint, the kind left by a child

who had pressed her palm against the wood to test whether anyone was

outside. The lock had been changed recently. Marco’s key ring included a

copy, though he had claimed he had never entered the chapel.

Luca stood before the door while a guard worked on the lock. Hannah held

Teresa’s wheelchair back from the uneven stones. The old woman watched

the door with a terror that made Hannah’s chest ache. She was not simply

afraid for Sophie. She seemed to be reliving something she had been

unable to explain for eighteen months.

The door opened with a long, dry groan. The chapel smelled of damp wood,

candle wax, and cold air. Rows of narrow benches stood beneath a faded

mural. At the far end, beside the small altar, a panel had been moved

out of place. Behind it, a stairway descended into darkness.

Luca took the flashlight and went down first. Hannah followed, despite

the guard’s protest. She could hear water dripping somewhere below. The

steps led to a low stone room that had once stored candles and winter

supplies. There was a blanket on the floor, a paper cup, and a small

packet of crackers. Sophie had been there recently.

But she was gone.

Hannah crouched beside the blanket. It was still warm at the center. On

the stone wall, someone had drawn a house with a blue door and a stick

figure holding a red umbrella. Beneath it were two words: NOT SAFE.

Luca pressed his hand against the wall. “She was here. How did she get

out?”

A narrow passage opened behind a stack of wooden crates. It led to the

boathouse. The exit door stood ajar, and beyond it the lake road

disappeared between trees. Whoever had brought Sophie to the chapel had

used the old tunnel, but the child had found a way out on her own.

Hannah imagined Sophie walking through the dark, carrying fear like a

weight she could not put down. She was eight years old. She should have

been worrying about spelling tests and whether her father would let her

get a puppy. Instead, she had learned to read footsteps, watch adults’

hands, and leave clues in case she vanished.

Luca looked at the drawing. “Why would she write ‘not safe’ if she was

hiding from the people who took her?”

“Because she might have heard someone coming,” Hannah said. “Or because

she thinks the whole house is unsafe.”

He turned away. For a moment, his shoulders looked too heavy for him.

Hannah wanted to comfort him, but she knew comfort could become another

way of asking a frightened person to stop feeling what they felt. She

simply stood beside him.

Teresa made a sharp sound and pointed toward the crates. Beneath them

was a small wooden box decorated with faded stars. Hannah recognized it

as Sophie’s keepsake box. Inside lay a photograph of Sophie’s mother, a

folded drawing, and a flash drive wrapped in a scrap of pink ribbon.

Luca stared at the photograph. His late wife had been smiling at the

camera, her hair lifted by the wind. She had died in a car accident on a

wet road outside the city. Luca had never believed the accident was

connected to his business, but there had been questions about the

brakes. The investigation had been closed after a mechanic testified

that the car had been poorly maintained.

“Why would Sophie have this?” Hannah asked.

Luca opened the folded drawing. It showed a red car beside a blue door.

A tall man stood next to it, with a black tie and a square briefcase.

Sophie had written one name beneath the figure: MR. CROSS.

Adrian Cross was the family lawyer.

Luca inserted the flash drive into a secure tablet. The first file was a

scanned letter in his late wife’s handwriting, dated two weeks before

her death. It was addressed to Teresa.

If anything happens to me, please keep Sophie away from Adrian. He says

he is helping Luca, but he has been asking questions about the trust and

the old accident. I don’t know what he wants. I only know he keeps

insisting that the child should be placed under someone else’s care.

The second file was an audio recording. Isabella’s voice came through

the small speaker, low and strained.

“Mother, I found the documents. If Cross comes back, do not let him near

Sophie. He knows what happened that night.”

Luca stopped the recording. His face had gone pale.

“My wife knew,” he said.

Teresa closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks. She had known

too. She had been trying to warn him since the night Vanessa announced

the engagement.

Luca remembered his wife lighting candles in the chapel on winter evenings, even after the family priest had stopped visiting. She had said the little room was a place where no one had to pretend to be strong. After she died, he had locked the door because he could not bear to pass it and see the empty bench where she used to sit. In doing so, he had sealed away one of the few places Sophie might have felt close to her mother.

He moved slowly through the lower room, examining the dust around the crates. There were two sets of footprints: an adult’s, deep at the heel, and a child’s, uneven and narrow. One set led toward the hidden exit; the other circled back toward the altar. Sophie had not simply been carried through the tunnel. She had stopped, looked around, and made a decision. Whatever fear had driven her, some part of the child was still thinking clearly enough to leave clues.

A phone rang above them. Marco’s voice echoed from the chapel entrance,

speaking to someone in a hurry.

“He’s found the drive. We need to move now.”

Luca looked up. The sound of his security chief’s voice in that place

felt like a door closing.

Hannah reached for Teresa’s hand. “We have to get out.”

But the footsteps above them were already descending.

And when the flashlight beam swept across the stairwell, the first