Chapter 3 - The Blood Line
By two o'clock in the morning, the storm had reached its peak.
Mara sat on the cold floor of the service pantry three doors down from Luca’s bedroom, her back pressed against a stack of clean linen crates. In her lap lay a brass key ring she had taken from the master housekeeper’s office while Mrs. Vale was in the kitchen brewing chamomile tea.
She had spent the last two hours carefully smoothing the cut wallpaper back down over the moldy plaster in Luca’s room, using clear craft glue to temporarily hide the tear. To anyone glancing into the room from the doorway, the wall looked undisturbed.
Then she had waited.
At 2:15 AM, soft footsteps sounded on the marble floor of the main corridor.
Mara pulled back further into the shadows of the pantry, watching through the quarter-inch crack of the louvred door.
A man walked past.
It wasn't Frank.
It was Julian Varelli—Luca’s younger brother by three years.
Julian was thirty-three, possessed the same sharp jawline and dark hair as Luca, but carried none of his brother's quiet stillness. Julian was loud, expensive, and volatile. He wore an Italian leather jacket despite being indoors, and his hands were shoved deep into his pockets as he paused outside Luca’s bedroom door.
Julian didn't knock. He slowly turned the brass handle and stepped inside.
Mara slipped out of the pantry without a sound, her soft-soled cleaning shoes making no noise against the carpet runner. She edged along the wall until she reached the partially open door of Luca’s bedroom.
Inside, Julian stood beside the empty bed.
He wasn't looking at the bed. He was looking at the white ceramic diffuser sitting on the mantelpiece.
"Where is he?" Julian muttered under his breath.
He walked over to the mantel, picked up the small glass bottle of cedar compound sitting beside the diffuser, and checked the liquid level. Then he turned toward the private bathroom, calling out softly, "Luca? You in there?"
No answer came from the dark bathroom.
Julian’s face darkened with immediate suspicion. He stepped quickly toward the bed, reaching out to touch the leather headboard. His fingers brushed against the area where Mara had cut the wallpaper.
He froze.
Julian leaned closer, feeling the faint sticky residue of the craft glue Mara had used. With a muttered curse, he jammed his nail into the seam and peeled the paper back, revealing the fresh, wet cut and the dark rot beneath it.
"Dammit," Julian hissed, backing away from the wall as if he had been burned.
He pulled a dark encrypted cell phone from his jacket pocket and hit a speed dial button.
"Frank," Julian said into the phone, his voice sharp and panicked. "Get up here now. Someone’s been in the room."
A pause as Frank responded on the line.
"I don't care where he is!" Julian snarled into the receiver. "The wall's been cut! Someone knows about the water line! Find him before he talks to the lawyers, or we're both going to end up in the river by morning!"
Julian hung up the phone, his breathing ragged as he turned toward the hallway door.
Mara backed away rapidly into the shadows of the alcove, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Julian wasn't just working with Frank. Julian was the architect.
The younger brother, tired of waiting for the crown, had engineered a invisible murder that would look to every doctor in Illinois like a tragic, unexplainable illness. And with Luca dead, the Varelli empire, the shipping contracts along the Great Lakes, and the real estate portfolio worth hundreds of millions would drop directly into Julian’s waiting hands.
Mara didn't wait to see Frank arrive. She turned and ran through the dark service corridors, heading straight back to the library.
When she slammed the library door shut behind her, Luca was awake.
He was sitting up on the velvet sofa, a heavy brass desk lamp turned on low beside him, holding a small silver pocket knife he had pulled from a display case on the shelf.
"Mara," Luca said, his gray eyes fixing on her panicked face. "What happened?"
"It's your brother," Mara panted, running to the sofa and grabbing his arm. "Julian and Frank. They know someone cut the wall. Frank is hunting the house right now."
Luca didn't look surprised. A deep, agonizing shadow crossed his pale features—not of fear, but of profound, devastating betrayal.
"Julian," Luca whispered softly, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. "I gave him thirty percent of the port logistics firm last year. I bought his house in Gold Coast."
"He doesn't want thirty percent, Luca," Mara said sharply, shaking his shoulder to force him back to reality. "He wants all of it. And right now, he has four armed men searching this estate for a man who can barely stand up. We have to get out of here."
"Out?" Luca laughed softly, a dry, bitter sound. "Where, Mara? The gates are locked. The security system reports to Frank's phone. There are three miles of open road between this house and the city."
Mara looked down at him, her eyes hardening into steel.
"You have six cars in the underground garage," she said.
"Frank has the keys," Luca replied.
"Frank has the keys to the main garage," Mara corrected him, pulling a heavy brass key from her pocket—the key she had taken from the housekeeper's office. "He doesn't have the key to the old carriage house beneath the laundry room, where your father kept his 1968 Lincoln."
May you like
Luca stared at her, his lips parting in shock. "That car hasn't been started in four years."
"I cleaned it two weeks ago," Mara said, grabbing his woolen blanket and wrapping it tightly around his shoulders. "I checked the tank. It's full of fuel, and the battery is connected to a trickle charger. Now stand up, Luca Varelli. We're leaving your palace behind."
