AllFreeNovel
Share Us
More tears trickle down her face and she whispers thickly, “I’m so sorry I brought you here.”
I shake my head. “I needed to find this place, and you found it for me, princess.”
Chiara takes a deep breath, and then another.
“Good girl. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Cassius is still throwing his body against the door. Meanwhile, I search the room for any other way to escape. Trapdoors. Manholes in the ceiling. There’s fucking nothing.
“Can you guys smell smoke?” Chiara asks.
Cassius stops kicking the door and I inhale deeply. There is something smoky about the air all of a sudden. And is that a faint crackling I can hear?
Cassius and I exchange glances. A locked basement in a burning house. Even if the fire doesn’t reach us, we’re fucking toast as soon as all the oxygen is sucked out of here by the flames.
I push the table beneath the vent in the wall and climb up on top of it. I’ve got one sliver of a bar and I try calling Salvatore, but the call keeps dropping out. I type a text and send it to the group chat instead.
Message sending failed.
Message sending failed.
Message sending failed.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I growl, and beat the wall with my fist.
I remember Chiara’s terrified face the day she found out she was pregnant and realized that from now on, the four of us would do whatever it takes to keep her and the baby safe, even if that meant dying for them. Cassius and I are facing the possibility that we won’t get the privilege of sacrificing ourselves.
We’re all trapped. We’ll all die together.
Chiara has her arms wrapped around her belly and she’s gazing up at me with a face so pale and scared that my heart is on the verge of shattering into pieces.
“We’re going to get you out of here, princess,” I tell her, with more bravado than I feel.
I just don’t know fucking how.
20
Salvatore
“Wow, this place is crazy. Like a nuclear bunker or something,” Rosaline says as she steps out of the white SUV and gazes around the basement of Lorenzo’s compound.
At Chiara’s request, I’ve brought Nicole, Rosaline, Candace, and Sophia to the compound. Vinicius pulls into the garage behind us with Mrs. De Luca in his Lamborghini and we all head upstairs. Chiara insisted that she be brought here, too.
“It’s a bit like a prison, but it’s safe,” Nicole assures the other girls and takes her mother’s hand.
Of all of them, Mrs. De Luca is being the most difficult. Her expression is impatient as she exclaims, “But I still don’t understand what we’re doing here!”
Neither do I, but I’ve seen enough dead women to last me a lifetime. If Mrs. De Luca tries to leave before we know it’s safe, I have no qualms about locking her up.
Vinicius and I get them settled in the lounge and then stand together in the kitchen trying to keep calm.
“Do you think Chiara has figured out who the Black Orchid Killer is?” Vinicius wonders.
“Chiara said before that she might have met the killer without knowing it. I haven’t seen her turn so pale since she found out she was pregnant.”
There’s nothing we can do but sit and wait. I receive a text forty minutes later from Cassius with their location and the message,Just to keep you in the loop. At least we know where they are.
Half an hour goes by. And then another half an hour. I try calling all their phones but the calls aren’t going through.
