Chapter 4 - A Voice in the Dark
Victoria threw her entire weight across the lifted marble slab, her polished fingernails scraping against the stone seams.
She shoved downward with frantic, hysterical strength, desperate to force the mechanical lock back into its concealed housing.
Salvatore descended the remaining steps with measured, predatory speed, his dark eyes narrowing at her sudden frenzy.
He reached the base of the staircase in three strides and seized Victoria by the wrist with one crushing hand.
He ripped her away from the floor opening as easily as tossing a child's toy, casting her onto the cream carpet nearby.
"Get away from that floor!" Victoria wailed, scrambling on her knees, her emerald satin dress tearing at the thigh.
"Don't touch it, Salvatore! Don't look down there, I'm warning you!" she pleaded, tears of terror smearing her dark mascara.
Salvatore ignored her hysterics, his instincts screaming that something monstrous lay beneath the luxury of his home.
He placed the toe of his shoe beneath the lip of the popped marble hatch and shoved it upward.
The heavy stone panel swung open on concealed hydraulic hinges, revealing a pitch-black cavity yawning beneath the grand staircase.
A cold, sour stench of mildew, stale bread, and unwashed confinement rolled out into the perfumed air of the mansion.
Salvatore froze in his tracks, his senses locking onto a faint, rhythmic sound originating deep within the darkness.
It was the sound of shallow, labored breathing accompanied by the dry rattle of a human throat.
Then, rising from the subterranean gloom, came a faint, broken cry that stopped the mafia boss's heart inside his chest.
"Dad...?" the voice croaked, trembling with exhaustion and utter disbelief.
"Dad! I'm down here... please!" the voice cried out, weaker now, echoing against the damp concrete walls below.
Salvatore dropped instantly to one knee beside the open hatch, his knuckles pressing hard into the cold stone floor.
The voice was unmistakable; it was the voice he had buried inside his nightmares for twenty-one agonizing days.
High on the staircase landing, Elena gripped the golden handrail with her bruised, reddened wrist.
Her green eyes widened in absolute shock as the underground cry resonated through the mansion's walls.
"Marco...?" Elena gasped, her voice trembling between overwhelming hope and profound horror.
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Salvatore stared into the abyss, the ruthless boss of Chicago entirely unmasked by devastating, paternal grief.
"Marco!" Salvatore roared down into the darkness, his voice breaking with raw, suffocating emotion.
