Chapter 2 - The Red Light in the Bookshelf
For three long seconds after the EpiPen clicked, nobody moved.
Alejandro Moretti’s hand was still clamped around my wrist, so tight that my fingers began to tingle. His eyes were open now, but they looked strange—lost somewhere between fear and anger.
“Call Dr. Romano!” one of the guards shouted.
The other guard, the one who had grabbed my arm, didn’t move.
He was staring at the bookshelf.
At the tiny red light hidden between a row of old leather-bound books.
I followed his eyes.
“What’s that?” I asked.
His face changed so fast I noticed it even though I was only four. First he was pale. Then he looked sick. Then he looked angry.
“Nothing,” he said too quickly.
Alejandro made a harsh choking sound. His chest rose once, twice, then he sucked in a ragged breath that sounded like air tearing through paper. Color slowly began coming back into his face.
The guard reached for the bookshelf.
“No!” Alejandro rasped.
Everybody froze.
His voice was weak, but it still carried something that made grown men stop moving.
Alejandro’s gaze locked on the guard. “Step away.”
The guard lifted both hands. “Boss, I was only—”
“Step. Away.”
The guard did.
I was still kneeling beside Alejandro when the doctor rushed in with two armed men behind him. Dr. Romano had silver hair, sleepy eyes, and a black medical bag that looked bigger than my rabbit backpack.
He pushed everyone away from Alejandro, then checked his breathing, pulse, and eyes.
“Severe allergic reaction,” he said. “Possibly anaphylactic shock. The injection bought him time.”
“He’ll live?” I whispered.
Dr. Romano looked at me.
For a second, his serious face softened. “Because of you, little one, he has a chance.”
Mama appeared in the doorway then.
Her face was white.
“Emma!”
She ran to me and pulled me against her so hard my rabbit backpack got squished between us. Her hands were shaking all over.
“I told you not to leave the room,” she whispered into my hair.
“I know,” I said. “But Mr. Moretti couldn’t breathe.”
Mama pulled back and looked at Alejandro on the floor. Then she looked at the EpiPen in my hand.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“That was your last one,” she said.
I nodded. “He needed it more.”
Across the room, Alejandro’s eyes found mine again.
This time, they were clearer.
And colder.
“Lock down the mansion,” he said.
Nobody spoke.
Alejandro sat up slowly, his face still pale but his voice stronger now. “No one leaves. No calls. No messages. No exceptions.”
“Yes, sir,” the guards answered.
The guard near the bookshelf swallowed hard.
Alejandro noticed.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Marco, sir.”
“You’ve worked for me six years, Marco.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you are afraid of a camera.”
Marco’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Alejandro looked toward the bookshelf. “Get the security room on the line. Pull the footage from this study. Every camera. Every angle. From one hour before I entered until now.”
Marco took one step back.
That was all it took.
Alejandro’s expression changed.
“Don’t run,” he said quietly.
Marco ran.
He shoved one of the guards aside and bolted into the hallway. Shoes pounded against marble. Someone yelled. Then came the sound of a gun being drawn.
Mama covered my eyes.
But I could still hear it.
“Stop!”
“Get him!”
A crash echoed down the hall. Then another. Glass breaking. Men shouting.
I pressed my face into Mama’s dress and hugged my stuffed rabbit through the backpack.
A minute later, the guards dragged Marco back into the study. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow. He was breathing hard, his eyes full of panic.
“I didn’t do anything!” he shouted.
Alejandro stood with Dr. Romano’s arm supporting him.
“You ran,” Alejandro said.
“I was scared!”
“Of what?”
Marco looked toward the camera.
That tiny red light was still glowing.
Alejandro turned to the head of security, a broad man named Vincenzo. “Play the footage.”
Vincenzo brought in a tablet. Everyone crowded around it except Mama, who kept me behind her legs.
The screen showed the study from above.
Alejandro entering. Sitting at his desk. Pouring wine from a crystal decanter.
Then, ten minutes earlier, it showed Marco entering alone.
He walked to the bar.
He looked toward the door.
Then he pulled a tiny vial from inside his jacket.
Mama sucked in a breath.
Marco’s knees buckled.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he cried. “I was told it would make him sick. Just sick.”
“Who told you?” Alejandro asked.
Marco looked up.
His lips trembled.
Then he smiled.
It was the scariest smile I had ever seen.
“You think I’m the traitor?” he said. “I’m only the door they used to get inside.”
The lights went out.
The whole mansion fell into darkness.
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And somewhere in the black hallway, a gunshot exploded.
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