“For a while. Until I get things settled.”
“Settled?”
“My place doesn’t have the security this one does.” He stopped at a door in a section of the house that seemed more secluded than the others, opened it, and then waited for me to enter first.
The furniture matched the rest of the house in style. Old world. All of our bags were placed around a vintage armoire that was big enough to hold a few bodies. A matching vanity held my cosmetic bags. An en suite bathroom was bigger than thecasaI had occupied in Bronte.
“This is our space,” he said, his breath fanning over my neck. I felt chilled as he moved away from me, draping his jacket over a chair. “No one will bother us back here.”
“No one to hear me scream,” I said, smiling a little, but my heart raced.
His fingers trailed down my arm until he took my hand again, leading me toward a fireplace. It was brick and so wide that I could step inside of it. A gold mirror with a filigree design hung over the mantelpiece.
Corrado reached into the mouth of the fireplace, up behind the opening, and pulled out a skeleton key. He lifted it up so I could see. Then he told me to come forward and look at what he was doing. He inserted the key in a hole that was in the wall of the fireplace itself.
It looked like a decorative addition—there were eight of them.
He put the key into the fourth one. After the key clicked, he took it out and moved back. The wall rotated and opened up halfway.
He gestured for me to step inside. I was mindful of my head, but once through, it opened up to a room that looked almost identical to the one on the other side, except it did not have as much furniture.
A bed, a chair, and along the walls, weapons of all different kinds hung behind glass doors. It also had first-aid kits and a cabinet full of food and drink.
“Alcina.”
“Hm?” I turned to look at Corrado.
“Watch carefully.” He inserted the key back into the door, and it closed the entire way, leaving the key entry on our side. “Always put the key back here.” He placed the key in the same spot he had taken it from on the other side.
I stepped next to him, looking through a two-way mirror. I could see into the other room. I could not see into this room from the other side.
“This room is soundproof and bulletproof. If you ever find yourself in trouble, you hide in here, understood? There are keys in rooms that have gold doorknobs. The ones with crystal doorknobs don’t have them. Remember—you can’t see through gold. Crystal you can. The keys are always in the same place.
“You have to put your hand underneath the lip of the fireplace to find them. Slip the key toward you, or it will just feel like a metal lining. The key always goes into the fourth lock, on either side. Once the door closes on the safe side, the key stays with you and there is no opening on the other side.”
“Sì,” I said, and our eyes connected from across the room.
“My grandfather had these put in when he first built this house, years ago. It’s an extra level of security that no one knows about, except for a few.”
“But the builders,” I said.
“Not anymore,” he said, taking a seat on the bed, loosening his tie and kicking off his shoes.
“They have all died by now?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”
Ah.After they built the house, his grandfather had them killed so no one could tell.
“What if they told their families?” I said, thinking it through.
“Couldn’t. My grandfather gave specific orders that whoever was working on the house—the ones in charge of building these rooms—had to live on the property. There’s a pool house out back, and that’s where they stayed while they worked here, along with the architect who designed them. They couldn’t leave. My grandfather sequestered the men until it was done. He offered them enough money that none of them refused his offer.”
“I doubt they would have anyway,” I said, thinking about how he was like his grandfather in that way. He had a way about him that made it impossible to say no to him.
He shrugged. “The day they were finished, the van driving them home blew up—something to do with a mechanical issue.”
Sometimes it was hard to accept how their minds worked, how cruel they could be.
