Chapter 3 - The Shadow Over Florence
"In the closet! Get under the floorboards!" Mark yelled, snatching a heavy brass fireplace poker from the hearth.
Elena didn't hesitate. She ran into the kids' bedroom, gathering the three confused toddlers into her arms, and crammed them into the hidden crawlspace beneath the master closet just as the front door was shattered inward with a deafening crash.
Men in black tactical gear poured into the villa, their suppressed weapons whispering death into the darkness.
"Search the house! Leave no witnesses!" a harsh voice barked in Italian.
From her hiding spot beneath the floorboards, Elena held her hands firmly over her daughters' mouths, holding her breath while tears streamed down her face. Through the cracks in the wood, she saw the beam of a flashlight sweeping across the room.
BANG! BANG!
The sound of gunshots echoed upstairs, followed by a heavy thud.
"Mark!" Elena wanted to scream, but the instinct to protect her children kept her jaw locked shut.
"Boss! The man is down, but the woman and the kids aren't here!" a gunman shouted.
"They couldn't have gone far. Burn the house down. Make it look like an electrical accident," the cold voice replied.
Footsteps retreated, and within seconds, the acrid smell of gasoline seeped through the cracks of the floorboards, followed by the terrifying roar of flames catching fire. Smoke began to pour into the cramped crawlspace.
The triplets began to cough violently.
"We have to move," Elena whispered, her survival instincts kicking in.
She kicked at the weak plaster back panel of the crawlspace, breaking through to a narrow service passage that led to the villa's rear gardens. Dragging her three daughters through the dust and dark, she burst out into the pouring rain just as the roof of the main house collapsed in a fountain of sparks and fire.
She didn't know if Mark was alive or dead. She had no money, no passports, and three terrified three-year-olds in the middle of a foreign country with assassins hunting them.
There was only one place she could go. Only one person who knew the truth.
An hour later, soaked to the bone and shivering uncontrollably, Elena carried her daughters down the narrow alleyway behind the central piazza, searching desperately until she found the dark, stone alcove where Rosa slept.
Rosa was sitting on her thin blanket, clutching a faded, yellowed photograph to her chest. When she saw Elena and the children emerge from the shadows, she scrambled to her feet.
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"You came back," Rosa sobbed.
Elena collapsed at her mother's feet, clutching her hands. "Mother... help us. They're coming for us."
