Page 82 of Urgent Vows
"An incendiary device. If I don't deactivate it upon entering, it will go off one minute after the door opens. If my calculations are correct…" I spent two whole months studying incendiary devices, so I'm certain they are. "Everything in this room will burn within two minutes. The fire will erupt in such a way that whoever is coming inside will be forced to leave or risk being burned alive."
The material closest to the door will burn first, leaving no time to grab it and get out.
"Who are you?" Miceli's voice is tinged with awe. "Mata Hari?"
"Not even close. She used seduction to infiltrate her enemies. I'm just an information junkie who doesn't want my notes falling into the wrong hands."
"You realize the whole mansion could burn down along with the room?" Severu asks me.
"The mansion is equipped with a state-of-the-art fire suppression system. Besides this room is made entirely of brick. Even the floor. It might spread through the open door to my room, but wouldn't have the chance to spread further."
"It was too damn big a risk," Severu says, his jaw taut. "You could have died."
"I could have died at my father's hand too. I chose to live to the fullest extent I could manage."
"While planning to leave."
Miceli jerks at that. "You were going to run away? Like your sister?"
"No, not like my sister." I'd had no plans to leave someone else to face Papà's wrath on my behalf. He would have been glad to see the back of me. "No one would have come after me."
Severu growls and I'm not sure what that means, so I don't respond to it.
He faces his brother. "Have the documents in these boxes moved to the vault and the others packed up and delivered to our home. Put them in one of the empty guest rooms on the main floor."
I assume the main floor is the one with the communal living spaces and our bedroom.
"Will do." Miceli pulls out his phone and starts texting.
"Are your family's bedrooms on the main floor?" I ask Severu after a minute of pensive silence on his part.
He shakes his head. "The only bedrooms on our floor are ours and guest rooms that eventually will belong to our children. Miceli and our mother have rooms on the floor below. There are also four more guest rooms. One that my sister uses whenever she and Raffaele are in town."
"That seems like a big space for six bedrooms."
"Three of the bedrooms are suites. There is also a smaller kitchen, dining and living room for entertaining, and it houses the gym, movie room and my mother's office."
"She has an office?"
"Being a don's wife and mother is as much a job as a role."
"Oh. Will I need an office?" The idea of having my own space in the De Luca home is tantalizing.
"Yes."
I don't ask anything else because Severu has turned away and is leaving the secret room. I follow him and Miceli comes with us.
"Show Miceli the sequence again so he can get back into the room," Severu says to me.
It takes a couple of times before my brother-in-law is confident he can release the hidden entry.
Afterward, Severu opens the door and ushers Luigi and Aldo back in. "Finish packing my wife's clothes and put them in the Cayenne's cargo space,"
"Come back tomorrow to pack the rest of her things."
"Yes, boss."
I have to bite back my instinct to argue. I want the books brought with us now, but if I draw attention to them, my husband will realize the secret room wasn't my only silent rebellion against my father. And I'm not ready to share the other one. Not yet.
