Chapter 4 - The Buried Secret
"Callum!" Leia screamed, her voice tearing through the quiet woods. "CALLUM!"
She didn't wait. She dropped to her knees beside the giant Mastiff, clawing at the dirt with her bare hands. The soil was loose, freshly packed over a shallow wooden box—a makeshift coffin hurriedly buried under the cover of darkness.
Brutus worked alongside her, his massive paws sweeping away heavy clods of dirt. Together, they uncovered a wooden lid. Leia pulled at the loose boards, snapping the pine slats with frantic strength until the face beneath was revealed.
It was a woman. She looked no older than twenty-five, stunningly beautiful despite her pale, deathly complexion. Her face was bruised, her dark hair tangled with mud, and a white silk dress was stained with dirt and dry blood. She was weak, her breathing shallow, but her chest rose and fell in ragged hitches.
She had been buried alive.
"Leia!"
Heavy footsteps thundered through the brush. Callum burst through the trees, an axe in his hand, his eyes wild with alarm. He took in the scene—the opened grave, the giant dog, Leia covered in mud, and the barely conscious woman in the ground.
"Dear God," Callum breathed.
Without a second word, he dropped the axe, stepped into the pit, and lifted the frail woman out of the wooden box with practiced ease. Her body was ice-cold. She clutched weakly at Callum's coat, her dark eyes fluttering open.
"Don't... let him... find me..." she rasped, her voice a hollow whisper of agony before she slipped into unconsciousness.
They carried her back to the cabin. Leia worked with feverish speed, stoking the fireplace, boiling water, and wrapping the strange woman in warm woolen blankets. Callum washed the dirt from her skin while Leia tended to a shallow gunshot graze along the woman's ribcage.
It was clear this woman was no ordinary local. Her clothes, though ruined, were made of fine French silk. The emerald ring on her finger was worth more than the entire township of Dry Hollow.
By nightfall, the woman woke up. She sat up abruptly, gasping for air, her dark eyes wild with panic until her gaze landed on Leia sitting by her bed with a bowl of soup.
"You're safe," Leia said gently, sitting beside her. "You're at the Vance homestead. My name is Leia. That's Callum, and this is Brutus."
The woman looked at the giant dog sitting quietly by the door, then at Callum standing near the hearth. Slowly, the panic in her eyes gave way to profound exhaustion.
"My name is Victoria," she said, her voice dry and gravelly. "Victoria Moretti."
Callum’s eyes narrowed. "Moretti. The Chicago syndicate."
Victoria let out a bitter, lifeless laugh. "My husband... Don Sal Moretti. He built an empire on blood. When I found out he was expanding his trade into human trafficking—using western railway lines to ship young girls—I tried to steal his ledger. I wanted to destroy him."
She touched the graze on her side, her knuckles white. "His men caught me two nights ago. Sal didn't want to just shoot me. He wanted me to suffer. He ordered his chief enforcer in the West to bury me out here in the wilderness, where no one would ever hear me die."
May you like
Leia felt a cold shiver run down her spine. "Who... who was the enforcer?"
Victoria looked directly into Leia's eyes. "A man who recently moved out here to handle Sal's land acquisitions. He wears tailored gray suits. Calls himself Henry Foster."
