The Lost Catacomb by Shifra Hochberg

Author:Shifra Hochberg [Hochberg, Shifra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thriller, Romance
ISBN: 9780615975696
Amazon: 0615975690
Goodreads: 21466036
Publisher: Enigma Press
Published: 2014-03-14T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Elena was alone in the apartment, alone and terrified that they would come to take her away, too, at any moment. For the past two days she had hidden in the home of family friends who lived in a neighborhood far from Trastevere, but she could no longer risk their safety in order to secure her own. Reluctantly, they had allowed her to leave, giving her a small packet of food—what little they could spare—and a few coins to tide her over. She had told them that she would make contact with them and let them know where she was staying, if and when she could.

Her father and Giulio had been arrested while she had stood in line at the local baker’s, and she had heard that they were now imprisoned in Regina Coeli, a former monastery at the foot of Janiculum hill that had been turned into a prison years earlier. It was reputed to be one of the harshest of jails, with hardened wardens who cared little for the miseries of its inmates, however guilty or innocent they might be. And nowadays, staffed as it was by Fascists and members of the Gestapo, there was little prospect of fair treatment or even an attempt at objective legal proceedings.

Denuncia, Elena knew, provided no more hope of redress than a lettre de cachet had offered during the miserable years preceding the French Revolution. It brought immediate imprisonment. It was unquestioned. And it could be totally anonymous. There was no accountability whatsoever, no liability for those who used it as a tool to further their own interests. It was, Elena understood with sudden clarity of vision, final and almost always fatal.

Her mother, one of the neighbors had informed her a few minutes earlier—opening the door only a crack and fearful of saying too much—had been taken away, bludgeoned into unconsciousness by the rifle butts of the three Blackshirt thugs who had come to arrest Elena’s father and brother, as she tried desperately to intercede with them. She too had been dragged into the ominous looking, black police van, along with her husband and son. There was no further information as to her whereabouts, or whether she was dead or alive.

Elena tried to think clearly, but her head was spinning and she had difficulty calming herself down. She knew that she had very little time to take anything of value from the apartment, which had already been ransacked and ravaged by the Blackshirts two days earlier.

Furniture had been turned over and upholstery slashed viciously. Fragments of antique china plates—precious family heirlooms that were irreplaceable and had adorned the mantelpiece of the fireplace in the salon—littered the floor in shards. And the Conti’s prized mahogany book cabinet, with its glass doors and intricate fretwork, had been smashed in, pages deliberately torn out of rare, first edition volumes, which now lay in scattered heaps, carelessly tossed around the room.

She wept with frustration and anger, knowing that it was only a matter of time

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