Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED INTO A WAR
Vincent drove too fast.
Nobody told him to slow down.
Not Marco.
Not me.
Not the two security vehicles following us from the cemetery.
The photograph of Isabella stayed open on my phone.
Anthony behind her.
Gun against her head.
Alive.
There was no mistaking him now.
The same face from the funeral portrait.
Older.
Thinner.
A pale scar crossing one cheek.
But alive.
Vincent gripped the steering wheel.
“Call the house.”
Marco already was.
“No answer from east security.”
“West?”
“Nothing.”
Vincent’s jaw flexed.
“Cameras?”
“Offline.”
I stared at him.
“Someone took the estate.”
“No.”
His voice was cold.
“Someone inside handed it over.”
The Romano house sat on forty acres behind stone walls and electronic gates.
Armed guards worked in shifts.
Motion sensors covered the wooded perimeter.
You did not simply walk in.
Not unless you had help.
We reached the outer gate at 7:19 a.m.
Open.
One guard lay beside the booth.
Alive.
Unconscious.
Marco jumped out before the SUV fully stopped.
“Pulse!”
Vincent reached beneath his seat and pulled out a handgun.
I stared.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“No what?”
“You are not going in there first.”
“This is my house.”
“That doesn’t make bullets respect you.”
His eyes flashed.
“Stay in the vehicle.”
I laughed once, sharp and frightened.
“Absolutely not.”
“Lily.”
“If Anthony wants us here, sitting in a glass box at the front gate is not safer.”
Marco returned.
“Guard was drugged. Needle mark.”
My skin went cold.
“Kessler.”
“Likely.”
Vincent looked toward the house.
Then at me.
“You stay behind Marco.”
“I can do that.”
“And if I tell you to run—”
“I’ll consider it.”
He gave me a look.
“Fine. I’ll run.”
We entered through the service wing.
The kitchen was empty.
A pot still steamed on the stove.
Breakfast abandoned.
A broken plate lay on the floor.
No blood.
We moved through the hall.
One guard was unconscious near the pantry.
Another near the stairs.
Same small puncture wound.
Precise.
Medical.
Marco whispered into his radio.
Nothing.
Vincent’s expression hardened.
The house felt wrong without sound.
No staff.
No footsteps.
No clinking dishes.
Then music began upstairs.
An old jazz record.
Vincent froze.
I knew that record.
Elena’s.
It lived in the cabinet near the library.
Someone had chosen it deliberately.
A message.
We climbed.
The guest room where Isabella had been confined stood open.
Empty.
A chair sat in the center.
On it rested a phone.
Vincent picked it up.
Video started automatically.
Anthony appeared on screen.
“Hello, little brother.”
Vincent’s face became stone.
Anthony smiled.
“If you’re seeing this, then congratulations. You finally discovered I’m not buried beside Dad.”
The video had been recorded recently.
Maybe minutes ago.
“I know you have questions. You always did need answers before you could act. That was your weakness.”
Vincent’s hand tightened around the phone.
Anthony continued.
“Elena figured it out faster than you. That’s why she had to die.”
I felt Vincent flinch beside me.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
But I saw it.
“You think Kessler killed her,” Anthony said. “You think Isabella poisoned your cellar. You think Daniel Dawson was an innocent man who stumbled onto something too large.”
My chest tightened.
Anthony leaned toward the camera.
“Some of that is true.”
Then he smiled again.
“The fun part is deciding which.”
The video cut.
A second file opened.
Isabella sat across from the camera.
Her makeup was gone.
She looked younger.
Scared.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Vincent went still.
“I need you to listen before you decide what I am.”
She looked down.
“My father introduced me to Anthony two years before I met you.”
Vincent’s breathing changed.
“He told me you were destroying the Romano family. That Elena had been helping federal investigators. That Daniel Dawson stole company data and sold it.”
I whispered, “Liar.”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“I believed him.”
She swallowed.
“I helped move money.”
Vincent’s face darkened.
“I gave Kessler access to your charity accounts. I signed shipping authorizations. I thought it was financial. I thought Anthony was building leverage in case you turned against the Bellinis.”
Her voice cracked.
“Then I found Elena’s file.”
Vincent took one step toward the screen, as if he could enter it.
“What file?” he whispered.
Isabella continued.
“She survived the crash.”
I closed my eyes.
We knew that.
But hearing it from Isabella made it worse.
“She woke up in Saint Gabriel’s. Kessler called Anthony. Anthony went there.”
Vincent’s hand shook.
“He gave the order.”
The words seemed to strip the air from the room.
“Anthony ordered Kessler to kill her.”
Vincent looked away.
Isabella cried silently.
“I didn’t know when I married you.”
A bitter laugh escaped her.
“I know you won’t believe that.”
Vincent said nothing.
“The wine bottle,” she continued. “I found it six months ago in a Bellini storage vault. My father had it. He said it was insurance.”
She looked into the camera.
“I brought it into the house because I wanted to know why Elena marked that date.”
I stared.
“She didn’t plan to poison him.”
Marco looked at me.
“Maybe.”
Isabella went on.
“When Lily found me with it, I panicked. I hit her.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
She wiped her face.
“I put the bottle on the dinner list because Anthony told me to.”
My stomach dropped.
Vincent looked at the phone.
“Why?”
“He said you needed to see it.”
That made no sense.
Unless Anthony wanted Vincent investigating again.
Unless the entire dinner had been designed to restart a hunt that had gone cold.
The recording ended with Isabella looking off-camera.
“Anthony says you’ll come to the greenhouse.”
Then black.
Marco cursed.
The greenhouse stood beyond the east gardens.
Old glass.
Iron frame.
Elena had restored it the year before she died.
Vincent turned immediately.
“No.”
Marco blocked the door.
“It’s a trap.”
“Obviously.”
“So don’t walk into it.”
Vincent looked at me.
Then at Marco.
“He has Isabella.”
“You don’t trust Isabella.”
“She is still my wife.”
Something in the way he said it mattered.
Not love.
Responsibility.
Even after betrayal.
Especially after betrayal.
I understood why Elena had loved him.
That thought made me uncomfortable.
We approached the greenhouse from three sides.
Marco’s men finally regained radio contact and moved through the gardens.
I stayed behind the stone wall as ordered.
For almost thirty seconds.
Then I heard Isabella scream.
I ran.
The greenhouse doors were open.
Inside, broken panes glittered across the floor.
Isabella sat tied to a chair near the center.
Vincent moved toward her.
“Stop!” I shouted.
He froze.
I pointed down.
A nearly invisible wire stretched across the path at ankle height.
Marco saw it.
“Trip line.”
He followed it to a small device beneath a planting bench.
Not explosive.
A camera trigger.
Anthony wanted footage.
Vincent stepped over it carefully.
Isabella looked at me with swollen eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
I didn’t answer.
Vincent cut her hands free.
“Where is he?”
“He left through the rear door.”
“When?”
“Five minutes.”
Marco sent men around.
Isabella grabbed Vincent’s sleeve.
“Don’t chase him.”
He looked down.
“Why?”
“Because this is what he wants.”
“What does he want?”
She stared at him.
“To make you open all six locations.”
Silence.
My blood went cold.
The reserve bottles were not just a map.
They were keys.
Anthony needed Vincent to find whatever Elena and Daniel hid.
“He can’t find them himself,” I said.
Isabella nodded.
“Elena changed the system after she realized someone was watching her.”
Vincent crouched in front of Isabella.
“What system?”
“She split the evidence.”
“Across six sites?”
“Yes.”
“What evidence?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
Vincent’s voice sharpened.
“What do you know?”
Isabella looked at me.
“Daniel had the video.”
She looked at Vincent.
“Elena had the financial records.”
“And the other sites?”
“Witness names. Account keys. Medical files.”
Kessler.
The hospital.
Everything connected.
Then Isabella said something that made my stomach drop.
“The final site is not Anthony’s grave.”
Vincent frowned.
“The coordinates say Holy Cross.”
“They point to Holy Cross.”
“What is there besides the mausoleum?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
A gunshot cracked outside.
Marco shoved us down.
Glass exploded inward.
Vincent covered Isabella.
I hit the floor.
A second shot.
Then screaming from the garden.
Marco’s men returned fire.
I crawled behind a stone planter.
A figure moved beyond the greenhouse.
I saw only a dark coat.
Then he disappeared.
Marco ran after him.
Vincent looked at me.
“You hit?”
“No.”
“Isabella?”
“No.”
Isabella was staring at the broken glass.
Her face had gone pale.
“Vincent.”
“What?”
“That shot wasn’t for us.”
He followed her gaze.
One bullet had struck a brass plaque mounted beneath an old fig tree.
The plaque cracked.
Behind it was a shallow compartment in the brick wall.
Something metal glinted inside.
I crawled closer.
Vincent reached it first.
A key.
Small.
Brass.
A paper tag attached.
E.R.
Elena Romano.
Vincent stared.
Isabella whispered, “She hid one here.”
I looked at the old greenhouse.
Not on the coordinate list.
A seventh location.
Elena had created a backup.
Vincent turned the tag over.
One sentence was written on the back.
IF ANTHONY LIVES, TRUST THE MAID.
Everyone looked at me.
My heart stopped.
“That’s impossible.”
Vincent’s eyes locked onto mine.
“Elena died three years ago.”
“I didn’t work here three years ago.”
“No.”
I backed away.
“I never met her.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
Because beneath the first sentence, in smaller writing, was another.
HER NAME IS LILY DAWSON.
May you like
My knees nearly gave out.
Elena Romano had known my name before I ever entered Vincent’s house.
