Chapter 2
The gunshot broke the room apart.
Someone screamed near the windows.
Glass shattered again.
I could not see more than a few feet through the smoke, but Adrian’s arm stayed locked around my waist as he pulled me down behind the heavy oak dining table.
“Stay with me.”
I nodded even though he could barely see me.
My throat burned.
The smoke was not from a fire.
It smelled chemical.
Sharp.
Designed to blind.
Designed to create panic.
Thomas shouted from somewhere near the hall.
“East doors! Lock them down!”
Another voice yelled that an officer was hit.
My stomach dropped.
Adrian shifted as if he meant to stand.
I caught his wrist.
He looked at me.
Even in the dim emergency light, I could see fury in his face.
“I have to know where he went.”
I shook my head.
Then pointed toward the table.
Toward the abandoned notebook.
It had fallen to the floor.
Adrian reached for it.
I took the pen and wrote:
HE EXPECTS YOU TO CHASE HIM.
Adrian read it.
His eyes closed for one second.
Then he nodded.
“You’re right.”
A second gunshot sounded farther away.
This one from the garden.
Thomas appeared through the smoke with his weapon drawn.
“Mr. Romano, stay down.”
“Who fired?”
“Unknown.”
“The officer?”
“Vest hit. He’s conscious.”
Adrian’s shoulders loosened by half an inch.
“Camille?”
Thomas looked around.
“Missing.”
Of course she was.
The second the lights had gone out, she had run.
I touched Adrian’s sleeve and pointed toward the west doorway.
Then toward the corridor beyond it.
He frowned.
“You think she went with Marcus?”
I shook my head.
I did not know.
That was worse.
The smoke alarms finally began screaming overhead.
Sprinklers did not activate.
Another deliberate choice.
Marcus had known the system.
Or Camille had told him.
Police rushed through the room with flashlights.
Guests were escorted into the foyer one by one.
Adrian refused to move until Dr. Patel arrived.
The doctor came in carrying a black bag, escorted by a detective.
She was small, serious, and unimpressed by wealth.
I liked her immediately.
“Sit,” she ordered Adrian.
“I’m not injured.”
“I was not talking to you.”
She pointed at me.
I sat.
Adrian almost smiled.
Almost.
Dr. Patel gently moved my hair aside.
The room spun when her fingers neared my cheek.
She saw the reaction and stopped.
“Did you lose consciousness?”
I shook my head.
“Nausea?”
A little.
I held my fingers close together.
“Blurred vision?”
No.
She examined my pupils, then my jaw.
When she reached for the scarf, I froze.
Adrian noticed.
“You don’t have to—”
Dr. Patel looked at him.
“She does if I’m going to assess the cuts.”
He went quiet.
I unwound the scarf myself.
The fabric had dried against two of the wounds.
When it pulled free, pain flashed across my neck.
Adrian’s face changed.
He had already known there were cuts.
Knowing was not the same as seeing them.
There were five narrow lines across the side of my neck.
Not deep.
But red.
Angry.
A few still spotted with blood.
Dr. Patel cleaned them.
I gripped the edge of the chair.
“None appear to need sutures,” she said. “But she needs imaging for the facial injury. And if her voice loss is from trauma to the larynx, that requires evaluation.”
Adrian looked at me.
“We’re going to the hospital.”
I shook my head.
“Hannah.”
I pointed toward the house.
Marcus.
Adrian understood.
“He can wait.”
I wrote:
HE WON’T.
Adrian looked at the words.
Then at me.
“No mystery in this house is more important than whether you can breathe safely.”
I wanted to argue.
I could not.
It was infuriating.
Detective Rosa Bennett approached.
She was maybe forty-five, with dark hair pulled into a severe knot and the expression of someone who had spent her career listening to rich people lie.
“Mr. Romano.”
Adrian stood.
“Detective.”
“We need statements from everyone.”
“You can have mine at the hospital.”
Her gaze moved to me.
“Hannah Reed?”
I nodded.
“We can take a written statement if speaking is difficult.”
I nodded again.
“Good.”
She looked at the scarf on my lap.
“Do not throw that away.”
Dr. Patel handed it to an officer in an evidence bag.
Then Bennett turned back to Adrian.
“We found something outside.”
His expression hardened.
“What?”
“A blood trail.”
My heart kicked.
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Where?”
“East greenhouse.”
Thomas appeared behind her.
His face was grim.
“There’s more.”
Adrian looked at him.
Thomas held a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside was a photograph.
Not the security still I had found.
An older photograph.
Family.
Vittorio Romano stood in the center.
Adrian looked maybe twenty.
Marcus stood beside him.
And between the brothers was a woman I did not recognize.
Blonde.
Young.
Smiling.
On the back, written in black ink, were six words.
ASK ADRIAN WHAT HAPPENED TO EVE.
Adrian stared at it.
I looked at him.
Something shifted in his face.
Recognition.
And guilt.
Detective Bennett saw it too.
“You know who Eve is.”
Adrian did not answer immediately.
Then he said, “Evelyn Shaw.”
“Who was she?”
“My brother’s fiancée.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I had never heard her name.
Not once.
“What happened to her?” Bennett asked.
Adrian looked toward the dark hallway.
“She died.”
“When?”
“Three months before Marcus disappeared.”
“And how did she die?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Car accident.”
Bennett waited.
Adrian added, “At least that’s what I was told.”
I stared at him.
He looked at me.
And for the first time since Marcus appeared, Adrian looked uncertain.
Not afraid.
Not exactly.
But shaken in a way I had never seen.
Detective Bennett said, “We’re going to need the full story.”
“You’ll have it.”
Thomas’s radio crackled again.
“Sir, we located Ms. Camille.”
Everyone turned.
“Where?” Adrian asked.
“Upstairs.”
Thomas hesitated.
“In your private study.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“That room is locked.”
“Not anymore.”
We moved through the house together.
Police first.
Thomas.
Adrian.
Me, despite everyone telling me to remain seated.
I was done sitting while people made decisions around me.
The hall smelled faintly of smoke.
Broken glass glittered near the west doors.
Upstairs, the private wing was normally silent.
Tonight, two officers stood outside Adrian’s study.
The door had been forced.
Inside, Camille sat on the floor beside the open safe.
She was crying.
Her mascara had streaked down her cheeks.
The blue file was gone.
Adrian stopped in the doorway.
Camille looked up.
“Oh, thank God.”
His voice was cold.
“What did you do?”
Her face collapsed.
“I didn’t take it.”
“Why are you in my safe?”
“I was looking for something.”
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Camille.”
“I can’t tell you.”
Adrian laughed once.
“You may want to reconsider how much secrecy you think our relationship can survive tonight.”
She flinched.
Detective Bennett stepped in.
“Ms. Laurent, stand up.”
Camille looked at Adrian.
“Please.”
He did not move.
She slowly stood.
Bennett asked, “Did you help Marcus Romano enter this home?”
Camille’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The word landed like a stone.
Adrian stared at her.
“Why?”
“He said he only wanted the file.”
“And when he attacked Hannah?”
“I didn’t know he would do that.”
I stepped forward.
Camille looked at me.
The fear in her face was real.
So was the guilt.
“I swear,” she whispered. “I didn’t know.”
I took the notebook and wrote:
YOU SAW ME AFTER.
She looked down.
I continued.
YOU TOLD ME TO FIX MY FACE BEFORE DINNER.
Adrian read over my shoulder.
His expression became terrifyingly still.
Camille started crying harder.
“I panicked.”
“You panicked,” Adrian said.
“I didn’t know what to do.”
“You knew enough to call her dramatic.”
“I was trying to keep everything from exploding.”
He looked around the ruined study.
“You failed.”
Camille’s mouth trembled.
Detective Bennett asked, “What is in the blue file?”
Adrian walked to the safe.
He stared at the empty shelf.
“Records.”
“What kind?”
“Financial transfers. Private trusts. Old corporate structures.”
“Connected to Marcus?”
“I don’t know.”
Camille made a broken sound.
Adrian turned toward her.
“You do.”
She shook her head.
He stepped closer.
“Tell me.”
Camille looked at the detectives.
Then at me.
Then back at Adrian.
“Your father paid someone to make Marcus disappear.”
Adrian went motionless.
Elena Romano, who had followed us upstairs, gripped the doorframe.
“That is a lie.”
Camille looked at her.
“No.”
Elena’s face turned white.
Camille continued.
“Vittorio did not kill Marcus. He paid to erase him. New identity. Offshore accounts. Medical records. Everything.”
Adrian said nothing.
“Why?” Bennett asked.
Camille’s eyes went to Adrian.
“Because Marcus knew what happened to Evelyn.”
The silence was so deep I could hear the rain beginning against the windows.
Adrian’s voice came low.
“What happened to her?”
Camille swallowed.
“She was pregnant.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Adrian looked at his aunt.
“You knew?”
“No.”
But she said it too quickly.
Camille saw it too.
“She was pregnant with a Romano heir. And three days before she died, she changed the beneficiary on a trust.”
Adrian’s face remained unreadable.
“To whom?”
Camille shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did Marcus want the blue file?”
“Because the beneficiary is in it.”
A noise came from inside the wall.
Soft.
Mechanical.
Thomas raised a hand.
Everyone froze.
The noise came again.
A phone vibrating.
Adrian looked toward the bookshelf.
Thomas moved first.
He pulled three books away.
Behind them sat a black phone.
Not Adrian’s.
Not Camille’s.
It was recording.
Thomas lifted it carefully.
The screen lit.
One active call.
No number.
Just a timer.
Someone had been listening for nineteen minutes.
Then the speaker activated.
Marcus’s voice filled the study.
“Good.”
Camille backed away.
Marcus laughed softly through the phone.
“Now we can stop pretending.”
Adrian stared at the device.
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“The file?”
“No.”
A pause.
“I want my daughter.”
Every person in the room went still.
Adrian’s face changed.
Camille covered her mouth.
Marcus continued.
“And she has been living under your roof for two years.”
My blood turned cold.
Adrian slowly looked at me.
May you like
So did everyone else.
The phone disconnected.
