Chapter 7
“Welcome back.”
The words echoed through the warehouse.
I stared at Sebastian Vale.
“I’ve never been here.”
His smile widened.
“No. But your mother brought you once.”
My stomach dropped.
Vincent stepped in front of me.
“When?”
Sebastian’s eyes stayed on mine.
“1997.”
I tried to remember.
Nothing.
Four years old.
A warehouse.
Fear.
Maybe memory had buried it.
Maybe he was lying.
Celeste twisted against the ropes.
“Don’t listen to him.”
Sebastian finally looked at her.
“You always were impatient.”
Celeste’s face hardened.
“You kidnapped me.”
“You came willingly.”
“You had a gun.”
“That does tend to improve attendance.”
Vincent’s body went still.
“Untie her.”
Sebastian laughed.
“No.”
Matteo whispered, “Security is not answering.”
Vincent looked toward the catwalk.
A man above us held a radio.
Sebastian said, “Your team is safe. Their tires are less fortunate.”
Matteo muttered something obscene.
Sebastian lifted one hand.
“Let’s not make this theatrical.”
Celeste gave a bitter laugh.
“You tied me to a chair under a spotlight.”
“That was for clarity.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Where is Eleanor?”
Sebastian’s smile disappeared.
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“Closer than you think.”
“You killed my father.”
Sebastian tilted his head.
“Carlo killed himself slowly over twenty-nine years. Guilt is a very patient poison.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
Vincent reached inside his coat.
Every man on the catwalk raised a weapon.
Sebastian shook his head.
“Please don’t.”
Vincent removed the black ledger slowly and held it up.
“You wanted this?”
Sebastian barely glanced at it.
“That book is garbage.”
Celeste stared.
“What?”
He looked at her.
“You were useful because you believed it mattered.”
Her face changed.
Vincent looked from Sebastian to Celeste.
“She was working for you.”
“For a time.”
Celeste shook her head.
“No. I was working for my father’s estate.”
Sebastian smiled.
“Victor’s estate was me.”
The words hit her visibly.
“You said my father left instructions.”
“He did.”
“You showed me recordings.”
“Real recordings.”
“You said Vincent’s family ruined him.”
“Victor believed that.”
Celeste’s breathing became faster.
“You told me the memorial payments were a test.”
“They were.”
Vincent said, “A test for what?”
Sebastian looked at him.
“To see who still felt loyalty to Carlo.”
The black ledger suddenly made sense.
The names.
Old employees.
Neighbors.
Family friends.
Twenty-three people paid.
Eleven could not.
Celeste had not merely stolen money.
She had built a loyalty map.
“Those amounts were never about money,” I said.
Sebastian looked pleased.
“Anna’s daughter.”
Vincent asked, “What happened to the people who paid?”
“Nothing yet.”
Celeste’s face drained.
“You told me they would be invited to the foundation board.”
Sebastian smiled.
“I told you many things.”
She struggled harder against the ropes.
“You used me.”
“Yes.”
There was no softness in it.
That was what finally broke something in her.
For hours, Celeste had defended, lied, threatened, blamed.
Now she looked small.
Not innocent.
Never that.
But deceived.
Vincent’s voice remained cold.
“She had Grace attacked.”
Sebastian looked at my bandages.
“An unnecessary flourish.”
Celeste snapped, “I told Adrian to get the ledger back, not cut her.”
I looked at her.
“You told him to scare me.”
“Yes.”
“At least say it clearly.”
She met my eyes.
“I told him to scare you.”
“Thank you.”
It was not forgiveness.
It was simply one true sentence in a night full of lies.
Vincent held up the fake red ledger case.
“You asked for both.”
Sebastian looked at it with more interest.
“There.”
He stepped closer.
Vincent did not move.
“Give it to me.”
“Mother first.”
Sebastian smiled again.
“You sound like Carlo.”
“People keep telling me that.”
“He thought everything could become a negotiation.”
“And you exploited that.”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
Sebastian glanced around the warehouse.
“Because Romano Shipping was dying in 1993.”
Anthony had described shell vendors.
Money laundering.
But Sebastian told a different beginning.
“Your grandfather expanded too quickly. Debt everywhere. Banks circling. Carlo wanted to sell assets. I found another source of capital.”
“Criminal money.”
“Unrecorded money.”
“Drugs?”
“Some clients were worse than others.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“You laundered money through the company.”
“I saved the company.”
“You infected it.”
Sebastian shrugged.
“Words.”
“And Mom found out.”
“Yes.”
“Dad?”
“Later.”
“Victor?”
“My operator. Talented. Greedy. Weak.”
Celeste flinched.
Sebastian glanced at her.
“Your father liked being dangerous more than he liked understanding danger.”
She spat at him.
It fell short.
He smiled.
Vincent said, “What did you do to Eleanor?”
Sebastian’s gaze became distant.
“She was difficult.”
“Where is she?”
“She collected evidence. She convinced Anna to copy internal accounts. They planned to meet federal agents.”
He looked at me.
“Your mother brought you because the babysitter canceled.”
My stomach turned.
A ridiculous detail.
A normal detail.
The kind liars sometimes use because truth is hidden inside it.
“You were asleep in her car,” Sebastian continued. “Victor found her before she left.”
I whispered, “You threatened me.”
“Yes.”
Vincent stepped forward.
I caught his sleeve.
He looked back.
Not because Sebastian did not deserve violence.
Because guns surrounded us.
Sebastian continued.
“Anna surrendered the copies. Eleanor did not surrender.”
“So you took her.”
“Yes.”
Celeste stopped struggling.
Even she seemed sickened.
“You kept a woman for twenty-nine years?”
Sebastian looked offended by the phrasing.
“I kept her alive.”
Vincent’s face became terrifying.
“Where?”
“Various places.”
“She called tonight.”
“I know.”
“You found her.”
“I have always known where she was.”
Something moved near the rear loading door.
A shadow.
Sebastian’s eyes shifted.
Only for a second.
Matteo saw it too.
So did I.
Vincent said, “Why let her call?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then your control isn’t as complete as you think.”
That landed.
Sebastian’s smile thinned.
I looked at Celeste.
Her hands were tied behind the chair.
But one wrist was moving strangely.
Rubbing.
Back and forth.
Against something sharp.
A metal edge under the chair.
She was cutting the rope.
I looked away before Sebastian noticed.
“Why bring me here?” I asked.
He looked back at me.
“Because Anna stole more than the ledger.”
“What?”
“A list of safe accounts.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You do.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“Your mother was clever. She knew people would search papers, boxes, walls, banks.”
His eyes dropped to my hands.
“She hid information where a child could carry it without knowing.”
I stared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
“A song.”
My skin prickled.
He began to hum.
Three notes.
Then four.
I stopped breathing.
My mother used to sing a strange little counting song when I was young.
Not a real nursery rhyme.
I had never heard it anywhere else.
One blue boat, two red doors.
Three white birds on seven shores.
I remembered the rest.
Four small bells, one silver line.
Five dark windows, nine then nine.
Numbers.
Colors.
Images.
Sebastian watched my face.
“You remember.”
“No.”
“You do.”
Vincent turned toward me.
I could not lie well enough.
Sebastian continued.
“Anna encoded account numbers in that rhyme.”
Matteo whispered, “That is insane.”
“Anna was very good with patterns.”
I felt suddenly betrayed by a dead woman and guilty for feeling it.
Every bedtime.
Every car ride.
My mother had put criminal account data into my memory.
Perhaps because she thought a child’s mind was safer than paper.
Perhaps because she believed she might die.
“Why do you need it now?” Vincent asked.
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“Because Carlo froze the old reserve accounts before he died.”
“You lost access.”
“Temporarily.”
“And the song unlocks them?”
“Part of the verification.”
“How much?”
Sebastian did not answer.
Matteo smiled faintly.
“That much.”
Vincent looked at me.
“Do not say the rhyme.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Sebastian sighed.
“I hoped we could be civilized.”
Celeste suddenly stood.
The ropes fell from one wrist.
She swung the metal chair sideways into the nearest guard.
Everything happened at once.
Vincent pulled me down.
Matteo lunged toward Celeste.
A gun fired.
The hanging light shattered.
Darkness.
Shouting.
Metal footsteps on catwalks.
Another gunshot.
I crawled behind a forklift.
Vincent was beside me.
“You hit?”
“No.”
“Stay down.”
Celeste screamed from somewhere to our right.
“Rear door!”
Matteo shouted, “Locked!”
Sebastian’s voice roared through the dark.
“Get the girl!”
Hands grabbed my injured arm.
Pain exploded.
I kicked backward.
My heel struck a shin.
Someone cursed.
I twisted.
A man with a lion ring grabbed my hair.
Before he could pull me upright, Vincent hit him.
The man fell.
Vincent dragged me toward the loading bay.
Then a siren sounded outside.
Not police.
A ship horn.
Deep.
Close.
The rear warehouse doors began to rise.
Everyone froze.
White headlights poured through the opening.
A black van drove directly into the warehouse.
It slammed into a stack of empty pallets.
Men scattered.
The side door opened.
Mrs. Dalca stepped out.
Holding a shotgun.
Matteo stared.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
She fired into the ceiling.
The sound was enormous.
“Everybody down!”
Even Sebastian looked surprised.
Behind the van came two federal vehicles.
Then city police.
Matteo grinned.
“My ex-wife’s brother works for the U.S. Attorney.”
Vincent looked at him.
“You left that out.”
“Family bonding.”
Officers flooded the warehouse.
Sebastian backed toward a stairwell.
I saw him.
“So did Vincent.”
He ran after him.
“Vincent!”
I followed.
Pain tore through my leg.
Up the metal stairs.
Across the catwalk.
Sebastian moved faster than a seventy-four-year-old man should.
At the far end, he reached a door.
Vincent caught him before he opened it.
They slammed against the railing.
Sebastian struck Vincent with something metal.
Vincent staggered.
I saw the glint.
Knife.
“Stop!”
Sebastian turned toward me.
That was enough.
Vincent hit his wrist.
The knife flew over the rail.
Officers climbed the stairs below.
Sebastian looked around.
No exit.
He laughed breathlessly.
“Carlo’s son finally corners me.”
Vincent held him against the rail.
“Where is my mother?”
Sebastian smiled.
“If I tell you, I have nothing.”
“You have federal charges.”
“I have lawyers.”
“You have seventy-four years.”
Sebastian’s eyes shifted to me.
“Ask Grace.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“The song.”
He smiled.
“The last line.”
I remembered.
Six steps down where roses sleep.
My blood turned cold.
Vincent saw it.
“What does it say?”
I whispered the line.
Sebastian laughed.
Vincent’s face changed.
“The rose garden.”
Romano House had a formal rose garden.
At its center stood an old stone pavilion.
Six steps led down to a maintenance cellar.
Everyone knew it was sealed.
Everyone.
Look where nobody looks because everybody already knows what’s there.
I stared at Sebastian.
“Eleanor is at the house.”
His smile vanished.
That was confirmation.
Vincent released him into federal custody and ran.
We drove back so fast the city lights became streaks.
At Romano House, rain had stopped.
The eastern sky was beginning to gray.
We crossed the garden.
White memorial roses had been arranged everywhere earlier that day.
Now they looked ghostly in the dawn.
At the pavilion, Vincent found the cellar doors beneath climbing vines.
A new padlock hung there.
Matteo cut it.
Six steps down.
Exactly six.
At the bottom was a steel door.
Vincent pounded on it.
“Mom!”
Nothing.
Again.
“Mom!”
A sound came from inside.
Weak.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Vincent?”
He stopped.
His whole body seemed to stop.
The lock was electronic.
I looked at the keypad.
Nine digits.
Sebastian’s words returned.
The song.
Numbers.
I whispered the lines.
One.
Two.
Three.
Seven.
Four.
One.
Five.
Nine.
Nine.
I entered:
123741599.
Red light.
Wrong.
Vincent looked at me.
“Again.”
I thought.
Colors might tell order.
Blue, red, white.
Then bells.
Silver.
Dark.
Maybe numbers paired.
12.
37.
41.
599.
I tried 123741599 again.
Nothing.
My mother’s voice lived somewhere in memory.
She never sang the lines evenly.
She paused after “two red doors.”
Then after “seven shores.”
One blue boat, two red doors.
Three white birds on seven shores.
Four small bells, one silver line.
Five dark windows, nine then nine.
Pairs.
12 37 41 599.
Still the same sequence.
Unless the object counts were not numbers.
One BLUE boat.
Two RED doors.
Three WHITE birds.
Colors.
Blue-gray.
Midnight green.
White memorial flowers.
I shook my head.
Too much.
Then I remembered the final lines.
Six steps down where roses sleep.
Turn the numbers. Secrets keep.
Turn the numbers.
Reverse them.
995147321.
I entered it.
Green light.
The steel door clicked.
Vincent pulled it open.
A small underground room lay beyond.
A bed.
A lamp.
Medical supplies.
Books.
And an elderly woman sitting in a chair.
Thin.
White hair to her shoulders.
Blue-gray eyes.
She looked at Vincent.
He looked at her.
Twenty-nine years stood between them.
Neither moved.
Then Eleanor Romano whispered, “My boy.”
Vincent crossed the room.
May you like
He fell to his knees in front of her.
And for the first time since I had known him, Vincent Romano cried.
