Chapter 10 - Roman Vale’s Last Safe House
Roman did not confront Samuel inside the ballroom.
That was what Samuel wanted.
Instead he evacuated Blackridge.
Employees escaped through the service tunnels in groups.
Evelyn remained captive, but Roman refused to turn forty people into leverage.
By midnight, only Roman, Claire, Ethan, Marcus, Lena and four trusted guards remained.
Samuel had vanished.
So had Evelyn.
The ballroom contained only the chair and a message painted across the wall:
BRING ME THE LEDGER.
Roman finally accepted the obvious.
Blackridge was compromised beyond repair.
They left.
Roman’s last secure property stood seventy miles north, hidden behind pine forest near Lake Arden.
No staff.
No network connection.
No electronic gates.
A stone lodge his mother had loved.
Claire slept during part of the drive.
When she woke, Roman was beside her.
“You stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You were asleep.”
“That usually causes people to leave rooms, not guard them.”
Roman looked through the window.
“Not tonight.”
Claire studied him.
“You blame yourself.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“That is inefficient.”
“That wasn’t a denial.”
Roman looked at her.
Claire continued.
“You didn’t make Gabriel disappear. You didn’t make my mother fake her death. You didn’t make Samuel betray Ethan.”
“No.”
“But you still think you should have known.”
“Yes.”
Claire understood.
Roman had survived by believing awareness equaled control.
Samuel had attacked that belief directly.
At the lodge Ethan finally told the full story of Samuel.
They had grown up poor.
Ethan enlisted.
Samuel studied finance.
Vincent Vale hired Samuel before Ethan.
Samuel became brilliant at restructuring companies, identifying debt and designing shell corporations.
Vincent trusted him.
Too much.
“Samuel believed Vincent underestimated him,” Ethan said.
“Did he?” Roman asked.
“Yes.”
Ethan looked ashamed.
“My brother wanted more than salary. He wanted power.”
“When did you discover it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Vincent did.”
Ethan nodded.
“Twenty years ago Vincent told me Samuel had died overseas during a business trip.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
Ethan glared.
“I was twenty-nine and believed the man who employed both of us.”
Roman said, “Samuel arranged his own death.”
“Apparently.”
Claire asked, “Why keep Ethan alive?”
Samuel’s brother answered.
“Because I was useful.”
Roman understood.
Samuel used Ethan’s loyalty to the Vale family.
Every security protocol Ethan designed could be studied through old habits.
Every decision Vincent made could be predicted through conversations with Ethan.
Samuel had an unwitting window into Blackridge.
Claire thought of her mother’s warning.
Fear the person who always arrives already knowing what happened.
Not Ethan.
Samuel.
Because Samuel had engineered the events before anyone else could discover them.
Marcus spread documents across the lodge table.
“We still need the ledger.”
Roman frowned.
“It may not exist anymore.”
Evelyn had apparently hidden sections.
Gabriel likely held others.
Vincent may have destroyed the original.
Claire removed her mother’s ledger page.
“What if Samuel doesn’t know that?”
Roman looked at her.
“Continue.”
“He keeps demanding the whole ledger. Maybe he thinks someone else has it.”
“Gabriel,” Marcus said.
Roman nodded.
“And Gabriel thinks I have it.”
Three enemies chasing the same object.
Except two of them might not actually be enemies.
Roman asked Marcus, “Can you contact Gabriel?”
Marcus laughed.
“If I could, the last six years would have been easier.”
Ethan said, “Samuel can.”
Silence.
Roman looked at him.
“How?”
“Gabriel sent Samuel information before Northbridge.”
Marcus stared.
“What?”
Ethan explained.
“Gabriel believed Samuel was investigating Vincent’s corruption.”
“But Samuel was the corruption,” Claire said.
“Yes.”
Roman finally saw the entire architecture.
Samuel framed Gabriel using fraudulent payments.
Then positioned himself as Gabriel’s secret ally.
He convinced Gabriel that Vincent was responsible.
At the same time he convinced Vincent that Gabriel had betrayed him.
Then Samuel disappeared.
The two sides destroyed each other while Samuel kept the network.
Masterful.
Cruel.
Patient.
Roman looked at Ethan.
“How would Gabriel contact Samuel?”
“Dead-drop system.”
“Where?”
Ethan gave him the address.
An abandoned church outside Albany.
Roman stood.
Claire immediately did too.
“No.”
She crossed her arms.
“We’ve covered this.”
“You’re staying here.”
“We have covered that too.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“Samuel has your mother.”
“And Gabriel knew my mother.”
Roman stopped.
She was right.
Again.
Roman hated the pattern.
Three hours later, he and Claire entered the abandoned church.
Marcus watched outside.
Ethan remained at the lodge.
Roman found a metal box beneath the fourth pew.
Inside was a phone.
It rang.
Roman answered.
No greeting.
Then Gabriel Kane spoke.
“Vincent’s son.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“Gabriel.”
Claire watched him.
“You’ve been difficult to bury.”
Gabriel laughed softly.
“So have you.”
“Samuel Mercer has Evelyn.”
Silence.
That caught Gabriel off guard.
“Evelyn is alive?”
Roman looked at Claire.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Interesting.
Gabriel had believed the official story too.
Roman said, “Samuel is the Architect.”
A long pause.
Then Gabriel whispered, “Samuel is dead.”
Roman almost laughed.
“Apparently death certificates have very little meaning in our social circle.”
Claire covered a nervous smile.
Gabriel became serious.
“Prove it.”
Roman described what happened.
The recording.
The ledger page.
The ring.
Ethan recognizing the voice.
Gabriel listened.
Then he said something Roman did not expect.
“Meet me.”
“Where?”
“I’ll send coordinates.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Roman respected the answer.
Gabriel continued.
“But Samuel killed people you cared about. He killed people I cared about. And if Evelyn is alive, we have a chance to end this.”
The phone disconnected.
Claire looked at Roman.
“Is he coming?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust him?”
“No.”
“Are we meeting him?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“That seems consistent.”
As they left the church, Roman’s phone received coordinates.
Claire looked.
The location was Northbridge.
The exact place where Roman had watched Gabriel Kane die seven years earlier.
May you like
And waiting there the next morning would be the man whose funeral had changed everything.
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