Chapter 3 - The Vault Behind My Father's Wall
Eight minutes.
That was how long Victor Salazar gave us before he threatened to kill my mother.
Eight minutes was enough time to destroy a life.
I knew.
Mine had been destroyed in less.
Adrian placed our son with the pediatric nurse.
"Nobody leaves this room."
The nurse nodded.
Two guards remained beside the sealed door.
I kissed my baby's forehead.
He smelled like milk and the lavender soap the nurse used.
For one terrible second, the gunfire, the betrayal and the past disappeared.
I was simply his mother.
That word hurt.
Mother.
The contract said otherwise.
My body didn't care.
"I'll come back," I whispered.
Adrian touched our son's tiny hand.
"So will I."
We left.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"To find out what Victor wants."
"He wants my father's ring."
"No."
Adrian rolled toward a steel cabinet in the adjoining security corridor.
"He called it the key."
Inside the cabinet were old architectural drawings.
Very old.
My breath caught when Adrian spread one across a table.
"I know that handwriting."
"Gabriel's?"
"Yes."
My father's notes covered the edges.
Hidden doors.
Drainage corridors.
A cellar route.
Storage numbers.
"How do you have this?"
"My father."
"Carlo Moretti?"
Adrian nodded.
"My father spent years collecting whatever survived from the Romano estate."
"Why?"
He didn't answer immediately.
"Adrian."
"Because after that night, he looked for you and your mother."
I stared at him.
"Why?"
"Protection."
"We never knew."
"He believed you were dead."
Something inside me twisted.
All those years of hiding.
All those motel rooms.
All those schools.
Somewhere, another family had been looking.
Maybe.
Or perhaps that was another lie.
I no longer knew.
Adrian tapped one symbol on the plans.
"Wine cellar. Vault seventeen."
I looked at my ring.
The crowned wolf had three tiny stars around it.
One star moved when I pressed it.
A faint click came from the ring.
My breath stopped.
I pressed a second.
The face of the signet opened.
Inside was a narrow metal strip engraved with numbers.
"I've worn this every day since I was six."
Adrian leaned closer.
"What are the numbers?"
I read them.
He checked the map.
"Seventeen."
The wine cellar was beneath the western wing.
The old mansion had no elevator there.
Adrian looked at the staircase.
Then at his wheelchair.
"I'll go."
"How?"
"Security chair."
"Your legs are already hurting."
His eyes met mine.
"My legs hurt every day."
"That doesn't make it harmless."
"Neither does your mother having a gun against her head."
Fair.
Two guards helped him transfer into a narrow motorized stair chair.
He hated every second.
I could tell.
Still, he said nothing.
We descended.
The cellar smelled of old oak and stone.
Dust covered shelves that hadn't held wine in decades.
Vault seventeen was hidden behind a brick wall.
The ring fit inside a circular indentation.
I turned it.
Something unlocked.
The wall shifted.
Inside sat a metal box.
No gold.
No cash.
No weapons.
A leather ledger.
Photographs.
A cassette tape sealed in plastic.
Adrian opened the ledger.
Names filled the pages.
Judges.
Police captains.
Bankers.
Politicians.
Union officials.
Business owners.
Dates.
Payments.
Accounts.
At the top of several pages were the same words.
SALAZAR NETWORK.
"My father kept evidence."
"Not just evidence."
Adrian flipped more pages.
"He documented an entire system."
"Why?"
"Insurance."
"Against Victor?"
"Against everyone who protected Victor."
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
"Time," Victor said.
"I found it."
Silence.
Then a soft exhale.
"Good girl."
I hated the way he said it.
"Release my mother."
"Bring the ledger."
"My mother first."
He laughed.
"You inherited Gabriel's stubbornness without inheriting his intelligence."
Adrian held out his hand.
I gave him the phone.
"Victor."
A pause.
"Adrian Moretti."
"If Evelyn Romano is harmed, the ledger goes federal."
Victor laughed again.
"You don't know what you're holding."
"I know enough."
"Do you?"
Adrian's eyes moved over the pages.
"Three minutes."
"Excuse me?"
"You have three minutes to release Evelyn."
Victor became quiet.
Adrian continued.
"After that, photographs of every page leave this house."
"There are no copies."
"There will be."
He ended the call.
I stared.
"He'll kill her."
"No."
"You don't know that."
"He's kept her alive because he needs leverage."
"He murdered my father."
"Exactly. He learned what happens when he destroys leverage too early."
Adrian handed the book to a guard.
"Photograph everything."
The phone rang again.
Victor.
I answered on speaker.
"I'll exchange Evelyn."
"For what?"
"Melissa."
Adrian said, "No."
Victor chuckled.
"The boy, then."
"No."
The word came sharper.
Victor's tone changed.
"You've grown sentimental, Adrian."
"Try me."
"Perhaps I'll simply kill the old woman."
"I'll come," I said.
Adrian turned toward me.
"Melissa."
"I'll bring the ledger."
"No."
Victor sounded delighted.
"Front courtyard. Five minutes."
"Release my mother when you see me."
"Perhaps."
The call ended.
Adrian grabbed my wrist.
"You're not going outside."
"My mother will die."
"And if you walk into Victor's hands, our son may lose you."
"He's your son legally."
Something flashed in Adrian's face.
"Don't."
"What?"
"Don't use that contract against yourself."
I stared.
"You wrote it."
"I know."
"You wanted an heir without a mother."
"I thought I did."
The sentence silenced me.
Adrian looked away first.
Rain beat against the cellar windows.
"I already owe your father my life," he said. "I'm not watching his daughter trade hers away."
"You can't protect everyone."
"I can protect you."
"Why?"
"Because you're the mother of my son."
"Only until Friday."
"Stop talking about Friday."
"Why?"
His jaw tightened.
Then he said, "Because I hate Friday."
I stared.
"What?"
"I hate that agreement."
"You paid lawyers to write it."
"And now I hate it."
My throat felt strangely tight.
"Why?"
Adrian looked at me for several seconds.
Then he wheeled toward the old map.
"Later."
Coward.
I almost said it.
Instead I noticed another notation.
ROSE GARDEN ACCESS.
"There was another exit."
Adrian looked over.
"From the tunnel?"
"Yes. My mother used to tell me not to play near the greenhouse because there was an underground entrance."
He studied the map.
"We can flank Victor."
"While someone distracts him at the front."
"No."
"You don't even know what I'm going to suggest."
"You."
"Obviously."
"No."
"Adrian."
"You're still recovering from childbirth."
"I'm capable of standing in a doorway."
"Under gunfire?"
"Hopefully not."
He stared at me.
"This is why people don't argue with me."
"Maybe you surround yourself with cowards."
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then one of the guards approached.
"Boss, there's something else."
He tapped a monitor.
A second vehicle had arrived.
An older man stepped out.
Silver hair.
Expensive coat.
He walked with a cane.
Adrian froze.
I had never seen him look that way.
Not even when he saw my father's ring.
"Who is that?"
He didn't answer.
"Adrian."
His lips barely moved.
"My father."
I stared at him.
"Carlo?"
He had told me Carlo Moretti died years ago.
Heart complications overseas.
Buried in a private cemetery.
Yet Carlo stood outside.
Alive.
Victor walked beside him.
Friendly.
Too friendly.
Then Victor turned the exterior speaker on.
"Adrian."
Carlo looked at the camera.
His face carried decades I couldn't understand.
"Son."
Adrian's hands tightened around the wheels of his chair.
"You're dead."
"I know what you were told."
"You let me bury an empty coffin."
Carlo's eyes closed.
"Yes."
"Why are you with him?"
Carlo looked toward Victor.
Then toward the house.
When he spoke again, his voice was rough.
"Because there are things you don't know."
"Then speak."
Victor smiled.
Carlo swallowed.
"Gabriel Romano didn't die only because Victor betrayed him."
My stomach turned.
Adrian's voice became almost inaudible.
"What did you do?"
Carlo looked straight into the camera.
"I told Salazar where Gabriel would be that night."
Adrian stopped moving.
So did I.
Carlo continued.
"I gave him the time of the meeting."
My father's ring suddenly felt like ice against my palm.
The man whose son my father had died saving had helped send the killers to our home.
May you like
And Adrian Moretti, the man I was beginning to love, had just discovered his father's greatest secret at the same moment I did.
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