Chapter 4 - Someone Inside the Mansion Wanted the Boy
By sunrise, nobody had been allowed to leave the Lombardi estate.
Sebastian’s security team collected phones, reviewed surveillance footage, checked doors, windows and electronic access logs.
Nothing.
Whoever had photographed Oliver knew exactly where the cameras were.
That frightened Clare more than the explosion.
A stranger could be stopped at a gate.
A traitor already knew which doors were unlocked.
Oliver sat at the breakfast table eating cereal while two armed guards stood outside.
“Why are those guys following me?”
“They’re protecting you,” Clare said.
“From what?”
“A problem.”
“What problem?”
“A grown-up problem.”
Oliver frowned.
“Grown-ups have a lot of those.”
Sebastian entered in his wheelchair.
“An unfortunate side effect of getting older.”
Oliver pointed at him.
“You should stay eight.”
“I’ll consider it.”
Clare watched Sebastian carefully.
He had not slept.
Neither had she.
Gabriel entered.
“We found something.”
In Sebastian’s office, he displayed footage from a service corridor.
At 2:13 a.m., one camera went black for forty-seven seconds.
When it returned, nothing appeared different.
“Who can disable that camera?”
“Seven people.”
“Names.”
Gabriel handed him a list.
Clare recognized one.
Elena Lombardi.
“Who’s Elena?”
Sebastian’s expression changed.
“My cousin.”
Victor’s daughter.
Clare stared at him.
“She lives here?”
“Sometimes.”
“You let Victor Lombardi’s daughter inside your home?”
“Elena hates her father.”
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
That afternoon, Elena arrived voluntarily.
She was thirty-six, elegant, dark-haired and furious.
“You think I threatened a child?”
Sebastian watched her.
“I think somebody did.”
“And because my father is a monster, I inherited the disease?”
Clare stood near the window.
Elena noticed her.
“So this is the therapist.”
“Clare Bennett,” Sebastian said.
Elena’s face changed.
“Bennett?”
Clare stepped forward.
“You knew Daniel?”
Elena looked toward Sebastian.
That was answer enough.
“How?”
Elena sat down.
“Your husband contacted me four years ago.”
Clare’s heart hammered.
“Why?”
“Because I was already investigating my father.”
Sebastian’s face darkened.
“You never told me.”
“You didn’t trust anyone.”
“You could have told me.”
“You would have killed him.”
“Maybe.”
“Exactly.”
Elena looked at Clare.
“Daniel discovered what my father and Vale were doing. I helped him copy the files.”
“Were you with him the night he died?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was going to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
Clare’s voice broke.
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I tried.”
Elena opened her handbag slowly.
Gabriel immediately reached for his weapon.
She removed an envelope.
“I’ve carried this for four years.”
Inside was a photograph.
Daniel standing beside Elena.
And behind them—
Sebastian’s father.
Clare stared.
Sebastian whispered, “Impossible.”
His father had died five years earlier.
The photograph was dated four years ago.
Gabriel examined it.
“Date could be altered.”
Elena shook her head.
“Your father didn’t die when you thought he did.”
Sebastian’s face lost color.
“What?”
“His death was staged.”
The room became silent.
Clare felt as though every answer created another nightmare.
“Why?” Sebastian asked.
“Because your father discovered Victor was stealing from the organization. He planned to expose him. Victor found out.”
“You’re saying my father survived?”
“For eleven months.”
“Where?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“Vale kept him alive.”
Sebastian gripped the arms of his wheelchair.
“Why?”
“Because he needed access codes only your father knew.”
Clare watched rage enter Sebastian’s face.
Not loud rage.
The dangerous kind.
“What happened to him?”
Elena lowered her eyes.
“He died in Vale’s private clinic.”
Sebastian turned toward the window.
Nobody spoke.
Clare wanted to touch him.
She did not know whether she had the right.
Then Elena said something worse.
“Before he died, he gave Daniel something.”
Sebastian looked back.
“What?”
“A ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“Names. Judges. Police officers. politicians. Doctors. Businessmen. Everyone Victor paid.”
Clare understood the message on her mirror.
Give back what Daniel stole.
“The drive isn’t what they want.”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
“They want the ledger.”
“Exactly.”
Clare thought about Daniel.
Their apartment.
His habits.
His hiding places.
Then she remembered the watch.
“Sebastian.”
He looked at her.
“Give me the watch.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Please.”
Sebastian removed it.
Clare examined the back.
The engraved plate seemed slightly thicker than necessary.
“Do you have a knife?”
Gabriel produced one.
Clare stared at him.
“You just carry that?”
“Yes.”
She decided not to ask.
Carefully, Gabriel loosened the backing.
Beneath the engraving was a tiny memory card.
Nobody moved.
Sebastian whispered, “My father’s watch.”
Clare looked at him.
“What?”
“It belonged to him before he gave it to me.”
Gabriel inserted the card into an offline reader.
A single encrypted file appeared.
LEDGER.
Sebastian stared at the screen.
Daniel had never stolen the ledger.
Sebastian had been wearing it for four years.
The man everyone wanted dead had unknowingly carried the evidence on his wrist.
And Clare had walked through Chicago with it inside her handbag.
Gabriel looked pale.
“We need to move this somewhere secure.”
“No,” Clare said.
Everyone looked at her.
“We need copies.”
Sebastian understood first.
“If Victor thinks there’s one copy, he can keep killing people.”
“Exactly.”
They duplicated everything.
One copy went to an attorney outside Illinois.
Another to a federal investigator Elena trusted.
A third was scheduled for automatic release to journalists if Sebastian, Clare or Oliver disappeared.
For the first time, Victor Lombardi no longer controlled the secret.
But he still controlled something else.
Fear.
That evening, Clare resumed Sebastian’s therapy.
He was distracted.
“Again,” she said.
He pushed through his left leg.
The muscle contracted.
“Again.”
He tried.
His body shook.
“Stop.”
“No.”
“You’re fatigued.”
“I said no.”
“Sebastian.”
“I lost four years.”
“And destroying yourself tonight won’t bring them back.”
He slammed his fist against the table.
Clare did not flinch.
His anger vanished almost immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
She sat beside him.
“You’re allowed to be angry.”
“I don’t know how to be only angry.”
“What does that mean?”
“When I was younger, anger meant someone paid for it.”
“And now?”
He looked at her.
“Now there’s an eight-year-old sleeping upstairs who thinks my wheelchair is a race car.”
Clare smiled faintly.
“And his mother?”
Sebastian’s gaze held hers.
“She complicates things.”
“How?”
“She makes me think about what happens afterward.”
“After what?”
“After revenge.”
Clare’s heart beat faster.
Sebastian lifted one hand and touched a loose strand of hair near her cheek.
Slowly.
Giving her time to move.
She did not.
“I spent years believing caring about someone was an invitation for the world to take them from me.”
Clare whispered, “Maybe that’s not living.”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“You.”
He kissed her.
Not violently.
Not possessively.
It was almost cautious.
That surprised her most.
Clare kissed him back.
Then the bedroom door opened.
Oliver stood there holding a glass of water.
He stared.
Clare jumped backward.
Sebastian looked toward the ceiling.
Oliver grinned.
“I knew it.”
“Bed,” Clare said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Bed.”
Oliver disappeared, laughing.
For the first time in years, Clare felt embarrassed in a way that had nothing to do with money or grief.
She started laughing.
Sebastian did too.
For perhaps thirty seconds, their lives felt normal.
Then Gabriel entered.
His face destroyed the moment.
“Federal contact is dead.”
Sebastian’s smile disappeared.
“What?”
“Car bombing. Twenty minutes ago.”
Clare went cold.
“And the copy?”
“Missing.”
Sebastian reached for his phone.
Gabriel stopped him.
“There’s more.”
He placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Victor Lombardi entering a private medical facility outside Chicago.
Beside him walked Dr. Adrian Vale.
And between them was a boy in a red winter coat.
Clare’s knees nearly gave way.
She knew that coat.
She had bought it herself.
She ran upstairs.
Oliver’s bed was empty.
The two guards outside his room were unconscious.
On the pillow lay a note.
Bring the watch. Come alone.
May you like
Or your son becomes Sebastian’s final surgery.
---
