Chapter 13 - Hold On to Me
Dante did not turn.
Ellie sat twenty feet away beside Lucia.
Her face was pale.
Benny was clutched against her chest.
Lucia stood slightly in front of her.
Protective.
The voice behind Dante sounded older than he expected.
“Put the card on the table.”
Marcus Vale.
Dante had not heard the name in twenty years, but the voice carried the confidence of someone who had spent a lifetime believing other people existed to be moved.
Dante slowly placed the memory card on an old metal workbench.
“Let Ellie leave.”
Marcus laughed.
“You Mercer men always negotiate before you understand your position.”
“Ellie has nothing to do with this.”
“Her father made that untrue.”
Lucia looked at Dante.
Fifteen years.
There should have been tears.
Questions.
An embrace.
Instead they stood inside a ruined greenhouse with a frightened child between them and a ghost behind Dante.
Lucia spoke.
“Marcus needs the archive under the floor.”
Dante finally turned slightly.
Marcus Vale looked seventy.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
Ordinary.
That somehow made him worse.
“You were supposed to be dead,” Dante said.
Marcus smiled.
“So was your sister.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Who took Ellie?”
“Men who believed they were doing a simple collection job.”
“Let her go.”
“After I have Evelyn’s records.”
Dante looked toward the floor.
“There’s nothing here.”
Marcus pointed toward the far wall.
“Your mother built the room beneath the rose beds.”
Lucia interrupted.
“He can’t open it.”
Marcus’s expression hardened.
“Your mother designed the lock.”
Dante understood.
A family lock.
Something involving him or Lucia.
“What do you need?”
Marcus smiled.
“Both Mercer children.”
Lucia looked sick.
“So that’s why you dragged me here.”
“Yes.”
“You sent the photograph to Ellie’s school.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted Dante searching.”
“I needed him to find Jacob’s evidence.”
Dante realized Marcus had manipulated all of them.
The warnings were not meant to stop Dante.
They were meant to push him.
Toward the box.
Toward the foundation.
Toward Evelyn’s archive.
“You used Sebastian too,” Dante said.
Marcus chuckled.
“Sebastian always believed he was the smartest man in the room.”
“What did you promise him?”
“A way out.”
Dante almost smiled.
“He believed you?”
“Fear makes intelligent men stupid.”
Lucia shifted closer to Ellie.
“Let the child go, Marcus.”
“Soon.”
Ellie looked at Dante.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I want my mom.”
Dante’s heart twisted.
“I know.”
“You promised.”
“I remember.”
“You said you’d come back.”
“I did.”
Marcus pointed toward the floor.
“Open it.”
Dante studied the greenhouse.
Then remembered his mother bringing him here as a boy.
Roses.
Lucia chasing butterflies.
A fountain that no longer worked.
Their mother telling them never to pull both brass handles at the same time because the storage door would jam.
Dante looked toward Lucia.
She remembered too.
Their eyes met.
For the first time in fifteen years, brother and sister communicated without words.
The brass handles remained beneath two planter shelves on opposite sides of the room.
They had to pull together.
Lucia took Ellie’s hand.
“Stay beside me.”
Marcus watched.
Dante moved toward one handle.
Lucia moved toward the other.
“Three?” she asked.
Dante almost laughed.
Lucia always counted too fast.
“On three.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
They pulled.
A section of floor released.
Old stairs descended into darkness.
Marcus smiled.
“Finally.”
He motioned Dante forward.
Dante descended first.
Lucia followed with Ellie.
Marcus behind them.
The room below smelled of paper and dust.
Metal cabinets lined every wall.
A tape recorder sat on a desk.
Photographs.
Ledgers.
Letters.
Twenty-three years of Evelyn Mercer’s secret work.
Marcus stared like a starving man.
Dante looked at Lucia.
“Why didn’t you destroy this?”
“I didn’t know it still existed.”
Marcus moved toward the cabinets.
He became distracted.
Dante noticed.
So did Lucia.
Ellie whispered, “Mr. Mercer.”
Dante looked at her.
Her breathing had become fast.
Too fast.
“I can’t breathe.”
Lucia crouched.
“Ellie.”
The girl shook.
“I want Mom.”
Panic.
Dante recognized it.
Not because he had seen it in children.
Because Lucia used to have the same attacks after their father shouted.
Dante approached slowly.
Marcus snapped, “Stay where you are.”
Dante ignored him.
“Ellie.”
She looked at him.
“Five minutes.”
Her face crumpled.
Dante knelt.
“Come here.”
Ellie ran into his arms.
Marcus cursed.
But the moment did something unexpected.
Lucia stared.
Her older brother held Ellie exactly the way he had once held her.
One hand behind the child’s head.
The other across her back.
Calm.
Steady.
“Breathe with me,” Dante whispered.
Ellie tried.
“That’s it.”
Marcus moved closer.
Lucia stepped between them.
“She’s seven.”
“This is not a family reunion.”
Dante kept his attention on Ellie.
“One breath.”
Then another.
The child gradually stopped trembling.
“You promised five minutes,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
Behind them came a distant sound.
A door upstairs.
Marcus turned.
“What was that?”
Dante continued holding Ellie.
Lucia smiled faintly.
“You really believed Dante came alone?”
Marcus looked toward him.
Dante said nothing.
Technically, he had driven alone.
But before leaving the estate, he had activated an emergency locator Rebecca installed on his phone.
He had no idea whether anyone followed.
Apparently someone did.
Footsteps moved above.
Marcus panicked.
He grabbed the memory card from his pocket.
“Stay back!”
Adrian’s voice echoed from the stairwell.
“Marcus!”
Lucia froze at the sound.
Adrian appeared.
Older.
Gray at the temples.
But unmistakable.
For the first time in fourteen years, Lucia saw the man who had once betrayed her location.
Neither spoke.
Marcus backed toward another exit.
Sebastian appeared behind Adrian.
Dante’s face hardened.
“What is he doing here?”
Adrian answered, “He knew the secondary tunnel.”
Sebastian looked at Marcus.
“You promised me this was over.”
Marcus laughed.
“You still believe promises?”
Something changed in Sebastian’s face.
Decades of arrogance suddenly looked tired.
Marcus moved toward the tunnel.
Sebastian blocked him.
“You took the girl.”
“Yes.”
“That was not the agreement.”
“You don’t get to develop morals at seventy.”
The statement landed.
Sebastian looked toward Ellie in Dante’s arms.
Then Lucia.
Alive.
His expression changed in a way Dante had never seen.
Shame.
Maybe.
Or merely exhaustion.
Marcus attempted to flee.
Adrian and the security officers who followed him stopped the old man before he reached the tunnel.
There was no dramatic fight.
No blood.
Only a seventy-year-old man discovering that the fear he built his life upon no longer controlled the room.
Police and federal agents were already on their way.
Rebecca had sent Jacob’s files hours earlier.
Marcus’s attempt to take Ellie had guaranteed they came quickly.
Rosa arrived twenty minutes later.
She ran down the greenhouse steps.
“Ellie!”
Ellie left Dante’s arms and flew toward her mother.
Rosa collapsed around her.
Both cried.
Dante stepped backward.
Then he remembered someone else in the room.
Lucia.
She stood alone beside the cabinet.
Brother and sister stared at each other.
Fifteen years.
Dante walked toward her.
Lucia’s lips trembled.
“I’m sorry.”
Dante stopped.
The anger he had imagined feeling did not come.
Only grief.
“You’re alive.”
She nodded.
“You’re really alive.”
“I am.”
Dante’s eyes filled.
Lucia whispered the words that had started everything.
“Five minutes?”
Dante laughed through tears.
Then he pulled his sister into his arms.
This time neither counted.
May you like
Because after fifteen years, five minutes could never be enough.
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