Chapter 7 - The Night the Gates Fell
The first vehicle smashed through the gate at 1:17 a.m.
Roman didn't wait for the second.
“Basement. Now.”
Renley grabbed her mother's hand.
Elena resisted.
“What about you?”
“I'll meet you there.”
“You're lying.”
Roman looked at her.
“Yes.”
Elena understood.
Roman was about to fight.
Renley did too.
She grabbed his sleeve.
“You said you're tired of burying people.”
“I am.”
“Then don't become the reason they get buried.”
Roman stared at her.
Gunfire erupted outside.
Glass shattered.
Miles shouted from the hall.
“Boss!”
Roman pulled Renley's hand from his arm.
“Go.”
She didn't.
“Renley!”
Walter's voice seemed to echo in Roman's mind.
People are more valuable than secrets.
Roman changed course.
He ordered everyone through an underground service tunnel built decades earlier.
The mansion could burn.
They would not.
Miles objected.
“We can hold them.”
“No.”
“They're taking everything.”
“Let them.”
Roman opened the tunnel door.
For a man whose entire identity had been built around territory, property, and control, those two words were revolutionary.
Let them.
Samuel helped Jonah, whose injured shoulder remained bandaged.
Elena entered with Renley.
Roman followed last.
As they crossed beneath the grounds, an explosion shook dust from the ceiling.
Renley looked back.
“That was the house?”
“Yes.”
“Aren't you upset?”
Roman thought about the chandelier.
The marble.
The paintings.
The rooms nobody laughed in.
“No.”
At the far end, they emerged near the river.
Behind them, flames rose above trees.
Roman Vale's mansion was burning.
Phones across the city lit up with the news.
By sunrise, photographs were everywhere.
CRIME LORD'S ESTATE ATTACKED
VALE WAR RETURNS
Roman hated the headlines because they made violence sound glamorous.
There was nothing glamorous about watching firefighters search a burning home.
Nothing glamorous about people hiding underground.
Nothing glamorous about children learning the sound of gunshots.
Walter had understood that eventually.
Roman was beginning to.
They moved temporarily into a safe property Samuel owned outside town.
There, Roman examined everything rescued from Walter's basement.
One tape contained a clue.
“Remember where your mother took you when you were afraid.”
Roman frowned.
Renley asked, “Where did she take you?”
Roman thought.
Then remembered.
A public library.
Not for books.
For the enormous model train display in the children's section.
Whenever thunder frightened him, Evelyn took him there.
Roman stood.
“The old central library.”
It had closed eight years earlier.
The building was waiting for redevelopment.
That afternoon, they entered through a side door with permission from the property manager.
The children's room remained mostly untouched.
Dust covered shelves.
The train display was gone.
But the platform beneath it remained.
Roman found a loose board.
Underneath lay an envelope.
Inside was no ledger.
Only a photograph of Evelyn holding baby Roman.
Behind her stood Walter.
They looked ordinary.
Happy.
Roman stared.
He couldn't remember his parents looking that way.
Renley flipped the photograph.
Words were written behind it.
THE LEDGER ISN'T PAPER ANYMORE.
Samuel frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Miles said, “Digital?”
Roman searched under the board again.
Nothing.
Renley examined the photograph.
“There.”
A tiny symbol.
A blue bird.
Renley recognized it.
“Mr. Pike used to draw that.”
Roman turned.
“Where?”
“On my delivery receipts sometimes.”
“What does it mean?”
“He said it meant home.”
Roman felt something shift.
“Where did Walter call home?”
Renley thought.
“Not his apartment.”
“How do you know?”
“He complained about it constantly.”
Despite everything, Roman laughed.
Renley smiled.
Then her face changed.
“He once told me home was the place where somebody remembers your favorite soup.”
Roman stared.
The kitchen.
They drove back immediately.
Mrs. Alvarez listened as Renley explained the blue bird.
She frowned.
“Walter helped repair our old freezer last year.”
Roman's pulse increased.
They pulled the freezer away from the wall.
Behind it was a metal plate.
Roman used the brass key.
It opened.
Inside rested a small waterproof drive.
Samuel whispered, “There it is.”
Roman held the object containing enough evidence to destroy decades of corruption.
Then Renley noticed an envelope beneath it.
Her name was written across the front.
RENLEY HART.
She opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
Walter had written:
Dear Renley,
If you found this, then Roman finally learned to listen to someone smaller than himself.
Roman almost smiled.
Then Renley continued.
Her expression changed.
At the bottom of the letter Walter had written something none of them expected.
Do not give the drive to the police.
One of the people protecting Victor Dane wears a federal badge.
And beneath that warning was a name.
A name Roman recognized immediately.
The federal prosecutor who had been investigating him for six years.
May you like
Andrew Mercer.
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