Chapter 2 - Twenty-Three Minutes
Roman Moretti had spent most of his adult life learning not to react.
Not when prosecutors named him in press conferences.
Not when competitors threatened contracts worth millions.
Not when men twice his age tried to intimidate him across polished conference tables.
Not even three years earlier, when a state trooper had called shortly after midnight and told him his younger brother’s car had gone through a barrier on the West Side Highway.
Roman had listened.
Asked where.
Asked which hospital.
Then dressed before allowing himself to understand that Luca was already dead.
Control had become survival.
But when the security guard showed him the access log from the west service elevator, Roman felt something inside him crack.
Cardholder: Luca Moretti.
Access time: 11:09 P.M.
Impossible.
Luca’s personal access card had disappeared the night he died.
Roman himself had searched his brother’s belongings.
Wallet.
Phone.
Watch.
Keys.
The card had never been recovered.
Roman raised his eyes.
“Shut down that elevator.”
The guard touched his earpiece.
“Control room, disable West Service Two.”
Static answered.
The guard frowned.
“Control, respond.”
Nothing.
Roman looked toward the bank of service corridors beyond the lobby.
“Where is your supervisor?”
“He should be downstairs.”
“Should be?”
The guard’s face tightened.
“I haven’t seen him since ten-thirty.”
Roman turned to his longtime security director, Daniel Cross, who had just come down from the party upstairs.
Cross was fifty-one, former NYPD, broad-shouldered, steady.
Roman trusted very few people.
Cross had been one of them for fourteen years.
“What do we know?” Roman asked.
Cross glanced at Emily.
Roman noticed.
“She stays.”
Cross nodded.
“West service elevator runs from basement loading level to forty-eight. It can be isolated manually from the machine room.”
“Do it.”
“I already sent two men.”
“Bring them back.”
Cross frowned.
Roman pointed at the reconstructed letter.
“If someone wants me near that elevator at eleven-forty, I’m not sending two guards there blind.”
Cross understood.
He recalled them.
Emily remained beside the coffee table where Roman had transferred the torn letter.
Nobody had offered her a chair.
Roman noticed that too.
“Sit.”
Emily looked at him.
“I’m okay.”
“That wasn’t a command.”
Something flickered in her expression.
Surprise, perhaps.
Roman pulled a chair from a nearby seating area.
“Sit.”
This time she did.
Vanessa watched from several feet away.
“Roman, may I speak with you privately?”
“No.”
Her eyes hardened.
“Seriously?”
“Completely.”
Guests had begun to gather near the upper balcony after learning the building doors were locked.
Murmurs filtered down.
Roman barely heard them.
His attention remained on Vanessa.
“You recognized something.”
“I recognized nothing.”
“You were frightened before the envelope opened.”
“I was irritated.”
Emily spoke quietly.
“No.”
Vanessa turned.
Emily immediately looked as though she wished she had stayed silent.
Roman said, “Go on.”
Emily swallowed.
“She wasn’t irritated.”
Vanessa laughed once.
“Now we’re taking psychological analysis from strangers?”
Emily met her eyes.
“I’ve been living outside long enough to know what fear looks like.”
That silenced the room.
Emily continued.
“When I showed the envelope, you looked at the handwriting.”
Roman’s head turned.
“The handwriting?”
Emily nodded.
“She didn’t look at me first. She looked at the envelope. Specifically the writing on the front.”
Roman picked it up.
His name had been written in block letters.
ROMAN MORETTI — PERSONAL
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“People see patterns when they want to.”
Emily didn’t answer.
Roman examined the envelope.
Then something occurred to him.
He turned it over.
There, near the flap, almost hidden beneath rain stains, were two handwritten initials.
T.V.
Roman’s body went still.
Cross leaned closer.
“Do those mean something?”
Roman did not answer immediately.
Thomas Vale.
Luca’s driver.
Not merely driver.
Friend.
Confidant.
The man Luca trusted when he wanted to disappear from the Moretti security detail and pretend he was an ordinary thirty-year-old man for an evening.
Thomas Vale had vanished forty-eight hours after Luca’s death.
Police assumed he fled because he knew something.
Roman had spent two years trying to find him.
“Maybe,” Roman said.
He turned toward Emily.
“The man who gave you the letter—was there a scar near his right ear?”
She thought.
“Yes.”
Roman’s pulse jumped.
“A thin white one?”
“Yes.”
Cross looked at him.
“Thomas?”
Roman nodded once.
Vanessa whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Roman turned.
Too quickly.
Vanessa realized her mistake.
“How do you know Thomas Vale?” Roman asked.
“I met him before Luca died.”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“You brought Luca to my father’s house dozens of times.”
Roman stepped closer.
“You met Luca. Not Thomas.”
“Maybe I saw him with the car.”
“Thomas never came inside.”
Vanessa looked away.
A very small movement.
But Roman saw everything now.
Emily did too.
Cross broke the silence.
“If Vale is alive, we need to find him.”
Roman looked at Emily.
“Where exactly did you leave him?”
“Canal Street. South side of the old entrance near Lafayette.”
“What ambulance?”
“I don’t know.”
“Which direction did it leave?”
“East.”
Cross was already reaching for a radio.
Roman stopped him.
“No police channels.”
Cross understood.
“If someone inside this building is involved, we don’t know how far it reaches.”
Emily looked down at the torn paper.
“Why would he give the letter to me?”
Roman answered quietly.
“Because whoever has been watching him was probably watching everyone connected to me.”
“And nobody watches me.”
The sentence carried no self-pity.
That made it worse.
Roman looked at her.
Tonight, Emily Carter had crossed Manhattan in the rain, spent the last money she had, walked into a building where everyone treated her as disposable and still refused to leave until he received a warning.
“You spent money getting here?”
Emily hesitated.
“Four dollars.”
Roman almost smiled.
Not because it was funny.
Because the absurdity hurt.
Men he paid six figures to protect him had apparently missed a threat inside his own tower.
A woman who owned almost nothing had spent everything she had left to deliver the warning.
“Why?”
Emily shrugged.
“The old man looked terrified.”
“That’s not enough.”
“For me it was.”
Roman studied her.
There was no calculation in her answer.
No attempt to impress him.
Just truth.
The clock changed.
11:22.
Eighteen minutes.
Cross returned.
“Building systems pulled the elevator logs.”
“And?”
“Luca’s card accessed the service elevator at basement level.”
“When?”
“Eleven-oh-nine.”
“Destination?”
Cross looked troubled.
“Forty-seven.”
Roman glanced upward.
Floor forty-seven contained the private wine cellar, catering storage and mechanical access for the penthouse ballroom above.
The engagement party was on forty-eight.
“Who was on forty-seven?”
“Catering staff. Event staff. Security rotation.”
Vanessa interrupted.
“This proves nothing.”
Roman looked at her.
“You’re right.”
Her relief lasted less than a second.
“Which means we keep looking.”
A young security officer hurried from the corridor.
“Mr. Moretti?”
Roman recognized him as Adrian Knox, one of Cross’s newest men.
“We checked the forty-seventh floor.”
“And?”
“Service elevator is sitting there with the doors closed.”
“Camera?”
“Offline.”
“How long?”
“Since eleven-oh-eight.”
One minute before Luca’s card was used.
Roman turned to Cross.
“Who controls cameras?”
“Security command.”
“Who was on duty?”
Cross’s face changed.
“Martin Kessler.”
Roman knew the name.
Former federal protection officer.
Hired six months earlier.
Recommended by Vanessa’s father.
Roman slowly looked toward his fiancée.
Vanessa understood where the thought had gone.
“My father recommends dozens of people.”
Roman said nothing.
Emily stood.
“What happens at eleven-forty?”
Roman looked at the message.
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
She stared at him.
“You’re planning to go?”
“Yes.”
“That seems like a terrible idea.”
For the first time that night, Cross nearly smiled.
Roman looked at Emily.
“You delivered a letter telling me to go to an elevator.”
“No. It told you where something was happening.”
A pause.
“Those are not the same thing.”
Roman’s expression shifted.
Emily continued.
“If whoever wrote it wanted you walking into danger, why warn you not to let Vanessa see it?”
Vanessa snapped, “Stop using my name.”
Emily flinched.
Roman moved slightly between them without thinking.
“Continue,” he told Emily.
“The man who gave me the letter was hurt. He knew someone was chasing him.”
“How do you know?”
“He kept looking behind me.”
“Anything else?”
“He said something before the ambulance came.”
Roman leaned closer.
“What?”
Emily closed her eyes.
Rain.
Sirens.
Thomas’s shaking hand.
She had assumed the words were meaningless.
“Three floors,” she whispered.
Roman frowned.
“What?”
“He said, ‘three floors.’ Then something about the lights.”
Cross looked toward the elevator panel.
“Three floors from forty-seven is forty-four.”
Roman knew what was on forty-four.
Nothing public.
An unfinished level purchased two years earlier during a renovation.
Storage.
Old records.
Temporary construction offices.
And one locked room containing archived Moretti corporate files Luca had been reviewing before his death.
Roman looked at Cross.
“Forty-four.”
Cross nodded.
He sent two trusted men through the stairs.
Roman turned to Emily.
“Stay here.”
She stared.
“You think I’m staying here with her?”
Her eyes moved to Vanessa.
Roman almost admired the logic.
“You’re coming with me.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“You cannot be serious.”
Roman faced her.
“You wanted privacy ten minutes ago.”
“Yes.”
“You’re getting security instead.”
He motioned to two guards.
“Vanessa stays in this lobby.”
Her face changed.
“You’re detaining me?”
“I’m making sure nobody leaves.”
“I’m your fiancée.”
Roman’s voice remained quiet.
“That’s why you should want me to find the truth.”
Vanessa held his gaze.
Something passed between them.
Then she said, “You are going to regret humiliating me.”
Roman’s expression did not move.
“I’ve survived regret.”
He turned toward Emily.
“Come.”
They entered the stairwell.
Cross followed with two guards.
The heavy fire door closed behind them.
For the first time since entering Harbor Crest, Emily found herself alone with Roman away from the crowd.
His footsteps echoed as they climbed.
“Why are we going up?” she asked.
“Forty-four is above us.”
“What floor are we on?”
“Forty.”
Emily stopped.
Roman turned.
“What?”
She pointed down.
“The old man didn’t say ‘three floors up.’”
Roman stared.
“He said, ‘three floors. Below the lights.’”
Cross looked at Roman.
The engagement ballroom lights were three floors above forty-five.
Roman checked the building plan on his phone.
Then his face hardened.
“Not forty-four.”
He turned toward the stairwell.
“Forty-five.”
Cross radioed his men.
No response.
Again.
Nothing.
The clock on Roman’s phone showed 11:28.
Twelve minutes.
They climbed faster.
At the forty-fifth-floor door, Roman stopped.
“Stay behind me.”
Emily almost laughed.
“Roman, I spent the night sleeping beneath an expressway two days ago. You’re not the scariest thing I’ve seen this week.”
Cross actually smiled this time.
Roman did too, briefly.
Then he opened the door.
Darkness.
No lights.
Only emergency strips glowing along the floor.
Cross raised a flashlight.
The beam swept across an unfinished corridor.
Plastic sheeting.
Construction equipment.
Dust.
And footprints.
Wet footprints.
Fresh.
Roman moved forward.
Emily followed.
At the far end was a steel door.
Someone had scratched two words into the dust covering it.
FOR ROMAN.
Cross reached for the handle.
Emily caught his arm.
“Wait.”
Everyone froze.
She pointed.
A nearly invisible wire stretched from the handle to the door frame.
Cross swore softly.
Roman looked at Emily.
“How did you see that?”
“Street doors.”
“What?”
“When you sleep in abandoned buildings, you learn to look before opening anything.”
Roman stared at her for half a second.
Then stepped back.
Cross examined the wire.
“It’s attached to something.”
“A weapon?” Emily whispered.
“Maybe an alarm.”
Roman checked the time.
11:32.
Eight minutes.
Cross cut the wire carefully.
Nothing happened.
Then he opened the door.
Inside stood a desk.
One chair.
An old television monitor.
And a digital clock.
11:32:18.
Counting upward.
On the desk sat a black phone.
It began to ring.
Nobody moved.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Roman picked it up.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a voice.
Distorted electronically.
“You should have listened to your brother.”
Roman’s entire face changed.
“Who is this?”
“Eleven-forty, Roman.”
“What happens at eleven-forty?”
A soft laugh.
Then:
“The same thing that happened to Luca.”
The line disconnected.
Emily looked at the clock.
Seven minutes remained.
May you like
And then the elevator bell rang somewhere behind the wall.
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