Chapter 3 - The First Word in Fourteen Months
Vincent did not confront Clara.
Not yet.
Emotion demanded answers.
Experience demanded patience.
So he did what he had always done.
He watched.
The following morning, Clara arrived at seven.
Matteo was waiting for her.
That alone was extraordinary.
For months, mornings had meant silence. Matteo usually remained beside the window until someone forced him into the day's routine.
Now he faced the bedroom door.
When Clara entered, she stopped.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Matteo hesitated.
Then said, “Late.”
Clara checked her watch.
“Seven exactly.”
“Late.”
She smiled.
“Two words in two days and you're already using them to complain.”
Matteo almost smiled.
Inside the control room, Vincent covered his mouth.
Dominic stood beside him.
Neither spoke.
The moment should have been pure happiness.
Instead, a photograph lay on the desk between them.
Elias Hayes beside Anthony Mercer, the mechanic linked to the explosion.
“What exactly do we know?” Vincent asked.
“Not enough.”
“Then get enough.”
“Mercer disappeared three days after the bombing.”
“I remember.”
“His accounts were emptied. Apartment abandoned. No border crossing under his name.”
“And Elias?”
“Died seven months later.”
Vincent turned.
“Seven months?”
Dominic nodded.
“Clara stopped working around the same period.”
Vincent's eyes returned to the monitor.
Clara was brushing Matteo's hair while he complained quietly.
She looked harmless.
Vincent had survived too long to believe appearances.
“Find the connection.”
Dominic left.
For the next several days, Matteo continued changing.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Beautifully.
His speech returned in fragments.
“Water.”
“No.”
“Stop.”
“Again.”
Then sentences.
“Don't cut my toast.”
“Open the window.”
“Clara cheats.”
That accusation came during cards.
Clara placed a hand over her heart.
“I have never been so insulted.”
Matteo pointed at the card hidden beneath her sleeve.
Clara looked down.
“Well.”
Matteo laughed.
The sound traveled through the hidden microphone.
Vincent closed his eyes.
He remembered that laugh.
For fourteen months he had been afraid he never would again.
That evening, Vincent finally entered the room while Clara was still there.
Matteo immediately became quieter.
Clara noticed.
So did Vincent.
“Cards?” Vincent asked.
Matteo nodded.
“Who's winning?”
“Me,” Clara said.
“Liar,” Matteo whispered.
Vincent stared at his son.
Matteo seemed to realize what he had done.
Silence.
Then Vincent pulled a chair over.
“Deal me in.”
Clara looked surprised.
Matteo looked suspicious.
Vincent sat.
“I know how cards work.”
Clara raised an eyebrow.
“Do you?”
Twenty minutes later, Vincent was losing badly.
Matteo laughed twice.
Clara cheated three times.
Vincent pretended not to notice.
For the first time since the explosion, father and son occupied the same room without grief sitting between them like a third person.
When the game ended, Clara gathered the cards.
“I'm leaving.”
Matteo's expression fell.
“I'll be back tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
The word hit Vincent.
Clara's hands stopped.
Something moved across her face.
Grief.
“Promise.”
She left.
Vincent followed.
“Clara.”
She stopped in the hallway.
“He trusts you.”
“I know.”
“Don't make promises you can't keep.”
Clara looked at him.
“I don't.”
“Everyone does eventually.”
“That sounds like experience talking.”
“It is.”
Clara studied him.
“You know what Matteo needs more than anything?”
Vincent expected some medical answer.
“What?”
“To know his life didn't end that day.”
Vincent looked away.
Clara continued quietly.
“And you need to know yours didn't either.”
His eyes snapped back.
“You're paid for my son. Not me.”
“Good. You'd be exhausting.”
She walked away.
Vincent almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Dominic appeared at the far end of the hallway.
His expression erased the moment.
“We found Mercer.”
Vincent followed him downstairs.
The mechanic wasn't alive.
His body had been discovered under another name eight months earlier.
But Dominic had found something else.
Phone records.
Mercer had called Elias Hayes eleven times during the month before the bombing.
Vincent stared at the printed records.
“Why?”
“We don't know.”
“Money?”
“No transfers.”
“Business?”
“Elias was twenty-four. He worked remotely doing bookkeeping.”
Vincent turned.
“For whom?”
Dominic slid another document across the desk.
Vincent read the company name.
Bellini Maritime Holdings.
His jaw tightened.
The Bellinis had been Rossi rivals for more than a decade.
“Clara knew?”
“We don't know.”
“Find out.”
That night, Vincent could not sleep.
At 2:13 a.m., he returned to the control room.
Monitor Four showed Matteo sleeping.
Another screen showed Clara's empty daytime workspace.
Vincent opened archived footage.
He watched her.
Not because he expected betrayal anymore.
Because he couldn't understand her.
He watched the first day.
The second.
The third.
Then he found something.
Clara alone in Matteo's room.
It was from the previous Friday.
Matteo had been downstairs with his tutor.
Clara was changing his bedding.
She stopped beside the dresser.
Opened her bag.
Removed Elias's photograph.
Vincent leaned forward.
Clara sat on Matteo's bed.
She looked at the picture.
Then whispered something.
Vincent increased the audio.
“I couldn't save you.”
His chest tightened.
Clara wiped her face.
“But maybe I can help him.”
She put the photograph away.
No conspiracy.
No secret communication.
Just grief.
Vincent leaned back.
Then the door opened behind him.
Dominic entered.
“We have another problem.”
Vincent looked at him.
“What?”
“Someone accessed the archived bombing files.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Vincent stood.
“From where?”
Dominic's face was grim.
“Inside the estate.”
Vincent's entire body became still.
“Who?”
“We're tracing it.”
Every instinct returned.
The softness of the previous week disappeared.
Vincent reached for his phone.
“Lock the gates.”
Dominic nodded.
“Nobody leaves.”
Vincent looked toward Monitor Four.
Matteo slept peacefully.
Then another screen caught movement.
A figure walking through the west corridor.
Clara.
Vincent checked the time.
2:19 a.m.
She was not supposed to be there.
Her shift had ended seven hours earlier.
Vincent zoomed in.
Clara moved quickly.
She carried something in her hand.
A keycard.
She approached the restricted staircase leading toward the security archive.
Vincent stared at the screen.
His heart sank.
“Dominic.”
“I see her.”
Clara swiped the card.
The door opened.
Vincent's expression became cold.
For the first time since Clara entered the estate, she looked over her shoulder.
Then she disappeared through the restricted door.
Vincent whispered the words he had hoped never to say.
May you like
“Bring her to me.”
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