Chapter 10 - The Night the Estate Went Dark
Alexander did not accuse Eleanor.
That surprised me.
He simply handed her the phone.
She read the message twice.
Then sat beside the fireplace.
“I knew this day would come.”
Alexander’s voice was quiet.
“What happened?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“The night your father died, he asked me to destroy something.”
“What?”
“A recording.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Alexander stared.
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
“For seventeen years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Lorenzo made me promise that if anything happened to him, I would protect you before I protected his reputation.”
“What was on the recording?”
Eleanor looked at Sebastian, then Alexander.
“Your father arguing with Samuel Rook.”
Julian’s father.
Sebastian moved closer.
“About what?”
“The missing money.”
“And?”
“Samuel threatened him.”
Alexander’s jaw tightened.
“Explicitly?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you go to police?”
Eleanor’s voice broke.
“Because the recording also contained your father admitting things that could have destroyed the company.”
Silence.
“What things?”
“Illegal payments. Political favors. Offshore funds.”
Alexander looked away.
The Romano name had survived for decades by ensuring certain doors opened.
Everyone knew rumors.
Nobody wanted proof.
“If I released that tape,” Eleanor whispered, “you would have inherited ruins.”
“So you buried my father’s murder?”
“I buried evidence I could not separate.”
Alexander stood despite my attempt to stop him.
“You let me spend seventeen years believing his heart simply stopped.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“Becoming him.”
That silenced him.
Eleanor stood.
“Lorenzo became obsessed after discovering Samuel’s betrayal. He stopped sleeping. Trusted nobody. He began treating every person as a potential enemy.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“He told me if he died, I should make sure you learned to live before you learned to avenge him.”
Alexander’s anger remained.
But something else entered it.
Grief.
“Where is the recording?”
“St. Matthew’s Church.”
Sebastian frowned.
“A church?”
“Lorenzo funded the restoration. There’s a memorial box behind the old organ.”
“We go now,” Alexander said.
“No,” Keller replied immediately.
Everyone stared at him.
“You are not leaving this house tonight.”
Alexander opened his mouth.
Keller pointed at him.
“I have tolerated being ignored for twenty years. Tonight I am prepared to sedate you myself.”
Alexander looked at me.
“Whose side are you on?”
“Keller’s.”
“Traitor.”
Vincent went instead.
Two detectives accompanied him.
Three hours later he returned with a small cassette.
And bad news.
Someone else had entered the church shortly before him.
The memorial box was open.
But the recording remained.
“Why leave it?” I asked.
Vincent placed the cassette on the table.
“Maybe they wanted us to find it.”
Alexander looked at Eleanor.
“Play it.”
An old cassette player was found in storage.
Static filled the room.
Then Lorenzo Romano’s voice.
Strong.
Angry.
“You stole from me for twelve years.”
Another voice answered.
Samuel Rook.
“I made you rich.”
“You made yourself rich.”
“You’d have nothing without me.”
“Get out.”
Then Samuel said something that changed everything.
“If I leave, Marcus talks.”
Alexander frowned.
Marcus Dane again.
Lorenzo replied:
“Marcus is dead.”
A pause.
Then Samuel laughed.
“No, Lorenzo. Marcus is exactly as dead as I needed him to be.”
Everyone stared at the machine.
The recording continued.
Samuel explained that Marcus Dane had discovered the theft.
He planned to testify.
Samuel staged his death and moved him somewhere outside the country.
Not to protect Marcus.
To imprison him.
A living insurance policy.
“If you touch me,” Samuel said, “Marcus disappears permanently.”
Then came Lorenzo’s final words.
“Someday your son will pay for this.”
Samuel answered:
“Maybe yours will first.”
The tape ended.
Nobody moved.
Marcus Dane had survived his supposed death.
At least at the time of Lorenzo’s death.
If he was still alive—
he was the only living witness who could connect Samuel Rook to the original crime.
And possibly explain Julian’s plan.
Vincent checked international records.
No Marcus Dane.
No obvious alias.
Then Sebastian remembered something.
“Samuel owned a property in Portugal.”
Alexander looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“He tried to sell it to me fifteen years ago.”
“Where?”
“Outside Sintra.”
Vincent began searching.
Minutes later he found a shell company.
Owner: M.D. Holdings.
The property still existed.
A private villa.
Purchased fourteen years earlier.
No sale records.
No mortgage.
No public occupants.
Alexander looked at Vincent.
“Find him.”
Before Vincent could answer, the entire estate went dark.
Again.
This time no alarms sounded.
No emergency lights.
Nothing.
Then a crash came from downstairs.
Another.
Someone shouted.
Vincent drew his weapon.
“Stay here.”
A second later a woman screamed.
Not staff.
Not Eleanor.
I recognized the voice.
Emily Keller.
The woman Julian had pretended to kidnap earlier.
Only now she was actually inside the house.
May you like
And someone had just taken her.
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