Chapter 6 - ELEVEN MINUTES OF DARKNESS
The mansion remained dark for eleven minutes.
It felt like an hour.
Vincent pulled me behind the kitchen island.
Luca shouted commands into a radio that barely worked.
Emergency lights failed to activate.
That terrified everyone.
Belladonna House had three independent backup systems.
All three had been disabled simultaneously.
This was not an accident.
Someone had planned it.
When the lights finally returned, the key was gone.
Gabriel was bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
One guard had been found unconscious beside the server room.
No one had been shot.
The gunfire had been deliberate noise.
A distraction.
Vincent looked at me.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did you see who touched you?”
“No.”
“Male or female?”
“I don’t know.”
The hand had been gloved.
Strong.
Fast.
Then gone.
Gabriel leaned against the counter.
“They knew exactly what they wanted.”
Vincent looked toward Luca.
“Who had access to the security system?”
Luca’s expression was grim.
“Eight people.”
“Name them.”
“Me.”
“Gabriel.”
“Chief engineer Matthew Sloan.”
“Security supervisor Ethan Pike.”
“House manager Evelyn Hart.”
“Your executive assistant Jonathan Reed.”
“Vivian had temporary event access.”
“And you.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Where is Vivian?”
Nobody answered.
Luca grabbed his radio.
“Find Miss DeMarco.”
Minutes later a guard returned.
Her room was empty.
The window was open.
Snow covered the balcony.
But there were no footprints outside.
She had not escaped that way.
She wanted someone to think she had.
Vincent looked furious.
“Seal every tunnel.”
I frowned.
“Tunnels?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Belladonna House was built during Prohibition.”
“Of course it has tunnels.”
Under any other circumstance I might have laughed.
Nobody did.
The search lasted until sunrise.
Vivian was found in the old wine cellar.
Locked inside.
Her wrists were bound with silk curtain cord.
She was conscious.
Furious.
And terrified.
Vincent personally removed the gag.
She gasped.
“Isabella.”
I stiffened.
“What?”
“She did this.”
I stared.
Vivian pointed at me.
“She came into my room during the blackout.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She attacked me.”
I almost couldn’t believe it.
After everything, she was doing it again.
“You are unbelievable.”
“She took me downstairs.”
Vincent looked toward me.
“Isabella was beside me almost the entire blackout.”
Vivian shook her head.
“She left.”
“For less than thirty seconds.”
“That’s enough.”
“To drag you across two floors and tie you inside a wine cellar?”
Vivian’s mouth closed.
Gabriel looked around.
“She’s been positioned here.”
Vivian glared.
“Obviously.”
Luca examined the knots.
“These aren’t random.”
“What?”
“Military restraint knots.”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“Which of the eight security-access people have military training?”
Luca thought.
“Ethan Pike.”
The security supervisor.
They searched for Ethan.
His office was empty.
His car was gone.
The main gate record showed no exit.
Another mystery.
Then Luca found something inside Vivian’s pocket.
The brass key.
Everyone stared at her.
Vivian’s face turned white.
“I didn’t put that there.”
I almost laughed.
She looked desperately at Vincent.
“I swear.”
“That phrase sounds familiar.”
“Vincent, please.”
He held up the key.
“Someone stole this from Isabella during the blackout.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“And somehow it ended up in your pocket.”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
Vivian looked at me.
For the first time, I saw something resembling desperation.
“You know how this feels.”
I stared.
“What?”
“To have something planted on you.”
The words stopped me.
She was right.
I hated that she was right.
I looked at Vincent.
“She didn’t take it.”
Vivian blinked.
Vincent looked surprised.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because whoever planned the blackout wanted us blaming one another.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Exactly.”
Vivian stared at me.
“You believe me?”
“No.”
I kept my voice flat.
“But I believe the person who stole the key was smarter than you were when you planted evidence on me.”
Even Gabriel almost smiled.
Vivian didn’t.
But she stopped arguing.
The key remained useful.
Whoever stole it had not known the destination.
They had only known it mattered.
I remembered the astronomical ceiling.
Grand Central.
Gabriel knew several private banks around the terminal.
One had existed since 1912.
Bancroft & Hale.
Its original underground vault used letter-number boxes.
B-17 existed.
The problem was access.
Only the registered owner or beneficiary could enter.
“What name is on the account?”
Vincent asked.
Gabriel looked at me.
“We won’t know until we try.”
That afternoon we drove to Manhattan.
Vincent insisted on accompanying me.
Gabriel came too.
Luca brought six security officers.
Vivian remained at Belladonna House under guard.
She complained.
Nobody cared.
Bancroft & Hale occupied an unmarked limestone building two blocks from Grand Central.
An elderly manager took the key.
He stared at the number.
Then at me.
“Identification?”
I handed over my driver’s license.
He entered my name into an old computer.
His expression changed.
“Please wait.”
Twenty minutes later he returned with another man.
The second man carried a sealed envelope.
“Miss Romano.”
“Yes.”
“Box B-17 has been waiting for you since August 18, 1998.”
My birthday.
I stopped breathing.
The manager continued.
“The instructions require that you answer one question.”
“What question?”
He opened the envelope.
“What did your mother tell you the stars beneath New York were made of?”
Tears burned my eyes.
I knew.
“Brass and promises.”
The manager nodded.
“Correct.”
He led us downstairs.
The vault was enormous.
Steel doors.
Brass boxes.
Old stone walls.
Box B-17 was larger than I expected.
The key turned.
Inside were three things.
A red leather ledger.
A cassette tape.
And a sealed letter addressed to Vincent Moretti.
Vincent stared.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
I reached for the ledger.
Vincent stopped me.
“Gloves.”
The bank manager provided them.
I opened the first page.
Dates.
Amounts.
Initials.
Names.
The second page contained payments to city officials.
The third showed corporate transfers.
Then I reached a page marked AUGUST 1998.
Three lines were underlined.
D. CARUSO — DEBT ACQUIRED.
L. FERRARO — CONTAINMENT.
A. MORETTI — REMOVAL AUTHORIZED.
Beside the final line was a signature.
Not Antonio Moretti.
Not Salvatore DeMarco.
Vincent stared at it.
His face became completely pale.
I looked at the handwriting.
“Who is Elena?”
Nobody answered.
I looked at Vincent.
“Who is Elena Moretti?”
His voice was barely audible.
“My mother.”
The vault seemed to lose all air.
My grandmother.
The woman whose portrait still hung over the main staircase at Belladonna House.
The woman Vincent had described as heartbroken over Alessandra’s disappearance.
The woman who had supposedly mourned an empty coffin.
Her signature authorized my mother’s removal.
“No.”
Vincent turned pages faster.
“Something is wrong.”
Gabriel looked over his shoulder.
“Vincent.”
“My mother searched for Alessandra for years.”
Gabriel’s expression was grim.
“Maybe she searched because she needed to know whether Alessandra survived.”
Vincent stared at him.
“Careful.”
“You wanted the truth.”
“Not speculation.”
I looked at the letter addressed to Vincent.
“Open it.”
He didn’t move.
“Vincent.”
He picked up the envelope.
The seal had my mother’s handwriting across it.
To my brother.
If you found Isabella, then at least one thing went right.
Vincent broke the seal.
The first page made his hands shake.
He read silently.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“My mother knew you existed.”
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
He handed me the letter.
I read.
Vincent,
Mother knew about my baby before Father did.
She promised to protect us.
She was the one who gave me the third locket.
She told me it would prove my daughter’s bloodline if anything happened.
Then she betrayed me.
Do not hate her until you know why.
Someone threatened you.
That was how they controlled her.
You were eighteen.
You had no idea.
She chose your life over mine.
I hated her for years.
Then I became a mother.
I understood the choice even though I never forgave it.
The order in the red ledger is real.
Her signature is real.
But Salvatore wrote the terms.
Antonio approved the cover story.
And someone else forced Mother’s hand.
That person is still alive.
Do not trust the first name you find.
I looked at Vincent.
“There’s more.”
He continued reading.
Find Page 214.
Gabriel quickly opened the ledger.
Page 214 had been cut out.
Cleanly.
Recently.
The edges were fresh.
Someone had accessed the box before us.
The bank manager looked horrified.
“That is impossible.”
“When was this box last opened?”
He checked the record.
His face changed.
“Yesterday.”
My skin went cold.
“By whom?”
The manager swallowed.
“The secondary beneficiary.”
“Name?”
He turned the screen toward us.
The record displayed a single name.
May you like
VIVIAN DEMARCO.
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