Chapter 17 - THE BLACKOUT
Darkness swallowed the ballroom.
People screamed.
Glasses shattered.
Della instinctively covered her stomach.
Then Luca's hand found her arm.
"I'm here."
Emergency lights flickered red along the walls.
Conrad Vance had vanished from the stage.
Arthur Mercer was gone.
So was Owen.
Della pushed toward the service table.
The envelope remained taped underneath.
She grabbed it.
Luca guided her toward the kitchen.
They found Cordelia following them.
"Don't leave me."
Della stared at her.
A week earlier Cordelia had shoved her into a mirror.
Now she looked genuinely terrified.
"Why should I help you?"
Cordelia's face collapsed.
"Because my father will blame me."
"For what?"
"For everything."
Luca opened the envelope.
Inside was a brass key.
His face went still.
"The key."
The same key stolen eight years earlier.
There was also a locker number.
B-117.
Della remembered the basement coat-check vault.
They moved toward the service elevator.
Footsteps sounded behind them.
Luca pushed Della and Cordelia into a storage room.
He waited beside the door.
The footsteps passed.
Cordelia whispered.
"This isn't supposed to happen."
Della turned.
"What was supposed to happen?"
Cordelia shook her head.
"Tell me."
"My father said if I humiliated you publicly, you'd quit."
Della stared.
"The champagne."
Cordelia looked away.
"It wasn't an accident."
Anger surged through Della.
"You arranged it?"
"Evan told a guest to bump your tray."
"Why?"
"They wanted a reason to fire you."
"Why me?"
"I didn't know."
"You almost hurt my baby because your father wanted me fired."
Cordelia began crying.
Della felt no sympathy.
"Save it for court."
Luca looked through the doorway.
"Clear."
They reached basement level.
Locker B-117 stood behind an old employee records cage.
The brass key fit perfectly.
Inside sat a black leather ledger.
Nothing digital.
Nothing easy to erase.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Initials.
Luca turned the pages.
Judges.
Police officials.
Developers.
Corporate officers.
Vance.
Mercer.
Moretti.
Then one name stopped him.
Antonio Moretti.
His father.
Della saw the pain on his face.
"Keep reading."
He did.
The payments beside Antonio's name stopped in 1998.
A handwritten notation appeared.
A.M. WITHDRAWS.
CONTAINMENT REQUIRED.
Two years later another note appeared.
SON UNAWARE.
MAINTAIN CONTROL.
Luca's face became white.
For decades, Mercer had stayed beside him not as a mentor.
As a guard.
The basement door slammed.
Conrad Vance stood behind them.
Owen stood beside him.
A security guard held Owen by the arm.
Conrad smiled.
"Thank you for finding the ledger."
Then Arthur Mercer stepped from the shadows.
May you like
He looked at Luca almost sadly.
"Your father should have burned it when he had the chance."
