Chapter 2 - The Locked Room
Alejandro had spent most of his adult life preparing for betrayal.
He had hidden vehicles.
Safe houses.
Emergency accounts.
Escape tunnels.
Weapons behind paintings.
Codes known only by three people.
But nothing in those preparations had included hiding beneath his own desk with a four-year-old girl clutching a stuffed rabbit against his chest.
“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered.
Emma nodded.
Her cheeks were wet.
Outside the desk, Marco ordered Thomas to search the room.
Maria stood near the wall, one hand pressed against her side.
Marco had released her when the lights failed, but Thomas now kept a weapon trained on her.
Rafael lay motionless near the bookshelf.
Emma whispered, “Is Mr. Rafael dead?”
Alejandro looked toward the guard.
Rafael’s chest moved.
Barely.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He wasn’t.
Emma closed her eyes.
Alejandro reached beneath the desk.
His fingers found a narrow wooden panel.
He pressed twice.
Nothing.
Pressed again.
A click.
The floor beneath Emma shifted.
Her eyes opened.
“What—”
Alejandro placed one finger against his lips.
The Moretti mansion had been constructed by Alejandro’s grandfather during a time when men expected raids, rival families, and federal agents.
The study contained two exits nobody knew about.
Almost nobody.
A section of flooring beneath the desk slid six inches sideways.
Cold air rose from darkness.
Emma stared down.
Alejandro whispered, “You have to be brave.”
“I am brave.”
“I know.”
“What about Mommy?”
Alejandro looked at Maria.
Then at Marco.
He could escape with Emma.
But Maria would remain behind.
Rafael too.
And Marco would know exactly what Alejandro had done.
He needed distraction.
Emma tugged his sleeve.
“My rabbit.”
“What?”
She held up the stuffed animal.
One glass eye reflected the emergency lights.
Alejandro didn’t understand.
Emma did.
She threw it.
The rabbit sailed from beneath the desk and landed near the broken wineglass.
Thomas spun.
“What was that?”
Alejandro moved.
He kicked the underside of the desk hard.
The heavy desk slid into Thomas’s knees.
Thomas fell.
Alejandro came out from beneath it.
Marco fired.
The bullet hit the bookshelf.
Alejandro tackled Maria.
They crashed behind a leather sofa.
“Go!” he shouted at Emma.
Emma crawled toward the hidden opening.
Thomas tried to rise.
Rafael suddenly grabbed his ankle.
Thomas screamed.
Rafael, wounded but conscious, pulled him down.
Marco fired toward Rafael.
Maria grabbed a brass sculpture and threw it.
It struck Marco’s shoulder.
Alejandro reached Emma.
“Down.”
She lowered herself into the opening.
Alejandro followed.
Maria hesitated.
“Rafael!”
“I’m coming,” Rafael growled.
He struck Thomas and crawled toward the passage.
Marco rushed around the desk.
Alejandro grabbed Maria’s wrist and pulled her inside.
Rafael entered last.
Alejandro slammed his palm against the concealed switch.
The floor closed above them.
Darkness.
Then pounding.
Marco shouted overhead.
“Open it!”
Nobody spoke.
Emma whispered, “Can he hear us?”
“No.”
Alejandro hoped he was right.
The tunnel was narrow.
Old stone walls.
Dust.
A row of emergency lights flickered to life.
Maria immediately knelt beside Emma.
“What were you thinking?”
Emma’s lower lip trembled.
“I heard something break.”
“I told you to stay downstairs.”
“Mr. Moretti was dying.”
Maria closed her eyes.
Every emotion crossed her face at once.
Anger.
Fear.
Relief.
Pride she didn’t want to feel because pride would make what Emma had done seem acceptable.
“You never run toward danger.”
Emma looked at Alejandro.
“But if I didn’t, he would be dead.”
Maria had no answer.
Rafael leaned against the wall.
Blood darkened his shirt near his shoulder.
Alejandro examined him.
“Through?”
“I think so.”
“Can you move?”
“I can shoot.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“It’s the answer you care about.”
Alejandro almost smiled.
Then he coughed.
His breathing tightened again.
Maria noticed.
“You need a hospital.”
“No hospital.”
“You were poisoned.”
“And the people who poisoned me probably have contacts in every hospital I use.”
Maria stared at him.
“Then call someone you trust.”
Alejandro’s expression became grim.
“That list became very short tonight.”
They moved through the tunnel.
Emma walked between her mother and Alejandro.
The passage descended beneath the mansion.
Above them came muffled noises.
Running.
Shouting.
Occasional gunfire.
Then silence.
Silence was worse.
They reached an old security chamber beneath the west wing.
Alejandro unlocked it with his fingerprint.
Inside were monitors, radios, emergency supplies and a steel door leading to a service tunnel beyond the property.
Rafael collapsed into a chair.
Maria searched the medical cabinet.
Alejandro activated the monitors.
Most showed static.
Six cameras were disabled.
Four remained.
Kitchen.
Garage.
East hallway.
Front gate.
Men armed with rifles moved through all four.
Marco’s men.
Alejandro watched as vehicles arrived.
Three black SUVs.
“Those aren’t ours,” Rafael said.
Alejandro studied the men leaving them.
“No.”
Maria was cleaning Rafael’s wound.
“Who are they?”
“People who believe Marco is about to become very important.”
Emma climbed onto a chair.
One monitor showed the staff quarters.
Her small bed was empty.
“My backpack.”
Maria glanced at her.
“You’re worried about your backpack?”
“My rabbit was in the room.”
Emma looked devastated.
Alejandro remembered the rabbit she had thrown.
He had seen men abandon brothers to save themselves.
Emma had sacrificed her favorite possession without hesitation.
He opened a drawer.
Inside was a small black keychain shaped like a bear.
He handed it to her.
Emma examined it.
“What is it?”
“Temporary rabbit.”
“It’s a bear.”
“I know.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
She put it in her pocket anyway.
Alejandro looked at the screens.
“Rafael. How many men can we trust?”
“Before tonight?”
Alejandro waited.
Rafael exhaled.
“Forty.”
“And now?”
“I’d trust six.”
“Names.”
Rafael gave them.
Alejandro contacted the first.
No answer.
Second.
No answer.
Third.
Disconnected.
Fourth—
A voice came through.
“Rafael?”
It was Daniel Cross, an older security officer stationed at the north gate.
Rafael leaned toward the radio.
“Status.”
“Marco’s taken the house. Twelve men at least. Maybe twenty. Staff locked in the dining hall.”
“Casualties?”
“Two guards down. Both alive when I last saw them.”
“Can you reach the bunker?”
“No. They’re searching everywhere.”
Alejandro took the radio.
“Daniel.”
Silence.
Then:
“Boss?”
“Listen carefully. I need you to leave.”
“I can fight.”
“I didn’t ask you to fight.”
Alejandro looked toward Emma.
“I need you to reach someone.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Nathan Mercer.”
Rafael frowned.
Maria looked confused.
Daniel knew the name.
“Your private physician?”
“No.”
Alejandro paused.
“My brother’s doctor.”
Rafael stared at him.
Alejandro’s younger brother, Matteo, had died seven years earlier.
Officially, from complications following surgery.
Alejandro had never believed the explanation.
“Tell Mercer I found the pattern,” Alejandro said.
Daniel’s breathing changed.
“What pattern?”
“He’ll understand.”
The radio crackled.
Then Daniel whispered, “Someone’s coming.”
The line went dead.
Emma looked at Alejandro.
“What pattern?”
He didn’t answer.
Because suddenly seven years of suspicion were rearranging themselves in his mind.
Matteo’s death.
His father’s heart attack.
Two lieutenants who had supposedly died from unexpected medical reactions.
And now Alejandro.
Not bullets.
Not bombs.
Medical emergencies.
Deaths that could look natural.
Deaths that didn’t trigger wars.
Alejandro stared at the broken security feeds.
Marco hadn’t invented this plan tonight.
Someone had been removing Moretti family members for years.
One at a time.
Maria watched his face.
“What did you just realize?”
Alejandro looked at Emma.
“When your daughter used that injector, she didn’t only save me.”
He turned toward Rafael.
“She ruined a plan that may have started before she was born.”
A warning alarm suddenly sounded.
The service tunnel door.
Someone was trying to open it from outside.
Rafael reached for his weapon.
Maria pulled Emma behind her.
The steel door shook.
Once.
Twice.
Then a voice came through the intercom.
“Alejandro.”
Alejandro froze.
He knew that voice.
His father’s oldest friend.
Judge Anthony Bellini.
A man who had known Alejandro since he was a child.
A man Alejandro had called Uncle Anthony for thirty-eight years.
“Alejandro,” Bellini repeated. “Open the door.”
Rafael whispered, “Nobody told him where we were.”
Exactly.
Alejandro stared at the steel door.
Bellini spoke again.
“I know Marco betrayed you.”
Alejandro slowly lifted his gun.
“And I know the little girl saved your life.”
Maria’s face drained of color.
Bellini shouldn’t have known that either.
May you like
Then came the sentence that made Alejandro understand the conspiracy was larger than Marco.
“Open the door,” Bellini said, “before Marco discovers I’m the one who ordered him to kill you.”
