Chapter 5 - Catherine Sterling’s Last Secret
Aria told Dante the truth in the conservatory.
She chose the room because it reminded her of the greenhouse her mother had loved. The Rossi conservatory was larger, with iron-framed windows and climbing jasmine, but the scent of damp soil felt familiar enough to steady her.
Dante sat across from her.
Lucia and Nico waited near the doorway.
Aria held the brass key in both hands.
“My mother kept records,” she began. “She called them insurance.”
“Records of what?” Lucia asked.
“Campaign donations. Bribes. Payments to police officers. Judges. Contractors. My father used charities to move money between legitimate businesses and criminal organizations.”
Dante’s expression remained still.
“Did the Rossi organization appear in those records?”
“I don’t know.”
It was not the answer he wanted, but he accepted it.
Aria continued.
“My mother discovered that Victor had been selling information. Police raids. Witness locations. Sealed court orders. He gave secrets to whichever family paid the most.”
Nico swore beneath his breath.
Political protection was the foundation of the Sterling alliance. If Victor had been selling the same protection to competing groups, he had not been building peace.
He had been maintaining profitable chaos.
“Why did Catherine keep evidence?” Dante asked.
“She wanted to leave.”
Aria looked down at the key.
“She planned to take Elena and me. Caleb was already working with my father. She knew he would never come.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen. Elena was ten.”
“What happened?”
“My mother drove toward New Hampshire during an ice storm. Her car went through a barrier.”
“Accident report?” Nico asked.
“Brake failure.”
“Convenient,” Lucia said.
“My father told us she had been drinking. She rarely drank.”
Dante watched Aria’s hands tighten around the key.
“Before she died, she gave this to you.”
“Yes. She said it would help us walk out when the house burned.”
“Did she tell you where to use it?”
“No. I found the number of a private vault company in one of her old notebooks. Box 317.”
Nico opened a tablet. “Name?”
“Beacon Private Depository.”
His fingers moved across the screen.
“It closed four years ago.”
Aria’s hope collapsed.
“But,” Nico added, “the contents were transferred after a bankruptcy proceeding. Most boxes went to a secure storage facility operated by Commonwealth Trust.”
“Can we access it?” Dante asked.
“Not without identification and proof of ownership.”
“The box was in my mother’s name,” Aria said.
“Then you may have inheritance rights,” Lucia replied. “I can petition for access, but that creates a record Victor may monitor.”
“We don’t have time.”
Dante stood and walked among the plants.
“Victor believes the key can destroy him.”
“He would not risk Elena otherwise,” Aria said.
“Then we make him believe we already opened the box.”
Nico looked up. “Draw him out?”
“Force him to move Elena.”
Aria shook her head. “He’ll hurt her.”
“He will keep her alive as long as he believes you have evidence.”
“You don’t know him.”
“No,” Dante said. “But I know men who survive through leverage. They do not destroy the only thing stopping their enemy from acting.”
Aria rose. “Elena is not a thing.”
Dante turned immediately. “You are right.”
Again, he corrected himself without anger.
Again, Aria felt the ground shift beneath everything she believed about powerful men.
Lucia approached the table.
“There is another way to access the box.”
“What?” Aria asked.
“A court order based on concern that the contents are connected to Catherine’s estate. I know a probate judge who cannot be bought by Victor.”
“Everyone can be bought,” Nico said.
“Judge Margaret Hale cannot,” Lucia replied. “Victor destroyed her husband’s career. She has been waiting fifteen years to return the favor.”
Dante considered it.
“Contact her.”
Lucia left the conservatory.
Nico’s phone vibrated.
He read the message and looked toward Dante.
“We found where Victor may have taken Elena.”
Aria stepped forward. “Where?”
“A Sterling-owned estate near Ipswich. Registered through a shell company. Heat and electricity were activated this morning.”
“How many guards?”
“Satellite images show at least six vehicles.”
“Then we go now,” Aria said.
Dante shook his head. “Too obvious.”
“My sister is there.”
“And Victor expects you to react emotionally.”
“I am emotional.”
“You should be. But we will not let him use that.”
Aria’s face tightened. “You can wait because she means nothing to you.”
Dante’s silence lasted only a second.
But it was long enough to wound her.
She turned away.
“Aria.”
“Don’t.”
“You are right again.”
She faced him.
“Elena means nothing to me personally,” Dante said. “I have never met her. But she means everything to you. That makes her important to me.”
The directness stole her anger.
“I will bring her home,” he continued. “But I will not rush through the front gate of a fortified house and give Victor the war he wants.”
Aria’s voice cracked. “Then what do we do?”
“We make him invite us inside.”
Nico’s expression changed as he understood.
“The Sterling Foundation gala.”
Aria stared at him.
The annual Winter Harbor Gala was Victor’s most important public event. Politicians, judges, donors, and reporters would fill the Sterling estate the following night. Security would be heavy, but discreet. Victor could not allow gunfire or visible violence while television cameras covered his charity speech.
Dante looked at Aria.
“You attend with me.”
“My father may not let me near Elena.”
“He will if he believes you are bringing the key.”
Aria’s gaze dropped to the brass object.
“And if we find the box before the gala?”
“Then we bring him something more dangerous than a key.”
Nico’s phone rang again.
This time, he answered.
He listened for several seconds.
“When?” he asked.
His face hardened.
He ended the call.
“What happened?” Dante asked.
“Grant Mercer is dead.”
Aria gripped the table.
“How?”
“Poison hidden in one of his dental crowns. He activated it before the power failure.”
Dante looked toward the security cameras mounted in the conservatory.
Grant had entered the compound expecting to die.
That meant Victor had planned for his capture.
“Check every recording,” Dante ordered. “Every guard, every delivery, every person who went near that room.”
Nico nodded, but did not leave.
“There is more.”
He handed Dante a photograph taken from the security footage.
It showed Grant being escorted through the underground corridor.
A man stood in the background, partially hidden by shadow.
He wore a Rossi security badge.
Dante recognized him as one of the compound’s senior guards.
Someone Grant should never have been able to approach.
Grant had not escaped his handcuff because it had been weakened before he entered the room.
Someone inside the Rossi organization had prepared it for him.
May you like
Victor Sterling had a traitor inside Dante’s home.
And that traitor knew Aria’s bedroom would be empty during the interrogation.
