Chapter 9 - The Brother Vincent Never Knew
The first shot shattered the back window.
I threw myself over Lucas and Leo.
Vincent pulled us behind the kitchen island.
“Down!”
Glass exploded across the floor.
The twins screamed.
Security returned fire toward the tree line.
The man outside disappeared.
I pressed both boys against me.
“Look at me.”
Lucas was crying.
Leo couldn’t stop shaking.
“Look at me.”
Their eyes found mine.
“We’re going to the safe room.”
Vincent reached for Leo.
I took Lucas.
We moved through the hallway while officers flooded the property.
The safe room was hidden behind a reinforced pantry wall.
I hated that the house had one.
I was grateful it did.
Vincent locked us inside.
Lucas clung to his father.
“Is he coming back?”
“No.”
“You don’t know.”
Vincent looked at his son.
“No. I don’t.”
Lucas started crying harder.
Vincent pulled both boys against his chest.
“But I know this. Nobody is getting through that door.”
We remained inside for forty-seven minutes.
Police found no shooter.
Only footprints.
A discarded rifle.
And the black remote placed deliberately in the grass.
Daniel wanted us to know he could reach us.
The rental location had been known by only five people.
That meant a leak.
The investigators checked phones, vehicles, digital tracking.
The answer was embarrassingly simple.
A tracker had been hidden inside one of Lucas’s favorite stuffed animals.
His old bear.
The toy had come from the estate.
Daniel had prepared for relocation before we even knew we would leave.
Vincent stared at the tiny device.
“He planned every possibility.”
“No,” I said.
“What?”
“He planned the possibilities he understood.”
Vincent frowned.
“He understands your security systems.”
“Yes.”
“He understands the estate.”
“Yes.”
“He understands Blake.”
“Yes.”
“But he doesn’t understand Lucas and Leo.”
Vincent looked at me.
“And he doesn’t understand me.”
A strange expression crossed his face.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking he keeps watching routines because he believes routines control people.”
“And?”
“Children destroy routines.”
Lucas raised his hand from the sofa.
“That sounds rude.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
“You know it’s true.”
That night, I asked the twins to tell us everything they remembered about unusual people around the estate.
Not names.
Details.
Shoes.
Smells.
Cars.
Voices.
Children notice differently than adults.
Leo remembered “the man with the bird tattoo.”
Lucas remembered a maintenance worker who always carried peppermint candy.
Leo remembered him replacing something behind a hallway panel.
“When?” Vincent asked.
“Last Christmas.”
“That recently?”
Leo nodded.
“What hallway?”
“Near Grandpa’s old room.”
Carlo Moretti’s suite had been sealed after his death.
We returned to the estate the following morning under heavy security.
Behind a panel near Carlo’s old bedroom, technicians found another hidden compartment.
Not a dispenser.
A server.
Tiny.
Encrypted.
Daniel had been using the estate itself as a storage point.
The server contained security archives.
Old footage.
Deleted footage.
Including the night Isabella died.
Vincent sat beside me while investigators opened the recovered files.
At 8:14 p.m., Isabella left the estate.
At 8:19, Michael Vane followed in another vehicle.
At 8:21, Harrison Blake walked into Carlo’s study.
At 8:23, Carlo joined him.
No audio.
At 8:31, Carlo handed Blake a document.
At 8:44, Blake made a phone call.
At 9:02, Thomas Reed received an alert about Isabella’s accident.
Then something unexpected happened.
At 9:05, Daniel Mercer entered Carlo’s study.
He was shouting.
No sound.
But his body language was furious.
Carlo shoved him.
Mercer pointed toward Blake.
Then toward the door.
At 9:07, Mercer left.
Blake remained.
Carlo poured himself a drink.
At 9:12, Blake said something.
Carlo slapped him.
I looked at Vincent.
“Your father was angry with Blake.”
“Why?”
The next file answered.
Audio from Carlo’s private office had survived separately.
His voice filled the investigation room.
“You were supposed to scare her.”
Blake answered.
“I did not tell Vane to chase her.”
“Now she’s dead.”
“You ordered surveillance.”
“I ordered pressure, not a funeral.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
Carlo continued.
“If my son learns what we did, he will burn everything.”
Blake said something too quiet to hear.
Then Carlo:
“The boys are innocent. You stay away from them. Whatever happened with Isabella ends tonight.”
I looked at Vincent.
Carlo Moretti had been cruel.
Controlling.
Dangerous.
But according to the recording, even he had drawn a line at the children.
Daniel Blake had crossed it years later.
The next audio file was dated two years after Isabella’s death.
Only weeks before Carlo died.
Daniel’s voice.
Young.
Angry.
“You abandoned my mother.”
Carlo answered:
“I gave Rebecca money.”
“She wanted a father for her son.”
“I was not your father.”
“You paid Harrison to pretend he was.”
Vincent’s face changed.
Blake had legally stayed in the shadows while Carlo financed Rebecca.
Daniel had grown up believing Harrison was his biological father.
Then learned the truth.
Carlo continued.
“I made mistakes.”
“You made me one of them.”
“I protected you.”
“You hid me.”
“You were safer hidden.”
Daniel laughed.
“Vincent got the name. The money. The houses. The company.”
“You don’t want his life.”
“I want him to understand mine.”
The recording ended.
Vincent sat back.
“So that’s it.”
“No,” I said.
He looked at me.
“That’s his reason. It isn’t an excuse.”
Vincent gave me a tired smile.
“You really hate excuses.”
“I worked with children for eight years.”
“Fair.”
The hidden server also contained Daniel’s communications.
One message was scheduled to send automatically if he was arrested.
It contained coordinates.
A warehouse near Bridgeport.
Investigators believed it could be bait.
Vincent believed Daniel was there.
Police surrounded the building.
Inside they found a workshop.
Ventilation components.
Estate blueprints.
Photographs.
Medical records.
And a wall covered with the Moretti family history.
Carlo.
Rebecca.
Vincent.
Isabella.
Lucas.
Leo.
Red lines connected them all.
At the center was Daniel.
Written underneath:
THE SON THEY ERASED.
He wasn’t there.
But another man was.
Dr. Harrison Blake.
Bound to a chair.
Alive.
Barely.
Daniel had kidnapped him after his release pending investigation.
Blake was transported to the hospital.
Before losing consciousness, he gave detectives one sentence.
“Daniel is going home.”
Nobody understood.
Vincent did.
“The original house.”
“What original house?” I asked.
“My grandfather’s.”
The Moretti family had owned a lake property in northern Connecticut before the empire.
Carlo had grown up there.
Rebecca had worked summers there.
Daniel had spent time there as a child without knowing why the old man visited.
Police raced north.
Vincent was ordered to remain behind.
He ignored the order.
I did not go with him.
For once.
The twins needed me more.
Two hours later, Vincent called.
“We found him.”
My knees weakened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Is Daniel arrested?”
Silence.
“Vincent?”
“He wants to talk to me alone.”
“No.”
“He says there are explosives in the house.”
My chest tightened.
“Don’t go in.”
“Police think he’s bluffing.”
“Do you?”
Another silence.
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then listen to me.”
“I am.”
“He wants you emotionally reckless.”
“I know.”
“He’s spent years imagining you as the spoiled brother who got everything.”
“I know.”
“Don’t become the character he created.”
Vincent breathed slowly.
Then said something I didn’t expect.
“I wish you were here.”
My throat tightened.
“I’m glad I’m not.”
He laughed softly.
“Terrible answer.”
“Come home and complain about it.”
“I plan to.”
The call ended.
Forty minutes passed.
Then an hour.
Then ninety minutes.
No news.
Lucas came downstairs.
“Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Dad said he’d call.”
“I know.”
“He always calls.”
I looked at the phone.
Nothing.
Then every light in the house went out.
Emergency power activated.
My phone vibrated.
A text from an unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Vincent.
Inside the old lake house.
Sitting across from Daniel.
Beneath it was one sentence:
You took my brother. Now I take his family.
From upstairs came the sound of breaking glass.
Daniel had never intended the lake house to be the final attack.
May you like
It was the distraction.
And someone had just entered our house.
