Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE WITH NO SAFE ROOM
The security team found the black car empty. Its plates were stolen, and the driver had disappeared on foot. Lucas ordered the gates closed and moved the children to the old wine cellar, which had been converted into a reinforced safe room.
Lily sat beside Daniel, showing him how to use her inhaler spacer. Daniel listened with solemn attention.
“You have to breathe slowly,” she explained. “Not like you’re blowing out birthday candles.”
“I know how to blow out candles.”
“Not when you’re scared.”
Daniel thought about that. “Are you scared?”
“Yes,” Lily admitted. “But my mom says being brave means doing the right thing while you’re scared.”
Daniel nodded. “My mom says music helps.”
“Then we need music.”
He hummed the Little Harbor lullaby. Lily joined him, getting two notes wrong. They both laughed.
Upstairs, Lucas studied the ledger with Marco and Isabella. The payments showed that Victor had funded the warehouse ambush, the mansion fire, and the fake medical records. But one transaction stood out: a transfer made three days before Lucas’s collapse, routed through a private medical supplier.
“The same supplier that serviced your inhaler,” Marco said.
Lucas looked at Isabella. “Victor knew about my asthma.”
“He knew about everything,” she replied. “He grew up beside you. He knew your habits, your doctors, your fears.”
A knock sounded at the study door.
Elena entered, carrying a small envelope. “I found this inside Lily’s backpack. It was sewn into the lining. I didn’t know it was there.”
Inside was a letter in Thomas’s handwriting.
He had written that Victor planned to use the Bellweather Foundation to purchase influence over city contracts and police appointments. The foundation’s original director, a respected philanthropist named Miriam Vale, had refused to sign off on the transfers. Shortly afterward, she had died in what authorities called a boating accident.
Lucas looked up. “Miriam Vale was my mother’s closest friend.”
Isabella read the next line aloud.
“If Victor cannot find the original ledger, he will go after the person who can authenticate it.”
A phone rang.
Marco answered, listened, and went pale. “The foundation’s old accountant has been found. He’s at a hotel in Manhattan. He wants protection.”
Lucas took the phone. “Who is this?”
A trembling voice replied, “My name is Samuel Price. I can prove every transfer. But you need to understand something. Victor isn’t working alone.”
“Who else?”
“The person who gave him access to the family accounts.”
Lucas’s stomach tightened. Only three people had possessed those credentials: his father, Lucas, and the family attorney.
“Name him.”
Before Samuel could answer, a crash sounded through the phone. A shout. Then silence.
Marco traced the call. “He’s at the Halcyon Hotel. We can get there in fifteen minutes.”
Lucas stood. Isabella caught his sleeve.
“Don’t let this become another night you leave and never come back.”
He looked at Daniel’s photograph on the desk. “I won’t.”
They reached the hotel to find police cars outside and a crowd gathering behind barriers. Samuel Price had been shot in his room. He was still alive, barely, and had been taken to an ambulance.
As Lucas approached, a uniformed officer stepped in front of him.
“Mr. Moretti, you need to come with us.”
“Why?”
The officer held up a warrant.
It accused Lucas of ordering the warehouse attack, arranging the fire that killed his family, and murdering Samuel Price.
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At the bottom was the signature of Judge Arthur Kessler.
The judge whose name appeared in Victor’s ledger.
