Chapter 8 - Vanessa Lane
The emergency alert came from the building's security system.
FIRE ALARM - WEST SERVICE LEVEL.
Then the lights went out.
For two seconds, the forty-second floor was completely black.
When emergency lighting came on, Roman was gone.
Dante ran for the private elevator.
Mara grabbed Judge Lane.
"Stay with security."
I followed Dante.
"Where would Roman go?"
"Down."
"Why?"
"Because the alarm is a distraction and Roman never evacuates with other people."
The private elevator required a keycard.
Dante took one from a stunned director and used it.
The doors opened.
Roman was not inside.
We descended.
My phone rang halfway down.
Vanessa.
I answered immediately.
"Where are you?"
She was breathing hard.
"In the building."
"Which floor?"
"I don't know."
A metallic crash sounded behind her.
"I got out of the room."
"Who had you?"
"Luca at first."
She sucked in air.
"Then Roman's men took me back."
Dante leaned closer to the phone.
"What do you see?"
"Concrete."
"Anything written on the walls?"
"Blue stripe."
Dante hit the button for basement level three.
"Parking service corridors."
"Vanessa, keep moving," I said.
"I am."
"Is the ring still on you?"
A broken laugh came through the phone.
"Yes."
"Can you remove it?"
"I tried soap, oil, ice, everything."
"Why is your finger swollen?"
Silence.
"Vanessa?"
"Roman squeezed it on after you left."
My stomach turned.
"He knew it was too small."
"He said if I wanted your place, I should be able to wear what came with it."
The elevator doors opened.
We entered a concrete corridor.
The fire alarm pulsed overhead.
Dante drew a weapon from beneath his jacket.
"Vanessa, listen for the alarm volume."
He fired one shot into the ceiling at the far end of the corridor.
The sound thundered.
Vanessa gasped through the phone.
"I heard that."
"Close?"
"Very."
"Which side?"
"Left."
We ran left.
At the next intersection, I saw a flash of red fabric.
Vanessa stumbled around the corner barefoot.
She was still wearing the birthday dress.
One heel was in her hand like a weapon.
Her hair was tangled.
The ring glittered on her swollen finger.
She saw me and stopped.
For a moment we simply stared at each other.
The lawful wife and the mistress.
Two women Roman had arranged against each other because it kept both of us looking sideways instead of at him.
Then footsteps sounded behind her.
Dante pulled us into a service room.
He closed the door without locking it.
"Quiet."
We stood in darkness between shelves of cleaning supplies.
Two men ran past outside.
One spoke into a radio.
"She is on B-three."
Roman's voice answered through the speaker.
"Find her."
Vanessa started shaking.
I took her wrist gently.
"Look at me."
She did.
"Why does Roman want you so badly?"
Her mouth opened.
Dante raised one finger.
More footsteps passed.
When they faded, he cracked the door.
"We move now."
We crossed into an electrical room connected to the garage.
Mara's security team met us beside a loading bay.
Only after we were inside an armored SUV did anyone speak again.
Vanessa sat across from me with a blanket over her shoulders.
She kept hiding her ring hand beneath it.
I looked at the sapphire.
"That is the copy."
She gave me a confused look.
"What?"
"The ring I gave you."
"It is not the real Castellano ring."
A strange expression crossed her face.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Dante noticed too.
"You knew."
Vanessa looked at him.
"Not until last night."
"How?"
She stared down at her hand.
"Roman told me."
"Why?"
"Because he thought I had the real one."
I leaned forward.
"When?"
"After the bank calls."
"He dragged me into the bathroom and asked where you had hidden the original."
"I told him I did not know what he meant."
"Then Luca took me."
"Luca said the same thing."
She looked at me.
"They both thought you knew."
"I did not."
"I believe you now."
"How generous."
She flinched.
I regretted the sharpness immediately but did not apologize yet.
Some wounds deserved to exist for a few minutes before being made polite.
Vanessa looked out the window.
"I did sleep with him."
The statement was so direct that Dante glanced away.
I did not.
"I assumed."
"Not the first year."
"What does that mean?"
She swallowed.
"I met Roman when I was nineteen."
"He came to my father's house after my mother died."
"He said he wanted to help us."
"My father owed him."
"I did not understand how much."
"Roman paid my tuition."
"He got me an internship."
"He sent cars when I stayed late."
"He made everything feel safe."
The pattern was painfully familiar.
Protection disguised as possession.
"Then what happened?"
"I found a folder in my father's study with Claire Vale's name on it."
Dante's eyes lifted.
Vanessa looked at him.
"I'm sorry."
He said nothing.
"There were bank records and a photograph of her car."
"I asked my father."
"He panicked."
"That night Roman came over."
"He told me Claire had been unstable and my father had protected our family from a scandal."
"I believed him because I wanted to."
She closed her eyes.
"Two weeks later, he kissed me."
I felt anger rise but not at her.
Not entirely.
"You were nineteen."
"I was old enough to say no."
"Were you free to?"
She did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Vanessa continued.
"By the time I understood what he was doing, my father had told me about the recording."
"He kept it because he was afraid Roman would eventually kill us too."
"I decided to get close enough to find proof of what happened to Claire and your father."
Dante's expression hardened.
"Without contacting me."
"My father said you were as dangerous as Roman."
"Sometimes he was right," I said.
Dante glanced at me.
Vanessa almost smiled.
Then her face crumpled for a second before she controlled it.
"I did not expect Roman to announce me last night."
"He told me I was attending as his guest."
"When he put his arm around me in the lobby, I realized what he was going to do."
"Why did you go in?"
She looked at me.
"Because he had my father's recording."
"No."
She shook her head.
"He had a copy."
"My father kept the original."
"Roman said if I embarrassed him, he would make sure the original disappeared and my father went to prison for obstruction."
"So you let him humiliate me."
"Yes."
Her eyes stayed on mine.
"And I hated myself for it."
I wanted to tell her hatred did not erase consequences.
I also remembered being twenty and mistaking possession for protection.
Roman chose women when they were young enough to confuse his certainty with safety.
"Why did you take my phone?"
"Because Luca told me to."
Dante's head turned.
"When?"
"At the party."
"He was not there."
"He texted me."
"What did he say?"
Vanessa reached beneath the blanket and pulled out a small folded note.
"He said Roman would search Evelyn's purse after the ring transfer."
"He said I had to get the phone first."
"Why?"
"Because your phone had been cloned."
I went cold.
"By whom?"
"Roman."
Dante swore.
Vanessa continued.
"He had access to your messages, your location, your cloud backups, everything."
I thought about four years of private conversations.
Texts to my friends.
Notes I wrote and deleted.
Searches made at two in the morning when I wondered whether my marriage was normal.
Roman had not needed to ask what I thought.
He had been reading it.
"How long?"
"At least two years."
I looked out the window because I did not want anyone to see my face.
Dante spoke quietly.
"We replace every device."
"No."
I turned back.
"We keep one."
Mara looked at me from the front seat.
"Why?"
"Because Roman thinks he can still see me through it."
Vanessa understood first.
"You want to feed him something."
"Eventually."
Dante's gaze sharpened.
"That is risky."
"So was marrying him."
Vanessa looked at the ring again.
"There is something else."
She tried to twist it and winced.
"Roman said the copy was made from the original after your mother died."
"He said there was an inscription inside the real one."
"M M," I said.
Her eyes widened.
"Yes."
"What else did he say?"
"That the inscription was incomplete."
Dante leaned forward.
"Incomplete how?"
"He said there should be numbers after the initials."
I thought of the ring in Mara's safe.
I had seen only M M.
But I had not examined the inner edge under magnification.
Vanessa swallowed.
"Roman said if he found those numbers first, Evelyn would never control anything."
"What numbers?"
"He called them a burial reference."
The car went quiet.
Dante looked at me.
I thought of Sofia Castellano.
Murdered.
Hidden.
Maybe not merely hidden from history.
Buried somewhere no one had ever found.
My phone vibrated.
A message appeared from Luca.
I found Mother.
Then a photograph loaded.
Isabella sat in the back of a car with her eyes closed.
Her hands were bound.
A second message appeared.
Roman found her first.
A third followed.
May you like
And he knows where Sofia is buried.
