Chapter 8 - The Brother In The Basement
We left for Saint Gabriel after sunset.
Nico wanted me to stay behind.
I refused.
He threatened to lock the underground room.
I told him I knew where the emergency release was.
He asked how.
I told him waitresses notice doors.
He stared at me for a long time.
Then he gave up.
"You stay beside me."
"That sounds suspiciously like an order."
"It is."
"I'll consider it a strongly worded suggestion."
"Emma."
"Nico."
Clara leaned toward me in the SUV.
"Does he always look like he wants to arrest weather?"
"I have known him for about thirty hours."
"That is not a no."
Nico looked back from the front seat.
"I can hear both of you."
"Good," Clara said.
Leo remained at the estate with a doctor and an entirely new security team brought in from outside Illinois.
Nico had personally checked every man's history.
He still looked sick leaving his son behind.
"He is safer there," I said.
"I know."
"Knowing and liking are different things."
Nico's gaze met mine in the mirror.
"Yes."
Saint Gabriel Retreat stood on forty wooded acres near the Wisconsin border.
The main building had once been a monastery.
Now its stone walls were blackened by weather and almost completely hidden behind pines.
No lights showed from the road.
Nico's men cut power to the perimeter cameras.
We approached on foot through wet grass.
My back throbbed with every step.
I ignored it.
Clara stayed close.
"There are three entrances."
"How do you know?" I whispered.
"I came here once."
Nico turned.
"You said you saw Marco here."
"From outside."
"You did not enter?"
"I tried."
She touched the healing cut near her temple.
"I woke up six miles away."
Nico's expression darkened.
"Who hit you?"
"I never saw him."
We reached a side chapel door.
A guard picked the lock.
Inside, the air smelled like mildew and old stone.
Moonlight filtered through stained glass.
Broken pews were stacked against one wall.
Someone had installed modern security sensors beneath medieval arches.
"Charming," I whispered.
Nico looked at me.
"You can still go back to the vehicle."
"You can still stop asking."
He almost smiled.
Then a sound came from below us.
Metal scraped against concrete.
Clara froze.
"Basement."
We found the stairwell behind the old sacristy.
Two guards went first.
Nico followed.
He made me stay one step behind him.
For once, I did not argue.
The basement corridor was lit by bare bulbs.
Locked steel doors lined both sides.
This was not a retreat.
It was a prison dressed as forgotten architecture.
The first room was empty.
The second contained a cot and medical supplies.
The third held restraints bolted to a chair.
Clara turned pale.
"Bianca."
A woman's sweater lay on the floor.
Clara picked it up.
She pressed it to her face.
"This is hers."
Nico stared at the garment.
His hands shook once before he closed them into fists.
"She was here."
"Recently."
Clara pointed toward a mug on the table.
Steam no longer rose from it, but the tea inside was still warm.
Someone had moved Bianca hours, perhaps minutes, before we arrived.
A guard called from the hallway.
"Movement."
Everyone raised weapons.
The sound came again.
A slow metallic knock.
Three times.
Then silence.
Nico moved toward the final door.
"Marco?"
Nothing.
"Marco Valenti."
A hoarse voice answered from inside.
"Who is asking?"
Nico stopped.
Every bit of color drained from his face.
"Niccolo."
The silence on the other side became enormous.
Then the man laughed.
It was not a happy sound.
"You finally came to kill me yourself."
Nico stepped closer to the door.
"Open it."
The guard worked the electronic lock.
It failed.
Another guard brought a mechanical spreader.
Metal screamed.
The door opened three inches.
Then six.
Then enough for the light to enter.
A man sat chained to the wall.
He was thinner than Nico.
His hair was longer.
A beard covered most of his face.
But the resemblance was unmistakable.
Same dark eyes.
Same jaw.
Same dangerous stillness.
Except Marco Valenti looked like someone had spent years trying to beat the life out of him and failed.
Nico did not move.
Marco did.
He lunged as far as the chain allowed.
"You bastard."
The guards raised weapons.
Nico lifted one hand.
"Down."
"He came back," Marco snarled.
"After four years, the king remembered he had a brother."
Nico stared at him.
"I buried you."
"Did you enjoy the funeral?"
"I watched your coffin go into the ground."
"Then someone gave you a good show."
Clara stepped into the doorway.
Marco's expression changed.
"You."
"I told you I would come back."
"You brought him."
"He needed to see."
Marco laughed bitterly.
"Nico only sees what Vittorio lets him see."
Nico crossed the room.
"Where is Bianca?"
Marco's eyes went dead.
"Still asking about your wife before your brother."
"Where is she?"
"Gone."
Nico grabbed him.
The chain rattled.
"Where?"
Marco smiled with split lips.
"You haven't changed."
"Neither have you."
"I changed every day you left me here."
Nico released him as if burned.
I stepped into the room.
Marco's gaze found me.
He stopped.
Something like recognition crossed his face.
"No."
I frowned.
"What?"
He stared at me.
"Who are you?"
"Emma Hayes."
Marco went completely still.
Nico looked between us.
"You know her?"
Marco ignored him.
"Hayes?"
"Yes."
"Eleanor Hayes?"
My stomach dropped.
"My grandmother."
Marco started laughing.
It was a terrible, exhausted laugh.
"Of course."
Nico grabbed his shoulder.
"What does she have to do with this?"
Marco looked at his brother.
"Everything."
"Explain."
"Eleanor was the only person Vittorio ever feared."
I stared.
"My grandmother was five feet two and carried peppermints in her purse."
Marco's eyes moved to me.
"She also copied twenty years of his books."
"Clara told us."
"Did Clara tell you why?"
I looked at her.
Clara shook her head.
"I don't know."
Marco leaned back against the wall.
"Because Vittorio killed Eleanor's husband."
The floor seemed to shift under me.
"My grandfather died in a car accident."
"No."
Marco's voice was almost gentle.
"Your grandfather discovered the laundering network first."
"You're lying."
"Ask yourself why a bookkeeper spent twenty years gathering evidence instead of going to police."
"Because the police were being paid."
"Exactly."
I could not breathe properly.
Nico touched my arm.
I pulled away because I could not bear anyone's sympathy.
Marco continued.
"Eleanor built an insurance policy."
"The ring?" Nico asked.
"Part of it."
"Where is it?"
Marco smiled without humor.
"That is the beautiful part."
He looked directly at me.
"Vittorio has been searching for the ring for years."
"David pawned it to his company."
"Yes."
"Then he had it."
"No."
Marco shook his head.
"Someone at Bell Street recognized the name Hayes and hid it before Vittorio's people could collect the inventory."
"Who?"
"A clerk named Samuel Price."
"Where is he?"
"Dead."
I closed my eyes.
Of course he was.
"What happened to the ring?"
Marco looked toward Clara.
"Bianca got it."
Clara's face went white.
"No."
"Yes."
"She told me it was still missing."
"She lied."
Nico's voice turned cold.
"Why?"
Marco looked at his brother.
"Because by then Bianca trusted no one."
His eyes shifted to me.
"Not even her sister."
Clara looked wounded.
"Where did she put it?"
Marco's face changed.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
A guard rushed in.
"We have incoming vehicles."
Nico turned.
"How many?"
"At least six."
Gunfire erupted upstairs.
The lights died.
Clara screamed.
Red emergency lamps flickered on.
Marco grabbed Nico's sleeve.
"Listen to me."
Nico looked down.
"Bianca knew Saint Gabriel would fall."
"Where did they take her?"
"I don't know."
"Then what do you know?"
Marco's eyes found me.
"The ring is not hidden in a bank."
The first explosion shook dust from the ceiling.
"Bianca put it somewhere Vittorio could never search without drawing attention."
Another explosion rocked the corridor.
"Where?" I demanded.
Marco stared directly at me.
"Back where Eleanor spent her last years."
My heart stopped.
"My grandmother's house?"
Marco shook his head.
"Your apartment."
A third explosion blew the basement door inward.
May you like
And the lights went black.
