Chapter 5 - seventeen missing seconds
Vincent reached the upstairs corridor before the rest of his men.
The private room door stood open.
Dr. Chen was kneeling beside an unconscious security guard. Sophie was not there.
Vincent crossed the room.
“Where is she?”
“I was examining her when the lights flickered,” Dr. Chen said. “Someone in a server’s uniform entered and said you needed Sophie downstairs. Your guard challenged him. The man struck the guard and grabbed her.”
Tony checked the adjoining washroom.
“Window’s locked.”
Vincent noticed a section of wall paneling slightly open.
Behind it was a service lift used to carry food from the kitchen.
He pressed the call button.
The lift rose slowly.
Inside, Sophie sat with Luna in her lap.
A young man in a server’s jacket lay beside her, his wrists tied with a silk curtain cord.
Sophie looked up at Vincent.
“He said you sent him.”
Vincent lifted her out of the compartment.
“You knew he was lying?”
“He didn’t know about the lion.”
She opened her hand, revealing Vincent’s pin.
“What happened to him?”
“I told him I was scared of small spaces. When he bent down, I pushed the emergency button and ran back into the lift. He tried to follow, but Luna’s ribbon got around his hands.”
Tony stared at the stuffed rabbit’s long ribbon, now missing from its neck.
“Remind me never to underestimate Luna.”
Sophie hugged the rabbit.
The man in the lift began to wake.
Vincent’s security team carried him to a locked storage room.
His name was Aaron Pike. He had worked at Bellavista for six months using forged documents.
Tony searched his pockets and found a key card, a burner phone, and a brass token stamped with a black crown.
Vincent recognized the symbol.
“The Crown Room,” he said.
Tony frowned.
“That place closed years ago.”
“It moved.”
The Crown Room had once been an exclusive private club where judges, executives, and politicians purchased favors from Vincent’s father. Vincent had shut it down when he took control of the Moretti organization.
The brass token meant someone had rebuilt it.
Aaron refused to answer questions until Sophie was escorted from the room.
Then Vincent placed the encrypted drive on the table.
“You entered my restaurant, attacked my security, and tried to take a child.”
Aaron looked at the drive.
“I was told to bring her to the service entrance.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s the truth. Instructions came through an encrypted application.”
Tony held up Aaron’s burner phone.
“The application erased itself.”
Aaron swallowed.
“I never saw the person in charge.”
“But you saw the scarred man.”
“Dario Voss.”
The name confirmed Vincent’s fear.
Dario had been the leader of the Black Spider crew. Seven years earlier, his vehicle had exploded on a remote road. No body had been found, but Vincent’s intelligence network had treated him as dead.
“Where is Dario holding Mara?” Vincent asked.
“I only heard Pier Nineteen.”
“Why attack Sophie upstairs?”
“The order changed. Someone said the drive might be hidden on her.”
“Someone inside Bellavista?”
Aaron looked away.
Vincent leaned forward.
“Who cut the cameras?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Describe him.”
“Gray suit. Silver cuff links. One had a lion on it.”
Tony looked toward Vincent.
The gold lion was the Moretti family symbol.
Several senior men were permitted to wear it.
Marco, head of security.
Julian Cross, Vincent’s business partner.
Tony himself.
And Vincent’s uncle, Salvatore Moretti.
Sophie appeared at the doorway before anyone realized she had left Dr. Chen.
“The man in our apartment had a lion too,” she said.
Vincent’s attention shifted to her.
“Which man?”
“The one on the phone.”
“You didn’t see him.”
“No, but I heard something.”
She pointed toward the brass token.
“When he spoke, there was a bell in the background. It rang three times.”
Vincent turned the token over.
A tiny address had been engraved around the edge.
317 Wren Street.
Tony entered it into his phone.
“That’s not Pier Nineteen.”
“What is it?”
“An abandoned church near the old courthouse.”
Vincent took his coat from Sophie’s shoulders and handed it to Tony.
“Prepare two teams. One goes to the pier. The other comes with me to Wren Street.”
Tony nodded.
Marco stepped forward.
“I’ll lead the pier team.”
Vincent watched him for a moment.
“Give me your cuff links.”
Marco stiffened.
“Excuse me?”
“Now.”
Marco removed them.
Both displayed the gold lion.
One had a fresh scratch across its surface.
Sophie studied it.
“That looks like the one I saw.”
Every bodyguard in the corridor turned toward Marco.
Marco slowly raised his hands.
“Vincent, I can explain.”
A shot struck the corridor window from outside.
The glass cracked.
May you like
The lights went dark for the third time.
When emergency power returned, Marco was gone.
