Chapter 25 - WHEN THE CHANDELIER FELLIsabella saw the shadow before she understood the danger.
Clara shouted her name.
The chandelier broke free.
Marcus’s former head of security, Daniel Ross, ran across the stage and pushed Isabella aside.
The crystal structure crashed where she had been standing.
Glass exploded across the ballroom.
Guests screamed and rushed toward the exits.
Daniel lay beneath part of the metal frame.
He was alive but badly injured.
Police officers moved toward the balcony.
The shooter had already disappeared.
A rifle remained near the railing.
Its serial number had been removed.
Vanessa stood amid the broken glass.
“My father arranged this.”
“No,” Isabella said. “He arranged for you to be blamed. He would not shoot while his access file was public.”
“Then who?”
Evelyn looked toward the shattered screen.
“Someone who did not want the video shown.”
The recording implicated Lorenzo’s father, but he had been dead for years.
Adrian’s father was also dead.
Richard had already been charged.
One person connected to the old succession system remained outside their control.
Samuel Bell.
Clara refused to believe it.
“My father wanted the truth exposed.”
“We do not know what he wanted,” Aurelia said. “We know what he told each of us.”
Mara searched the balcony.
She found a hotel card beneath the rifle.
Samuel Bell’s name was written across it.
The same handwriting used in the presidential suite.
Someone was either Samuel or wanted them to believe he had returned.
Daniel was transported to surgery.
Before the ambulance doors closed, he gripped Isabella’s wrist.
“The shooter used the old service passage.”
“Which one?”
“The one Marcus escaped through.”
“Did you see the shooter?”
“No. But I saw who opened the passage.”
“Who?”
Daniel struggled to breathe.
“Your mother.”
Isabella thought he was confused.
“My mother died seven years ago.”
Daniel tightened his grip.
“I saw her face.”
Then the paramedics pulled Isabella away.
Lorenzo had heard him.
He turned pale.
“What did he mean?”
Isabella stared at her father.
“Did my mother know about H-9?”
Lorenzo looked toward the ruined ballroom.
“She knew more than I did.”
“Was she involved in hiding Aurelia?”
“I do not know.”
“That answer is no longer acceptable.”
Lorenzo lowered his voice.
“Your mother believed my father had ordered Elena’s death. She spent years collecting evidence.”
“Then why did she never expose him?”
“She became ill.”
“That is not the whole answer.”
“No.”
He looked toward the balcony.
“Three weeks before she died, your mother told me Samuel Bell had contacted her.”
Clara stepped closer.
“What did he want?”
“To exchange the succession file for Aurelia’s location.”
“Did she agree?”
“I thought she refused.”
“Thought?”
Lorenzo reached into his wallet and removed a faded hotel card.
Samuel Bell’s name was written on it.
“She received this the day before she disappeared from the hospital.”
Isabella felt the floor move beneath her.
“My mother disappeared?”
“She returned six hours later.”
“Where had she gone?”
“She never told me.”
On the back of the card was a date.
The following day.
And beneath it, a room number inside the Bellavere.
May you like
Room 1908.
Isabella’s current suite.
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