CHAPTER TWO: THE MEN IN THE BEDROOM
Marcus Bellini did not like unanswered questions.
That was one of the reasons Vincent had once trusted him.
Marcus was patient, but never passive. If a man lied, Marcus heard the weakness in the pause. If a plan had a hole, Marcus saw where it would rip. If someone disappeared for too long, Marcus went looking.
Now he was looking at the closet door.
Vincent could sense him on the other side.
The silence stretched.
“Elio?” Marcus said, using the young intruder’s name. “You find something?”
The man at Vincent’s feet did not answer.
Elena crouched soundlessly and took the man’s small flashlight before it could roll into the door. Her face had changed. The frightened maid was gone. In her place stood someone trained by necessity, not comfort.
Vincent bent close to her ear.
“How many?”
She held up four fingers.
Then, after a pause, she held up one more.
Five.
Vincent’s mouth tightened.
Marcus and four men. Armed. Searching his room. Possibly more downstairs.
He looked toward the back wall of the closet. Behind the row of hanging coats was a narrow service panel. Most people would never notice it. It blended into the wall design, built years ago during one of Carlo Torino’s paranoid renovations.
Vincent had never used it.
Elena noticed his gaze.
“There?” she whispered.
He nodded.
“How do you know about it?” she asked.
“How do you?”
For the first time, something like guilt crossed her face.
A floorboard creaked outside.
They both went still.
Marcus’s voice moved closer. “Open the closet.”
Another man answered, “You sure?”
“Open it.”
Vincent reached for the service panel. It opened with a soft click. Behind it, a cramped passage dropped into darkness.
Elena’s eyes widened.
Vincent motioned her in first.
She shook her head.
“You first.”
“No.”
The argument lasted only a second, but that second revealed too much. Elena was not trying to escape. She was protecting him with the stubbornness of someone who had already made peace with dying.
Vincent grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the passage after him.
They slipped inside just as the closet door swung open.
Light spilled across the empty coats.
Marcus stepped into the closet.
Vincent and Elena froze behind the wall panel, shoulder to shoulder in the dark passage, separated from Marcus by less than two feet of wood.
Marcus saw Elio on the floor.
For one awful second, no one breathed.
Then Marcus said softly, “He’s here.”
The bedroom erupted into movement.
Drawers slammed. Men cursed under their breath. Someone kicked the bathroom door open. Another checked beneath the bed. Marcus remained in the closet, listening.
Vincent knew Marcus well enough to know what he was doing.
He was thinking backward.
If Elio had been pulled into the closet, where had the attacker gone?
The panel beside Vincent’s face shifted slightly.
Elena lifted the pistol.
Vincent caught her wrist.
Not yet.
Marcus’s fingers brushed the seam of the hidden door.
Then, from downstairs, a crash echoed through the mansion.
All three of them froze.
A male voice shouted from below.
Then another.
Marcus spun toward the bedroom. “Who else is here?”
No one answered.
Elena leaned close to Vincent and whispered, “That’s not your people.”
Vincent stared at her.
“What did you do?”
Her lips parted, but she did not answer.
Marcus left the closet, barking orders. “Two downstairs. Two with me. Move.”
Footsteps rushed out.
Vincent waited three seconds, then pushed the panel open.
The bedroom was destroyed.
Drawers hung open. His mattress had been cut. Books lay scattered across the floor. The framed photograph of Carlo Torino had been knocked from the desk and cracked across the glass.
Vincent stepped toward it.
Elena grabbed his arm.
“No time.”
He looked at her hand on his sleeve.
Most people in the mansion avoided touching him unless invited.
Elena did not seem to care.
They moved through the ruined bedroom and into the hallway. The corridor lights flickered. Somewhere below, men were shouting, but the sound came muffled through the walls.
Vincent stopped near the staircase.
“My mother.”
Elena looked down.
“Vincent—”
“My mother is in the east wing.”
“She’s not.”
His head turned slowly.
Elena swallowed.
“She left before you arrived.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“With whom?”
Elena hesitated.
That hesitation answered him.
Dominic.
Pain crossed Vincent’s face, gone almost before it appeared.
“My brother took her?”
“I don’t know if he took her,” Elena said. “Or if she went willingly.”
Vincent turned toward the east wing anyway.
Elena stepped in front of him.
For a maid, she had a dangerous habit of blocking his path.
“You go there, you die,” she said.
“You know a lot for someone who folds towels.”
Her eyes flashed.
“And you missed a lot for someone who runs an empire.”
The words hit him harder than they should have.
Downstairs, a gunshot cracked through the air.
Not close enough to hit them. Close enough to decide for them.
Elena grabbed his sleeve and pulled him toward the service staircase.
This time, Vincent followed.
They descended in darkness.
The service corridor smelled of rain and fear. Halfway down, Vincent saw one of his guards lying unconscious near the wall. Not dead. Breathing. His radio had been smashed.
Vincent crouched and checked him quickly.
Elena watched the hallway with the pistol low at her side.
“You called someone,” Vincent said.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Someone who isn’t paid by your brother.”
That could mean police.
That could mean rival.
That could mean something worse.
Vincent rose.
“You brought outsiders into my house?”
Elena faced him. “Your insiders were waiting to kill you.”
He had no answer for that.
They reached the kitchen entrance. Through the crack in the door, Vincent saw the main hall beyond. Two men moved near the staircase. One dragged a security guard by the collar. Another spoke into a phone.
“No, he came back early,” the man said. “Marcus is handling it.”
Vincent’s eyes darkened.
Elena pointed toward the pantry.
Inside, behind shelves of imported oil and flour sacks, was another hidden door. This one Vincent had known about since childhood. It led to the old wine cellar under the west terrace.
Elena opened it without asking.
Vincent stared.
Again.
“How?”
She did not look at him.
“Your father built more secrets than your family remembers.”
They slipped into the cellar.
Cold air wrapped around them. Rows of wine bottles rested in shadow, most untouched for years. Carlo had collected them obsessively, though he rarely drank. He liked owning things more than using them.
At the far end of the cellar stood an old iron cabinet.
Vincent went to it and entered the combination with quick fingers. Inside were emergency phones, cash, documents, and two weapons.
Elena watched him without surprise.
That irritated him more than fear would have.
He took one weapon and handed her the other.
She did not take it.
“I have mine.”
“Of course you do.”
For a brief second, even in danger, something almost like humor passed between them.
Then the cellar door above opened.
Voices.
Marcus.
Vincent pulled Elena behind a stone column.
Marcus descended first, followed by Dominic.
Seeing his brother in the cellar doorway did something terrible to Vincent.
Until that moment, betrayal had still been a word.
Now it had a face.
Dominic Torino looked nervous, but not ashamed. His hair was damp from the rain. His expensive jacket was unbuttoned. In his hand, he held a phone.
“I told you he might come back,” Dominic snapped.
Marcus glared at him. “You told me he never leaves those charity things before midnight.”
“He never does.”
“He did tonight.”
Dominic looked around the cellar. “Then find him.”
Marcus stepped closer. “You better hope we do. Because if Vincent walks out of this house breathing, you won’t live long enough to regret it.”
Dominic’s face went pale.
Vincent stood in the shadows, hearing his brother’s fear and hating that some part of him still remembered Dominic at nine years old, crying after falling from a horse. Vincent had carried him back to the house. Sofia had scolded Vincent for letting him ride too fast. Dominic had clung to his shirt and whispered, “Don’t leave me.”
That child was gone.
Maybe he had been gone for years.
Dominic paced near the wine racks. “My mother said the ledger is in his bedroom.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
His mother.
Elena looked at him.
Not with pity.
With warning.
Dominic continued, “Without that ledger, we don’t have enough. The board won’t turn. The old men won’t support me. They’re afraid of him.”
Marcus laughed without warmth. “They should be.”
“I’m not asking for commentary.”
“You’re asking me to kill the head of your family in his own house.”
Dominic spun on him. “I’m asking you to help me take what should have been mine.”
The words echoed through the cellar.
Vincent felt something inside him settle.
Not rage.
Clarity.
Dominic had not been forced. He had not been manipulated. He wanted the chair, the money, the respect, the fear. He wanted Vincent removed because he had spent his entire life measuring himself against a brother who never asked to be his enemy.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Your mother promised me the docks.”
Dominic nodded sharply. “You’ll have them.”
“And my name cleared from the old accounts?”
“Yes.”
“And the maid?”
Vincent felt Elena stiffen.
Dominic frowned. “What maid?”
“The Reyes girl,” Marcus said. “She was in the west hallway earlier. She saw something.”
Dominic waved a hand. “Then deal with her too.”
Elena’s expression did not change, but Vincent saw her eyes harden.
So did Vincent.
Marcus turned suddenly toward the column.
For a moment, Vincent thought he had been heard.
Then a phone buzzed.
Marcus checked it and cursed. “Police at the outer gate.”
Dominic’s eyes widened. “Police?”
Marcus looked at him with sudden suspicion. “Did you call them?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Elena’s grip tightened around her pistol.
Vincent leaned toward her.
“You?”
She whispered, “Not police.”
A voice thundered from upstairs.
“Federal agents! Put your weapons down!”
Dominic stumbled back as if the words had struck him.
Marcus raised his gun toward the cellar ceiling.
Vincent moved.
He stepped from behind the column, weapon raised but steady.
“Marcus.”
Both men turned.
Dominic looked as though he had seen a ghost.
Marcus did not.
Marcus looked disappointed.
“Boss,” he said. “You should’ve stayed at the gala.”
Vincent’s eyes moved to his brother.
“And you should’ve stayed my brother.”
Dominic swallowed. “Vincent, listen—”
“No.”
The single word ended something between them.
Above, footsteps pounded through the house. Federal agents shouted commands. Marcus glanced toward the stairs, calculating.
Elena stepped out beside Vincent.
Dominic stared at her. “You.”
Elena looked at him calmly.
“Yes,” she said. “Me.”
That was when Vincent realized his maid had not simply stumbled into the betrayal.
May you like
She had been waiting for it.
And everyone in that cellar knew it except him.
