Chapter 7 - The Portrait’s Hidden Registry
Vivienne did not take the brass cylinder immediately.
She looked at it as though it were a dangerous animal.
“Put Harper down,” she said.
Mia held her daughter tighter.
“No.”
“You cannot carry her forever.”
“I only have to carry her until Dominic comes.”
“Dominic was always late when it mattered.”
Mia glanced toward the windows.
Dawn had not yet broken.
“Where is the portrait?”
Vivienne smiled.
“So you understand the key.”
One of the armed men closed the study door.
The second searched Mia’s coat and removed the cylinder.
Vivienne accepted it with both hands.
“Julian thought he was clever,” she said. “He believed hiding truth made him its owner.”
“What truth?”
“That depends on who opens the frame.”
The trapdoor rattled beneath the rug.
Nathan was trying to enter.
Vivienne nodded to the men.
They moved a bookcase over it.
Mia watched her.
“You do not trust your own son.”
“I trust Nathan to behave like Nathan.”
“And Dominic?”
“I trust Dominic to behave like a man who needs to save everyone.”
“Is that why you took us?”
“I did not take you.”
She glanced toward the floor.
“Nathan made that choice.”
The accusation struck with enough precision to be partly true.
Vivienne stepped closer to Harper.
“Do you remember me?”
Harper hid her face.
Vivienne touched the child’s hair.
Mia slapped her hand away.
Both gunmen raised their weapons.
Vivienne’s face hardened.
“My granddaughter has been taught poor manners.”
“She has been taught not to trust monsters.”
Vivienne lifted her cane.
For a moment, Mia thought she would strike her.
Instead, Vivienne tapped the floor.
The wall behind Dominic’s desk opened.
A concealed elevator waited beyond it.
“Take them upstairs.”
The elevator rose to the manor’s fourth floor, an area closed since Dominic’s childhood. Mia had never been allowed beyond the locked iron gate at the top of the west stairs.
When the elevator opened, she saw why.
The corridor had been preserved like a museum.
Children’s shoes stood in neat rows along one wall. School photographs hung above them.
Dominic at seven, serious and pale.
Nathan at four, smiling with a missing tooth.
Adrian was absent.
At the end of the corridor stood the portrait of Eleanor Blackthorne.
Its massive gold frame rested against the wall.
Vivienne inserted the brass cylinder into a hidden opening behind the silver locket painted around Eleanor’s neck.
The frame clicked.
A narrow compartment opened.
Inside lay a leather scroll case.
Vivienne removed it.
Mia looked at the portrait.
The backing had been recently cut. Nathan must have tried to open it without the key.
Vivienne placed the scroll case on a table.
“Bring Nathan,” she ordered.
One of the men left.
“What is inside?” Mia asked.
“The reason Julian bought this house.”
“He did not buy it.”
Vivienne looked pleased.
“Mrs. Bell told you.”
“The covenant can transfer control to an eligible descendant.”
“Yes.”
“Adrian.”
“Adrian is named. But the registry was amended.”
“When?”
“Three months before Julian died.”
Mia remembered the conversation in the boiler room.
The child Julian hid after Adrian.
“Who did he add?”
Vivienne unrolled the document.
The first page contained legal text and a family tree.
Mia could not see the final entries.
Nathan entered with a bruised face.
“You found it,” he said.
Vivienne ignored him.
She turned the document.
A list of names appeared beneath a seal.
Dominic Vale.
Nathan Vale.
Adrian Cross.
Then a fourth name, partially obscured by a black strip of ink.
Mia stepped closer.
Vivienne placed her hand over the page.
“Not yet.”
Nathan stared at the hidden line.
“You said the fourth heir was a child.”
“Julian’s child.”
“Who?”
“You will know after Dominic signs.”
Nathan laughed once, without humor.
“You do not have control of the manor yet.”
“I have his wife.”
Mia looked at him.
“And his brother.”
Vivienne turned.
Nathan took a step back.
One gunman seized his arms.
“Mother.”
“You have failed repeatedly.”
“I brought Mia back.”
“You lost Harper, Adrian, the ledger, and the key.”
“The ledger is in the chapel.”
“Was.”
Nathan’s expression changed.
Vivienne had already recovered it.
She raised her cane and struck him behind the knees.
Nathan fell.
Harper screamed.
Mia turned her away.
Vivienne bent beside her son.
“Dominic will arrive expecting you to be the villain. You will play that role until he signs.”
Nathan looked up.
“And after?”
“Afterward, you will confess.”
“To what?”
“To Mia’s murder.”
Silence filled the room.
Mia felt Harper’s arms tighten around her neck.
Nathan stared at his mother.
“You said no one would die.”
Vivienne straightened.
“I said Harper would live.”
Mia stepped back.
The armed men blocked the elevator.
The corridor windows overlooked the eastern lawn, four floors below.
There was no escape.
Nathan slowly rose.
“You need Dominic to believe Mia is alive until he signs.”
“Yes.”
“Then killing her now would be foolish.”
Vivienne checked the clock.
“Dominic will be here in forty minutes.”
Nathan wiped blood from his lip.
“He will bring police.”
“He will bring no one. I know my son.”
Mia watched Nathan.
He looked defeated.
Then his eyes met hers.
His right hand moved slightly.
Two fingers.
A pause.
Then three.
He was counting.
Mia looked toward the elevator.
Two gunmen stood there.
A third guarded the stairs.
Nathan counted again.
One.
Two.
Three.
He threw himself into the nearest gunman.
Mia grabbed the scroll case.
Harper screamed as they ran toward the stairs.
The third guard raised his weapon.
Nathan shouted, “Down!”
Mia fell over Harper.
A gunshot shattered the window behind them.
Nathan struck the guard with Vivienne’s cane.
Glass rained across the floor.
Mia crawled toward the staircase.
Vivienne seized the scroll case.
They pulled in opposite directions.
The leather tore.
Pages scattered into the air.
One slid across the polished floor and stopped beside Harper’s hand.
Harper picked it up.
Mia saw only the top line before Nathan dragged them through the stairwell door.
Amendment of Bloodline Eligibility.
Beneath it was a photograph of a newborn child.
Around the baby’s wrist was a hospital tag.
May you like
The surname on the tag was Vale.
The first name was Mia.
