Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE EAST WING|
The silence inside the library was so complete that I could hear Frank Moretti struggling to breathe.
Luca stood beside his father's chair, holding the letter that had turned his face pale.
Vanessa remained motionless near the desk, but her eyes kept drifting toward the locked door.
I knew that look.
She wasn't afraid of what Luca might do to her.
She was waiting for someone to come and save her.
"Who is living in my house, Dad?" Luca asked.
Frank swallowed and tightened his fingers around my hand.
"The man your wife introduced as Graham Hale."
Luca frowned.
"The antique restoration consultant?"
Frank nodded slowly.
"That's what she called him when he arrived three weeks ago."
"Why would you think he's Elias Voss?"
"Because I've heard that man laugh before, son."
Frank's voice trembled.
"I heard him laugh the night he threatened to put you in the ground."
My blood turned cold.
Five years earlier, Elias Voss had ordered an attack on Luca's convoy beneath Lower Wacker Drive.
Luca had survived, but his longtime driver, Daniel Price, had died protecting him.
Voss disappeared after a warehouse fire several weeks later, and everyone assumed he had perished inside.
At least, that was the story whispered throughout Chicago.
Vanessa suddenly laughed.
"You're listening to an eighty-two-year-old man who can't remember what he ate for breakfast."
Luca turned toward her.
"Then explain why you hired Hale without telling me who he really was."
"Because there is nothing to explain."
"Look at me when you're speaking."
She reluctantly lifted her eyes.
"I hired him to evaluate the family antiques before the renovations."
"And why is an antique consultant sleeping in my east wing?"
"He needed access to the collection."
"For three weeks?"
Vanessa said nothing.
Then someone knocked on the library door.
Three slow knocks.
A pause.
Two more.
Frank's entire body stiffened.
"That's him," he whispered.
"That's how he knocked on my office door twenty years ago."
A man's voice sounded from the hallway.
"Mrs. Moretti, is everything all right?"
Vanessa stepped toward the door.
Luca caught her arm before she reached it.
"Stay where you are."
"Luca, you're being ridiculous."
He ignored her and took out his phone.
"Rafael," he said when the call connected.
"I need you at the mansion immediately."
He listened for a moment.
"Bring the two officers you trust most, and don't use the main entrance."
His expression darkened.
"What do you mean Vanessa dismissed the overnight security team?"
Vanessa's face lost its color.
The man outside knocked again.
"Mrs. Moretti, I have the key."
Luca glanced toward the old brass lock.
Then he looked at his father.
"Dad, can you still find the servants' passage?"
Frank nodded.
I stared at him.
"What passage?"
He pointed toward the enormous walnut bookcase beside the fireplace.
"My father had that installed during Prohibition," he whispered.
"There's a narrow staircase behind it."
"Does Vanessa know about it?" Luca asked.
"No."
Frank hesitated.
"But your mother did."
Luca hurried toward the bookcase and pulled at a carved wooden ornament.
Nothing happened.
Frank shook his head.
"The other one, son."
He reached past Luca and pressed a tiny brass button beneath the shelf.
The bookcase shifted with a deep wooden groan.
A narrow opening appeared behind it.
I supported Frank as he rose from the chair.
The old man was shaking, but his eyes were remarkably clear.
"Take the folder," he told me.
"Not just the letter."
I gathered every document from the desk and held them against my chest.
Vanessa lunged toward me.
"Give me those!"
Luca stepped between us.
"Touch her again, Vanessa, and you'll be answering another question tonight."
For the first time since I had entered the Moretti household, I saw Vanessa genuinely frightened of the consequences of her own actions.
The library lock rattled violently.
A second later, metal scraped against metal.
Someone was turning another key.
"Go," Luca ordered.
I guided Frank through the opening.
Luca followed, pulling the bookcase shut behind us.
We had barely descended five narrow steps when the library door burst open.
Through the wooden panel, I heard Vanessa gasp.
"Elias, you weren't supposed to come upstairs!"
Then a man's voice answered, low and amused.
"Your husband found the papers?"
"Yes."
"And the old man?"
Vanessa hesitated.
"He knows who you are."
A terrible silence followed.
Then the man laughed.
It was a dry, ugly sound that made Frank grip the stair railing.
"Well," Elias Voss said, "I suppose we won't need that memory-care facility after all."
I felt Frank's fingers tighten around mine.
Above us, footsteps crossed the library.
Then something struck the bookcase.
Once.
Twice.
Luca leaned toward me.
"Get Dad downstairs."
I shook my head.
"What about you?"
"I'm right behind you."
We hurried through the darkness until we reached a locked wooden door at the bottom of the staircase.
Frank fumbled inside his vest.
"The small silver key," he whispered.
"Elena always made me carry it."
But before he could find it, a voice echoed from the passage above.
"There's something you should know, Luca."
We froze.
Elias Voss had discovered the hidden entrance.
"Your father isn't the only person in this house who knows your family secrets."
Luca slowly turned around.
The voice continued.
"Ask him what your mother hid inside the green book."
Frank closed his eyes.
May you like
And for the first time that night, he looked truly terrified.
"Because," Elias Voss whispered from the darkness, "that's the reason she died."
