Chapter 2 - The Secret Behind the Canvas
The click of Isabella’s handbag echoed like a gunshot in the silent bedroom.
My breath trapped in my throat. I braced myself for the cold steel of a pistol, my instincts screaming at me to throw my body over Eleanor’s frail frame. Beside me, Gabriel’s hand dropped with lightning speed to his waistband, his fingers closing around the grip of his concealed firearm.
“Don’t do it, Miss Moretti,” Gabriel warned, his voice low and dangerous.
Isabella paused, her hand halfway inside her designer leather tote. Her emerald eyes flicked toward Gabriel, her manicured eyebrows arching with icy amusement. Slowly, deliberately, she withdrew her hand.
It wasn't a gun.
It was a sleek, silver syringe pre-filled with clear liquid, accompanied by a small glass vial.
“Relax, Gabriel,” Isabella said smoothly, stepping fully into the bedroom and letting the heavy oak door swing shut behind her. “You think I’m an amateur? I’m carrying my mother’s evening sedative. Dr. Whitmore left it in the downstairs study before he rushed off to the hospital.”
“Dr. Whitmore didn't rush to the hospital,” I countered, stepping firmly between Isabella and the bed. “The paramedics took Vincent. Whitmore stayed behind trying to confiscate medical evidence—until Gabriel stopped him.”
Isabella’s gaze shifted to me. Up close, her beauty was sharp, almost venomous. The sweet, concerned sister persona from two hours ago had completely melted away.
“You’re still here, Hannah,” Isabella whispered. Her voice carried a rhythm that made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “You’re a contract nurse from an underfunded clinic in Milwaukee. You make thirty-two dollars an hour changing bedpans and checking blood pressures. Do you really believe anyone in this city will take your word over Dr. Samuel Whitmore’s?”
“I don't need them to take my word,” I replied, keeping my voice steady even though my heart was hammering against my ribs. “The lab will run a comprehensive toxicology screen on Vincent’s blood. And when they do, they’ll find whatever is inside those bags in your cooler.”
Isabella didn't blink. She set the medical cooler down on an antique mahogany vanity table with a soft thud.
“You think you’re noble,” she murmured. “You think you’re going to walk out of this house a hero, go home to your pathetic little apartment, and tell yourself you did good. But let me remind you of something, Miss Cole. My family owns the hospital where my brother is currently lying. We own the ground it’s built on. We own the judges who sign warrants, and we own the detectives who investigate sudden accidents.”
From the bed, Eleanor let out a ragged sob. “Isabella… please. He’s your brother. Your own blood.”
“Quiet, Mother,” Isabella snapped, not even glancing at her. “You haven't understood how this family works since Father died.”
“She told me to look behind the photograph,” I said, cutting through her intimidation.
Isabella’s eyes narrowed to slits. For a fraction of a second, raw panic broke through her porcelain mask. She glanced toward the massive oil painting hanging above the carved stone fireplace—a portrait of the late patriarch, Antonio Moretti, flanked by a teenage Vincent and a younger Isabella.
“Touch that frame, and you won’t survive the night,” Isabella hissed.
“Gabriel,” I said without looking away from her. “Get it.”
Isabella whipped around. “Gabriel! You work for the Moretti family! Your loyalty belongs to us!”
Gabriel didn't hesitate. His boots clicked against the hardwood floor as he strode past Isabella toward the fireplace. “My loyalty belongs to Vincent,” he said coldly. “Your father hired me to protect his son. Not to help you bury him.”
“You traitor—” Isabella lunged forward, but Gabriel reached the mantelpiece in three long strides. He gripped the heavy gilded edge of the painting and pulled it forward.
The frame swung out on hidden hinges, revealing a shallow, recessed wall safe. The digital keypad glowed faintly blue in the dim room.
“It has a biometric scanner,” Isabella laughed, a cold, breathless sound. “You can’t open it. Only Vincent and Father had the codes.”
“He doesn't need to open it,” Eleanor whispered from the bed. She pointed a trembling, spotted finger toward the base of the frame. “Not the safe. Behind the canvas. Antonio kept an envelope tucked inside the backing. Before he went to the hospital three years ago… he put it there.”
Isabella’s face drained of color. “What?”
Gabriel reached behind the stretched linen of the portrait. His fingers searched the dark recess between the frame and the canvas. A faint tearing sound of old masking tape filled the bedroom.
When his hand emerged, he held a thick, yellowed manila envelope sealed with red wax.
“Give that to me!” Isabella screamed, shedding every ounce of her polished demeanor. She surged forward, her fingers clawing toward the document, but Gabriel stepped aside effortlessly, using his broad shoulder to block her.
“Step back, Miss Moretti,” Gabriel warned.
I moved to Gabriel’s side. He handed me the envelope. The red wax bore an imprint of an anchor entwined with a serpent—the private seal of Antonio Moretti’s shipping empire.
Scrawled across the front in jagged, faded black ink were four words:
*To Vincent: In Case of My Murder.*
My stomach plummeted. “Your father knew?”
“He died of heart failure,” I said, looking from Eleanor to Isabella. “That was the official report.”
“Heart failure brought on by gradual systemic poisoning,” Eleanor wept softly, burying her face in her frail hands. “He started having the same fainting spells. The chest tightness. The slow pulse. Samuel Whitmore was his doctor, too. Antonio suspected something was wrong in his final weeks, but he was too weak to fight. He hid the evidence where no one would look. He told me… he told me that if anything ever happened to him, Vincent had to see it before it was too late.”
Isabella stood frozen in the center of the room, her chest heaving beneath her silk blouse. The calm, untouchable socialite was gone. In her place stood a cornered predator.
“You have no idea what you’re meddling in, nurse,” Isabella spat, her voice vibrating with venom. “My father was a relic. He built an empire on blood and fear, and then he lost his nerve. He wanted to turn everything legitimate. He wanted to hand the shipping lanes, the overseas accounts, the real estate over to Vincent—a boy who spent ten years trying to play the clean businessman!”
“And what did you want, Isabella?” I asked, holding the envelope tightly against my chest.
“I wanted what was mine by right!” she snarled. “I ran the offshore holdings. I made the connections with the syndicates in New York and Montreal. Vincent wanted to dismantle everything Father built just to appease the federal prosecutors. He was going to cut me out. He was going to leave me with crumbs!”
“So you partnered with Whitmore,” Gabriel said, disgust dripping from every syllable. “You’ve been dosing Vincent’s infusions with a synthetic digitalis extract. Slow enough to look like natural idiopathic cardiomyopathy. Just like your father.”
“No one was supposed to look at the IV bags!” Isabella shrieked, glaring at me with murderous intensity. “Every single nurse we hired followed orders. They took their five-hundred-dollar-a-day paychecks and kept their mouths shut! Why couldn't you just do your damn job?”
“Because my job is keeping people alive,” I said firmly. “Not facilitating a slow-motion murder.”
Downstairs, the distant, muffled sound of heavy doors slamming echoed through the estate.
Footsteps pounded on the grand marble staircase. Not the measured tread of household staff, but the synchronized, heavy stomps of multiple armed men moving with tactical precision.
Gabriel’s eyes widened. He tapped his earpiece. “Front gate, report. Who just entered the compound?”
Static hissed through his receiver. Then a strange, unfamiliar voice crackled over the line: *“Perimeter secured. Clear the house.”*
Gabriel ripped the earpiece out and grabbed my arm. “We have to move. Now.”
Isabella smiled. It was a terrifying, triumphant grin.
“Did you really think I’d rely entirely on Samuel Whitmore’s nerve?” she whispered, stepping backward toward the hallway door. “The hospital called me ten minutes ago. Vincent didn't die in the ambulance. His pulse stabilized. So I had to activate my backup plan.”
She reached the door, pulled it open, and looked back at us.
“None of you are leaving this estate alive.”
Before Gabriel could raise his weapon, Isabella slipped into the corridor and slammed the heavy oak door shut.
May you like
A split second later, the metallic click of a deadbolt sliding into place from the outside sealed us inside the bedroom.
***
