Chương 2
“My father showed me.”
“You were two when he died.”
“That’s what everyone was told.”
The muscles in Adrian’s jaw shifted.
A muffled crash came from behind the bookshelf. The attackers were pulling volumes from the shelves, searching for a seam.
Melissa moved deeper into the passage.
The hem of her robe dragged through dust and caught beneath one slipper. Each step pulled at the dull ache low in her abdomen, the lingering soreness of labor. Three weeks earlier she had spent fourteen hours bringing their son into the world while Adrian sat beside the hospital bed pretending the machines did not frighten him. He had held her leg during contractions, argued with a nurse who tried to remove him, and wept only after he thought Melissa had fallen asleep.
Now she did not know whether any tenderness between them had been untouched by a lie.
The newborn shifted. She paused to settle his head more securely.
“Is he all right?” Adrian asked.
“He’s sleeping.”
“He shouldn’t be sleeping through this.”
“He’s three weeks old. He sleeps through everything except the things I need him to sleep through.”
The answer came too sharply, but for one second it sounded like their kitchen at four in the morning. Adrian almost smiled. The expression failed before it reached his mouth.
They continued downward.
The tunnel bent twice beneath the mansion. At the second turn, the floor steepened. Adrian wrapped his hands around the rims and slowed the chair by friction. The muscles in his forearms tightened. Rubber whispered against his palms.
“Let me help,” Melissa said.
“No.”
“You’ll lose control.”
“If you take one hand off him, I’ll throw you back up the tunnel myself.”
“You’re not in a position to throw anyone.”
“I can be creative.”
A burst of gunfire sounded above them, more distant now. It was followed by three slower shots.
Adrian stopped.
Melissa heard it too: the difference between automatic fire and a deliberate response.
“Your security?” she whispered.
“If anyone’s still alive.”
“You said there were twelve men on the grounds.”
“There were.”
She looked back at him. “How did attackers get through the gate?”
His gaze stayed on the darkness ahead.
“That’s a question I intend to ask.”
“No. That’s a question I’m asking now.”
“Someone opened it.”
The words moved through the tunnel and seemed to remain there.
Melissa had suspected betrayal since the first shots. The Moretti estate had cameras, reinforced doors, electronic gates, motion sensors along the eastern woods, and enough armed guards to make the mansion feel less like a home than a polished military installation. She had once asked Adrian why a man who claimed to control half the city needed so many locks. He had answered that control was what people called fear when they were profiting from it.
“Who knew you were in the library?” she asked.
“Everyone in the house knew we were upstairs.”
“We weren’t upstairs.”
“You brought the baby down because the nursery windows were shaking.”
“And you followed me.”
“I always follow you when you’re angry.”
“I wasn’t angry.”
“You were carrying three pillows and refusing to look at me.”
“The pillows were for your back.”
“You were furious.”
She was. He had canceled their son’s first pediatric appointment after receiving a security warning he refused to explain. Melissa had accused him of treating the baby like a possession to be stored behind bulletproof glass. Adrian had told her she had no idea what was outside the gates.
He had been right, though not in the way either of them had understood.
The tunnel widened near a rusted steel door. Above it, someone had painted a faded white number two.
Adrian tried the handle.
Locked.
Melissa touched the crowned-wolf ring. “There should be a key box.”
He aimed the phone light along the wall. “Your father showed you that too?”
“He brought me through here two years ago.”
Adrian turned his head slowly.
The attack above them seemed to vanish beneath the silence that followed.
“Gabriel Romano has been alive for the last thirty years?”
“He was alive two years ago.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
The baby’s eyelids fluttered. Melissa lowered her mouth to his temple, breathing in the sweet, faintly milky smell of his skin.
Adrian’s voice lost some of its steel. “You met with Gabriel while you were married to me.”
“I met with my father while I was married to you.”
“You told me your father died in a car accident when you were a child.”
“He almost did.”
“Where?”
“Outside Newark. The car burned. Rosa pulled me out before it caught completely.”
“Rosa Hart.”
“The woman who raised me.”
“Your aunt.”
“No. My father’s bookkeeper.”
Adrian stared at her for another second, then resumed searching the wall.
The key box was behind a loose rectangle of stone at shoulder height. Melissa pressed the bottom edge. The panel tilted forward, revealing a narrow cavity.
Inside lay a brass key wrapped in waxed cloth.
Adrian gave her a look she could not interpret.
She placed the key in the steel door. The lock opened with a reluctant clunk.
Beyond it, the passage widened into a brick-lined service tunnel running beneath the western lawn. Old electrical cables hung from ceramic brackets near the ceiling. A shallow channel carried rainwater along one side.
Adrian rolled through and waited while Melissa locked the door behind them.
“Where does this end?”
“The carriage house.”
“That was demolished before I was born.”
“The tunnel ends beneath it. The exit was moved to the greenhouse foundation after the fire.”
“You’ve spent two years walking around my property knowing more about it than I do.”
“Not walking around. Recovering from childbirth, mostly.”
He looked down at the sleeping baby. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
May you like
There were questions in his face, but the sound of metal striking metal behind the steel door cut them short.
The attackers had found the passage.
