Chapter 5 - The Enemy Inside the Mansion
Beatrice ran.
Emergency lights flashed red along the corridor.
“Theo!”
Adriano overtook her and reached the room first.
The bed was empty.
Beatrice stopped.
“No.”
The monitor leads hung loose.
The window remained sealed.
A hospital security officer lay unconscious beside the bathroom.
“Theo!”
A sound came from inside.
Beatrice rushed toward it.
Theo was curled behind the bathroom door.
She dropped to her knees.
“Oh God.”
He threw his arms around her.
“A man came.”
“Did he touch you?”
“I hid.”
Adriano crouched.
“What did he look like?”
Theo shook his head.
“He said my name.”
“Anything else?”
Theo looked at Adriano.
“He said you killed my mom.”
Silence.
Beatrice's eyes moved toward Adriano.
He didn't look away.
“I didn't order the explosion.”
“That isn't what he asked.”
Adriano's jaw tightened.
“No.”
Theo whispered, “Did you?”
Beatrice immediately said, “Theo, not now.”
But Adriano answered.
“My people were involved in what happened.”
Theo stared at him.
“I am trying to find out exactly how.”
The boy looked at Beatrice.
She hugged him.
The hospital transferred Theo to a secured floor.
Adriano wanted Beatrice moved to the mansion.
She refused until Dr. Anand explained Theo needed another twenty-four hours before surgery anyway.
By morning, they were inside Sarti's estate.
Theo received a downstairs guest suite.
Beatrice hated every second.
The marble floors.
Security cameras.
Armed men.
The knowledge that her employer's world had somehow swallowed hers.
Theo, however, liked the enormous kitchen.
“Do rich people have cereal?”
Mrs. Finch stared at him.
“We have seven kinds.”
Theo looked impressed.
“Maybe crime does pay.”
Beatrice nearly dropped her coffee.
Adriano choked.
“Where did you learn that?”
“TV.”
“No more TV,” Beatrice said.
Theo grinned.
For ten seconds, the mansion felt almost normal.
Then Luca arrived.
He had found Dr. Mercer.
Dead.
The former surgeon had died eleven months earlier in what police called a single-car accident.
Adriano didn't believe it.
Neither did Beatrice.
“What did Carlo tell you?” she asked.
Adriano looked at Theo.
“Not here.”
They entered the study.
“He gave me a name before someone shot at us.”
“Whose?”
“Marcus Vale.”
Beatrice remembered the security chief.
“The man who protects your house?”
“Yes.”
“That's comforting.”
“We don't know if Carlo was telling the truth.”
“What happened to Carlo?”
“He escaped.”
“And the blood?”
“Not mine.”
She stared.
“I don't want details.”
“Good.”
Luca entered carrying security logs.
“Marcus left the property last night.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes before the hospital blackout.”
Adriano's expression hardened.
“Where is he now?”
“Nobody knows.”
A crash sounded upstairs.
All three moved.
They found Theo in the hallway.
A framed photograph lay shattered near his wheelchair.
“I didn't do it,” he said.
Beatrice knelt.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Theo pointed at the photograph.
“I know him.”
Adriano picked it up.
The photograph showed his father, Adriano, Luca, Marcus—and Carlo.
Theo pointed at Marcus.
“Red car.”
Beatrice looked at him.
“What?”
“He drove the red car.”
Adriano crouched.
“You remember him?”
Theo nodded.
“He gave Mom something.”
“When?”
“Before the boom.”
“What?”
Theo struggled.
“A bag.”
Adriano looked at Luca.
Mara had received something from Marcus before the explosion.
That changed everything.
They searched the old waterfront files again.
Mara Carson wasn't simply an accidental civilian.
She had been photographed near the Sarti pavilion three times that day.
Once with Marcus.
Once with Carlo.
And once alone, holding an envelope.
Beatrice stared.
“What was my sister involved in?”
Nobody answered.
That night, she searched Mara's old belongings.
Most were stored in boxes in her apartment.
But one thing had come to the mansion accidentally months earlier: an old cookbook Beatrice sometimes carried because it contained her sister's handwritten recipes.
She opened it.
A key fell out.
A tiny brass key.
Tape on its side contained three faded numbers.
Adriano recognized them.
“Union Station lockers.”
They went after midnight.
Locker 317 still existed in an older storage corridor.
The key worked.
Inside was a metal box.
Beatrice opened it.
Cash.
A flash drive.
And a letter.
BEA.
Her hands trembled.
She unfolded it.
If you're reading this, something went wrong.
Beatrice stopped.
Adriano watched her face.
She continued.
I found out who is moving weapons through the waterfront contracts. I thought I could help someone stop it. I was wrong.
Beatrice swallowed.
There was more.
Do not trust the man who says Adriano ordered it.
She looked up.
Adriano stared at the letter.
Mara had written his name.
The final line read:
If anything happens to me, the proof is on the drive.
Luca inserted the flash drive into an isolated laptop.
One folder appeared.
VES.
Carlo Vescari.
Inside were transaction records.
Photographs.
Audio files.
And a video.
Luca clicked it.
Mara appeared on screen.
She was alive.
Terrified.
And sitting in the same hospital room where Theo had undergone his secret second surgery.
Beatrice covered her mouth.
Mara looked directly into the camera.
“If Beatrice ever sees this, tell her I'm sorry.”
A door opened behind Mara.
She turned.
Someone entered the frame.
Beatrice leaned toward the screen.
The man's face appeared.
Adriano whispered his name.
“Marcus.”
May you like
Then Marcus raised a gun toward Mara.
The video cut to black.
