Chapter 6 - The Night Victor Came Home
“Ethan isn't here,” Lily whispered.
Alessandro was already moving.
That was the first relief.
Ethan remained at the protected clinic.
The second realization was worse.
Victor knew that.
So the attack on the mansion was not about the boy.
It was about something else.
“Archive room,” Alessandro said.
Marco understood instantly.
The evidence.
Backup copies from Margaret and Sofia had been temporarily stored in the mansion safe before transfer to federal investigators the next morning.
Emergency lights flickered.
Then died.
Marco divided security teams.
Alessandro grabbed Lily’s arm.
“Stay with me.”
“You say that almost as often as behind me.”
“Tonight they're the same thing.”
They moved through the corridor.
A crash came from the west wing.
Then footsteps.
Security shouted.
Someone ran.
Lily smelled smoke.
“Fire.”
Alessandro turned.
Orange light appeared beneath the archive-room door.
“They're burning it.”
Marco arrived with extinguishers.
The door had been forced.
Inside, files burned inside a metal waste container.
But the safe remained closed.
A man in black attempted to escape through the window.
Security tackled him.
Alessandro grabbed his jacket.
“Victor?”
The man laughed.
“Too late.”
“For what?”
“You think this is about paper?”
Alessandro’s grip tightened.
“What is it about?”
The man looked at Lily.
“Her.”
Lily stepped back.
A sound came from behind her.
She turned.
Mrs. Bellamy stood in the hallway.
The missing housekeeper.
“Lily.”
Lily stared.
“You're alive.”
Bellamy looked exhausted.
“I’m sorry.”
Alessandro moved toward her.
“Where have you been?”
“Running.”
“From Victor?”
“Yes.”
“You hired Lily.”
Bellamy nodded.
“Why?”
“Margaret asked me to.”
Silence.
Lily’s eyes widened.
“My mother?”
“Years ago.”
Bellamy began crying.
“Before she died, Margaret gave me your name. She said someday, if Ethan Romano was ever harmed, I had to bring you near him.”
Lily's stomach dropped.
“So I was planted here.”
“No.”
“You hired me because of my mother.”
“Yes.”
“You manipulated me.”
“I gave you an interview.”
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“Did Alessandro?”
“No.”
Alessandro looked equally furious.
“Why wait eighteen months after Ethan’s accident?”
Bellamy shook her head.
“I didn’t know whether Victor had acted. Then I found the scratch on the wheelchair.”
R-806.
“You scratched it?” Lily asked.
“No.”
Bellamy looked frightened.
“Margaret did.”
Lily stared.
“My mother died years before Ethan’s accident.”
“I know.”
“Then how?”
Bellamy reached into her coat.
She removed a small metal plate.
R-806.
“It was stored with Margaret’s instructions.”
Bellamy had attached it beneath the wheelchair handle after recognizing the same medical supplier connected to Victor.
She had created a signal.
A message meant for Lily.
“But why not just tell me?” Lily demanded.
“Because I didn't know who was watching.”
“You could have called.”
“Victor monitored everything connected to this estate.”
“So you let me walk into danger blind.”
Bellamy cried harder.
“Yes.”
Lily looked away.
Betrayal did not require hatred.
Sometimes people could hurt you while believing they were protecting you.
Margaret had done it.
Bellamy had done it.
Perhaps Alessandro had too.
“Where were you?” he asked.
Bellamy composed herself.
“Victor took me.”
“What did he want?”
“The remaining archive.”
“There is no remaining archive.”
Bellamy looked at Lily.
“Yes, there is.”
Lily closed her eyes.
Of course there was.
Another secret.
Bellamy continued.
“Margaret never trusted digital copies.”
“Where?”
“She buried the original laboratory notebooks.”
“In her garden?” Lily guessed.
Bellamy shook her head.
“Not hers.”
“Then where?”
Bellamy looked toward the greenhouse.
Lily understood.
The Romano estate.
“Your mother visited this property before Sofia died.”
Alessandro frowned.
“I never met her.”
“She came as Sofia’s gardening consultant.”
Lily stared.
Her mother had stood in the same greenhouse.
Worked the same soil.
Perhaps touched the same tables.
Bellamy led them to an old stone planter outside the greenhouse wall.
They dug.
Nothing.
Another planter.
Nothing.
Then Lily remembered one of Margaret’s rules.
Never bury something beneath what changes.
Trees grow.
Roots move.
Flowers die.
Stone remembers.
Lily looked toward the greenhouse foundation.
“Cornerstone.”
They removed a loose panel beneath the eastern corner.
Inside was a waterproof case.
Margaret’s notebooks.
Original signatures.
Trial data.
Victor’s authorization.
Enough to destroy every defense he could construct.
Alessandro stared.
“He attacked the house because Bellamy escaped and told him we might find these.”
Marco shook his head.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
“Then why?”
“Because he knew we would concentrate security here.”
Alessandro’s face changed.
“The clinic.”
He grabbed his phone.
No signal.
The mansion jammer.
Victor’s men had disabled outside communication.
Marco ran for the hardline.
It had been cut.
Alessandro headed toward the garage.
Lily followed.
“No.”
“Don't start.”
“This time I'm not ordering you.”
“Good.”
“I'm begging.”
She stopped.
Alessandro turned.
His expression was unlike anything she had seen.
Fear.
Pure fear.
“Stay here, Lily.”
“Why?”
“Because I can't protect Ethan and wonder whether you’re alive too.”
The words stunned them both.
Alessandro looked away.
Lily stepped closer.
“You don't have to protect me from every door.”
“I don't know another way.”
“Learn.”
Silence.
Then Lily took his hand.
“I’m coming.”
They drove to the clinic without escort for the first five minutes until Marco's convoy caught up.
When they arrived, federal agents surrounded the building.
Too quiet.
One agent met Alessandro.
“Someone triggered the fire system.”
“Ethan?”
“His room is empty.”
Alessandro nearly collapsed.
“No.”
The agent continued quickly.
“Wait. There’s no sign he was taken outside.”
Security footage showed a nurse moving Ethan toward a service corridor during the alarm.
Not his assigned nurse.
Vale watched the screen.
“I know her.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Helena Ward.”
“Victor’s?”
“Former project physician.”
They searched the clinic.
Basement.
Rehabilitation gym.
Imaging rooms.
Nothing.
Then Lily saw wet wheelchair tracks near the hydrotherapy area.
“Here.”
They followed.
The tracks ended at an unused therapy room.
Door locked.
Alessandro pounded.
“Ethan!”
A faint voice answered.
“Dad!”
Alessandro almost tore the handle off.
Agents opened it.
Ethan sat inside.
Alive.
Dr. Ward stood behind him with a syringe.
“Stay back.”
Alessandro stopped.
Lily stepped beside him.
Ethan’s face was wet with tears.
“Dad.”
“I’m here.”
Ward’s hand shook.
“I don't want to hurt him.”
“Then put it down.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
She looked terrified.
“Victor has my daughter.”
Alessandro’s expression changed.
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“He ordered you to inject Ethan?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“The original suppressant.”
Vale whispered, “No.”
Lily spoke gently.
“Helena.”
Ward looked at her.
“I know what it feels like when someone uses a person you love to control your choices.”
“You don't.”
“My mother died trying to stop Victor.”
Ward’s eyes widened.
“You’re Margaret's daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know what he does.”
“I know what he wants you to believe.”
“What?”
“That there is no choice.”
Ward began crying.
“He sent me a live video of my daughter.”
Alessandro extended his hand.
“Give me the phone.”
Ward hesitated.
“Give me the phone and I will find her.”
“How?”
“My people.”
“Victor has people too.”
“So do the federal agents outside.”
Ward laughed bitterly.
“He owns officials.”
“Not all of them.”
Lily stepped forward.
“Helena. Put down the syringe.”
Ward looked at Ethan.
The boy whispered, “Please.”
Her hand broke.
The syringe fell.
Alessandro crossed the room and pulled Ethan into his arms.
Lily closed her eyes.
They found Ward’s daughter forty minutes later in a rented apartment in Newark.
Alive.
Victor had lost another hostage.
But he had not lost everything.
Ward gave them the one detail he had protected.
His location.
An abandoned Romano Medical facility beneath an old private hospital on Staten Island.
Federal agents prepared a raid.
Alessandro planned to go.
Lily argued.
He refused.
This time she did not win.
“You stay with Ethan.”
She looked at him.
“Come back.”
Alessandro touched her face.
It was the first intimate gesture between them.
He seemed surprised by his own hand.
“I will.”
Then he left.
At 4:12 a.m., the raid team entered the underground facility.
No Victor.
No guards.
Only equipment.
Records.
And one video camera.
Alessandro approached it.
The screen activated.
Victor appeared live.
“Congratulations, nephew.”
Alessandro stared.
“You found the laboratory.”
Victor smiled.
“But not me.”
Behind him was a window.
City skyline.
Manhattan.
Victor had never left the center of New York.
He leaned toward the camera.
“You've taken my research, my people, my money.”
His smile disappeared.
“So now I take the one thing you didn't know you had.”
Alessandro’s stomach turned.
Victor lifted another camera.
The image changed.
The Romano greenhouse.
Lily stood beside Ethan.
Live.
Alessandro whispered, “No.”
May you like
Then a man stepped from behind the greenhouse door.
And Lily turned toward him.
