Chapter 8 - The Night Norah Became the Target
The basement door opened onto an empty corridor.
At the end sat a phone.
Nothing else.
Vincent picked it up.
Adrian Caruso’s voice came through.
“You inherited your father’s enemies.”
Vincent’s hand tightened.
“You’re hiding behind a telephone.”
“I’m alive because I learned to hide.”
“What do you want?”
“The truth exposed.”
“Then come tell it to me.”
Adrian laughed.
“Ask Teresa what your father did.”
The line disconnected.
Vincent turned toward Angela.
She finally told them.
Vincent’s father had framed Adrian for stealing millions.
Adrian discovered evidence linking the Rossi organization to corrupt businessmen who were secretly draining the family accounts.
Before he could expose them, Vincent’s father ordered him killed.
Teresa helped Adrian escape.
They separated to survive.
For twenty years, they gathered evidence.
Russo eventually found them.
He offered revenge.
But Russo wanted the Rossi empire for himself.
Teresa realized too late that she had allied with another monster.
The poison changed everything.
She had intended only to drug Vincent so Vale would perform blood work revealing chronic exposure to a toxin already being administered in small doses.
Instead, Vale increased the dose.
Vincent nearly died.
“Why blood work?” Norah asked.
Angela looked at Vincent.
“Because Teresa believed the poison had been entering your body long before the espresso.”
Norah understood.
“Food?”
“Medicine.”
Vincent went still.
Vale.
His doctor.
The betrayal was deeper than anyone realized.
That night Norah couldn’t sleep.
She went downstairs.
Vincent sat alone in the kitchen.
No guards.
No gun visible.
Just the feared Vincent Rossi eating cold rice from a bowl.
“You’ll ruin my reputation,” he said.
Norah sat opposite him.
“Your reputation survived oatmeal.”
Barely a smile.
Then silence.
“You should leave,” he said.
“No.”
“Not the kitchen. The estate.”
“No.”
“They’re targeting you.”
“They were targeting me before I knew you. Russo owned Caleb’s debt.”
Vincent looked at her.
“I can erase it.”
“We had this conversation.”
“I’m not buying you.”
“What are you doing?”
His answer came quietly.
“Trying not to lose you.”
Norah’s breath caught.
Vincent looked away first.
The moment could have become something else.
Then the window shattered.
Vincent threw himself across the table.
Norah hit the floor.
A bullet struck the cabinet.
Guards rushed in.
Outside, a motorcycle disappeared through the gates.
A note had been wrapped around the bullet.
Vincent opened it.
One sentence.
THE COOK DIES NEXT.
Vincent ordered Norah upstairs.
She ignored him.
Instead she went to the security room.
If cameras had created this nightmare, cameras could end it.
She searched months of archived footage.
Three hours later, she found something.
Dr. Vale entering the kitchen.
Russo entering the east hall.
A third person meeting both men.
The image was distorted.
Norah adjusted the contrast.
A familiar face emerged.
She stopped breathing.
Vincent entered behind her.
“What did you find?”
Norah pointed.
Vincent stared at the screen.
The person meeting Russo and Vale was someone who had eaten at Vincent’s table for years.
Someone who knew every security code.
Someone who had been inside the mansion the night Vincent was poisoned.
The figure turned toward the camera.
Vincent whispered the name.
May you like
Then the security-room door locked from the outside.
Smoke began pouring through the ventilation grate.
