Chapter 2 - The Room Beneath the House
Damian reached for the door.
Marcus stopped him.
“Don't.”
The knocking came again.
Three slow knocks.
Damian drew himself upright.
“Who is it?”
Silence.
Marcus signaled toward the side entrance.
Two security officers moved into position.
Then a woman's voice came through the door.
“Mr. Voss? It's me.”
I knew that voice.
My blood turned cold.
“Rosa.”
Damian looked at me.
“Who?”
“My father's housekeeper.”
Marcus opened the door carefully.
Rosa Alvarez stood outside.
She had worked for my family for nineteen years.
Her gray hair had escaped its neat bun. Her coat was buttoned incorrectly. She held a small wooden box against her chest.
She looked at me and began crying.
“Elena.”
I crossed the room.
“What happened?”
“Your father knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That you left.”
“I got married. Two hundred people watched.”
She shook her head.
“No. He knows you left with the truth still inside you.”
Damian stepped closer.
“What truth?”
Rosa looked terrified of him.
I understood why.
Everyone did.
But then she looked at my bruised ankle beneath the edge of my gown.
Something in her expression changed.
“Maybe you should finally know,” she whispered.
She handed me the box.
It belonged to my mother.
I hadn't seen it since she died when I was fourteen.
Inside was a brass key.
A photograph.
And a note.
The photograph showed my mother standing beside a younger man.
Luca Voss.
Damian stopped breathing.
“That isn't possible.”
I looked at him.
“You knew him.”
“He was my brother.”
The room seemed to tilt.
In the photograph, my mother and Luca were standing outside Mercer Holdings.
The date written on the back was eight months before Luca died.
Damian took it.
“Where did you get this?”
Rosa answered.
“Mrs. Mercer gave it to me before she died.”
“My mother knew his brother?”
“She knew much more than that.”
Damian's eyes hardened.
“Tell me.”
Rosa shook her head.
“I promised her Elena would decide.”
“Decide what?”
“Whether to open the room.”
My fingers tightened around the brass key.
I knew exactly which room.
The basement.
Father's basement wasn't really a basement.
It was a reinforced archive beneath the Mercer estate.
As children, Ethan and I had been forbidden to go near it.
After Mother's death, Father changed the locks.
Years later, when I started asking questions about financial documents bearing my name, he took me down there himself.
That was the first time he hurt me badly enough to require a hospital.
Damian saw something in my face.
“That message mentioned the basement.”
“Yes.”
“What happened there?”
I stared at the key.
“I found records.”
“What kind?”
“Transfers. Contracts. Names.”
“Luca?”
“I don't know. Father caught me before I could read everything.”
Damian became very still.
“And afterward?”
I looked away.
He didn't force the answer.
Instead, he turned to Marcus.
“Cars.”
“Where?”
“The Mercer estate.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Elena, if your father removed evidence—”
“He could be waiting for you.”
“I expect him to be.”
“You don't understand him.”
Damian looked directly at me.
“Then help me.”
That sentence changed something.
Nobody had asked me to help before.
They ordered.
Threatened.
Negotiated.
Used.
But Damian was asking.
Twenty minutes later, I changed out of the enormous wedding gown into a simple ivory dress and coat provided by one of the staff.
Damian waited outside the room.
He didn't enter.
When I emerged, his gaze briefly fell to my ankle.
Then away.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Neither am I.”
It was the first almost-human thing I'd heard him say.
The drive to my childhood home took forty minutes.
I sat beside Damian in the back seat.
Marcus followed in another vehicle.
Neither of us spoke until we reached the gates.
They were open.
They were never open.
Damian noticed immediately.
“Stay in the car.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“I know the house.”
“That doesn't make it safe.”
“It makes me useful.”
His mouth tightened.
“You shouldn't have to prove you're useful.”
The words struck somewhere deep.
I stared at him.
He seemed surprised he'd said them.
We entered together.
The house was dark.
No staff.
No Father.
No Ethan.
Rosa had remained behind under Damian's protection.
I led them through the library.
Behind a portrait of my grandfather was a keypad.
The electricity had been cut.
But the brass key opened a manual lock beneath it.
The hidden door clicked.
Damian looked at me.
“You've done this before.”
“Once.”
We descended.
Every step brought back something I didn't want.
Father's voice.
His hand around my wrist.
The concrete floor.
My own promise that I would never come down here again.
Damian walked beside me.
Not ahead.
Not behind.
Beside.
At the bottom was a steel door.
The key opened that too.
Inside, shelves lined the walls.
Most were empty.
Someone had cleared the archive.
Marcus cursed.
“We're too late.”
“No.”
I pointed toward the far wall.
“There used to be another cabinet.”
Damian approached.
Only pale marks remained where something heavy had stood.
Then I saw scratches across the floor.
Fresh scratches.
“They moved it.”
Marcus followed the marks to a wooden panel.
Behind it was another narrow door.
I had never seen it.
Damian opened it.
Inside was a tiny office.
A desk.
A chair.
An old computer.
And boxes.
Dozens of them.
Each labeled with a year.
Damian found the one from eleven years earlier.
We opened it.
Inside were ledgers.
Photographs.
Signed contracts.
Then Damian found Luca's name.
His hand stopped.
I watched his face as he read.
The revenge that had controlled eleven years of his life suddenly became something much more fragile.
Confusion.
“Damian?”
He handed me the document.
It was a payment authorization.
Charles Mercer had approved surveillance on Luca.
But he hadn't ordered Luca's death.
Someone else had.
The authorization carried another signature.
Ethan Mercer.
My brother.
“No.”
I read it again.
“No.”
Damian's expression hardened.
“That's his signature.”
“He was nineteen.”
“He was old enough.”
“No. Ethan couldn't—”
A sound came from behind us.
Metal scraping against concrete.
Marcus turned.
The basement door slammed shut.
Then the lights went out.
My phone illuminated.
One new message.
It came from Ethan.
DON'T BELIEVE WHAT YOU FIND DOWN THERE.
Then another message arrived.
May you like
I'M OUTSIDE.
AND I'M NOT ALONE.
