Chapter 3 - The Name That Silenced the Room
Emergency lights flickered red along the walls.
Nikolai seized Serafina's wrist.
“Stay behind me.”
Screams rose near the ballroom entrance.
Dorian pushed toward her.
“Sera!”
A sharp crack sounded above them.
Not a gunshot.
Glass.
The chandelier trembled.
“Move!” Nikolai shouted.
Dorian reached Serafina just as Nikolai dragged them beneath the stone archway.
The chandelier crashed.
Crystal exploded across the floor.
Guests screamed.
Dorian shielded Serafina instinctively.
For one second, they were pressed together exactly as they had been years earlier when a car had nearly struck them outside a restaurant.
Back then she had laughed afterward.
Tonight she pushed him away.
“I'm fine.”
Security flooded the ballroom.
Nikolai spoke rapidly into his phone.
“Lock the building.”
Dorian stared at the shattered chandelier.
“That wasn't an accident.”
“No,” Serafina said.
“How do you know?”
“Because Seventeen isn't a warning.”
Nikolai looked at her.
Dorian caught it.
“What is Seventeen?”
Serafina hesitated.
Then the emergency lights stabilized.
She turned toward him.
“My father created seventeen contingency protocols before he died. Sixteen protected assets.”
“And seventeen?”
“Protected me.”
Dorian went still.
“From whom?”
“We never knew.”
Nikolai interrupted.
“We leave now.”
Serafina shook her head.
“Vivian.”
Dorian's jaw tightened.
“She left with Voss.”
Nikolai turned.
“Adrian Voss?”
Dorian showed him the photograph.
For the first time, genuine alarm crossed Nikolai's face.
“Where did you get this?”
“Anonymous message.”
Serafina showed Nikolai hers.
He stared at the wedding photograph.
“Seven years,” he murmured.
“What?” Dorian demanded.
Nikolai looked toward him.
“Someone has been watching Serafina since before you married her.”
Dorian felt sick.
Security escorted them through a service corridor.
“What about Vivian?”
Serafina asked.
Dorian laughed bitterly.
“You care?”
“I care about why Adrian Voss took her.”
“You think she was taken?”
“I think nothing until I have evidence.”
Dorian stared at her.
That sentence sounded nothing like the woman he knew.
Or thought he knew.
They reached a private elevator.
Nikolai pressed the basement level.
The doors closed.
Dorian turned to Serafina.
“Who are you?”
She met his eyes.
“The woman you married.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You hid an empire from me.”
“I walked away from it.”
“You lied.”
“So did you.”
Vivian's name hung between them.
Dorian looked away.
The elevator stopped.
Underground, three black SUVs waited.
Nikolai directed Serafina toward the middle vehicle.
Dorian followed.
“You're not coming,” Nikolai said.
“She's my wife.”
“You remembered that remarkably quickly.”
Dorian's expression hardened.
Serafina intervened.
“He comes.”
Nikolai stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because whoever sent that photograph included him.”
Dorian climbed in.
Twenty minutes later, they entered a townhouse Dorian had passed hundreds of times without knowing it belonged to the Morettis.
Inside, screens covered one wall.
Men stood when Serafina entered.
Every one of them addressed her the same way.
“Miss Moretti.”
Nikolai opened a safe.
Inside were seventeen red files.
He removed the last.
PROTOCOL XVII.
Serafina opened it.
The first pages contained surveillance reports.
Her school.
Her first apartment.
Her engagement.
Her wedding.
Dorian saw photographs of himself.
Then Serafina stopped.
A page had been removed.
Freshly.
Nikolai cursed.
“Someone accessed this.”
“When?”
“Recently.”
A technician checked the electronic log.
His face drained.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Say it.”
“The safe was opened yesterday.”
“By whom?”
The technician swallowed.
“Your authorization.”
Nikolai stared.
“Impossible.”
Serafina turned the final surviving page.
One name remained beneath a heading.
AUTHORIZED GUARDIAN IN EVENT OF SALVATORE MORETTI'S DEATH.
Serafina read it.
Her hand began trembling.
Dorian stepped closer.
“What?”
She couldn't answer.
Nikolai took the page.
His face changed.
Because the name printed beneath Serafina's father's signature belonged to a woman buried twenty-two years earlier.
Serafina's mother.
Then footsteps sounded upstairs.
One of the guards raised his weapon.
“No one else has access.”
The doorknob slowly turned.
Serafina looked toward it.
A woman's voice came from the other side.
“Sera?”
Serafina stopped breathing.
May you like
She knew that voice.
The door began to open.
