Chapter 3 - The Enemy Inside My House
Adrian did not open the door.
Marcus pulled Claire's bed behind the reinforced inner wall while Adrian positioned himself beside the entrance.
The handle turned again.
"Adrian."
Luca Moretti's voice.
Impossible.
Adrian's finger rested beside the trigger of his pistol.
Not on it.
Beside it.
Control mattered when fear wanted the opposite.
"Luca died."
A quiet laugh came from the hallway.
"You always were stubborn."
Marcus whispered, "Could be recording."
Adrian nodded.
"Say something only Luca knows."
Silence.
Then:
"Your father kept a bottle of Macallan behind the false panel in his library. The night he died, you drank half of it and threw the rest against the fireplace. I made you clean the glass yourself."
Adrian's chest tightened.
Marcus knew that story.
Almost nobody else did.
Still not proof.
"Another."
Luca replied immediately.
"When Claire first met me, she thought I was your chauffeur because you were carrying my luggage."
Claire looked at Adrian.
She remembered.
Adrian remembered too.
Luca continued.
"She laughed for ten minutes."
Adrian opened the door.
Marcus swore under his breath.
A man stood beneath the red emergency light.
Older.
Thinner.
A pale scar ran from his temple to his jaw.
But it was Luca.
Adrian raised his weapon.
Luca raised empty hands.
"If I wanted you dead, you would have never reached the clinic."
"Who put you in the grave?"
"A stranger with my dental records."
Adrian's expression did not move.
"Try again."
"Your people identified what was left from records supplied by my physician."
"Dr. Lewis."
"Who disappeared six months later."
Adrian remembered.
He had assumed gambling debt.
Luca glanced behind him.
"We need to move."
"No."
"They know this location."
"Obviously."
"They also know about the lower exit."
Marcus looked at Adrian.
Nobody outside six trusted people knew there was a lower exit.
Luca said, "We have approximately ninety seconds."
Adrian's gun remained level.
"Who is coming?"
"The people who made Claire homeless."
That was enough.
Adrian lowered the weapon only slightly.
"Marcus."
Marcus moved first, taking Claire through the concealed service corridor while Bennett carried emergency medical supplies.
Adrian stayed behind Luca.
"One wrong move."
"You'll shoot me."
"No."
Luca glanced back.
"That worries me more."
They descended two flights and entered an abandoned underground parking area.
A utility van waited.
Adrian stopped.
"No."
Luca sighed.
"You don't trust the van."
"I don't trust you."
"Healthy development."
Marcus said, "Our backup vehicle is three minutes away."
"You don't have three minutes."
Luca pointed toward an overhead security mirror.
Headlights turned into the garage.
Multiple vehicles.
Adrian looked at Claire.
She was awake, frightened, exhausted.
Decision made.
"Van."
They climbed inside.
Luca drove.
Adrian sat directly behind him with his weapon visible.
Claire lay on a bench seat while Bennett checked her blood pressure.
"Where are we going?" Adrian asked.
"A place nobody in your organization knows."
"You mean nobody except the supposedly dead man driving us."
"Exactly."
Adrian almost laughed.
Almost.
Twenty minutes later, they entered an underground loading bay beneath an old printing warehouse.
Luca killed the engine.
Marcus exited first.
Clear.
Inside, the building had been converted into a secure operations space.
Screens.
Medical equipment.
Paper files.
Weapons.
Adrian noticed photographs covering one wall.
Claire.
Dozens of them.
Adrian crossed the room.
"Explain."
Luca followed.
"I've been protecting her."
Claire laughed bitterly from behind them.
"That's what you call it?"
Luca turned.
"I kept them from finding you four times."
"You also let me sleep in a train station."
Something like guilt crossed his face.
"I couldn't approach you openly."
"You could have fed her," Adrian said.
"I did."
Claire stared at him.
Luca continued.
"The church kitchen on Ashland. The motel voucher in March. The grocery cards left at the shelter."
Claire's expression changed.
"That was you?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because everyone who openly helped you became a target."
Adrian stepped closer to Luca.
"Target of whom?"
Luca looked toward the photographs.
"Your organization."
"No."
"Not everyone."
"Names."
"You're still thinking too small."
Adrian grabbed Luca by his coat.
"Then make me understand."
Luca didn't resist.
"For twelve years, your father built two organizations."
Adrian released him.
"What?"
"The one you inherited."
"And?"
"The one designed to control whoever inherited it."
Silence.
Luca walked toward a locked cabinet.
"Your father trusted power more than blood. He believed every leader needed an invisible counterweight."
"Who ran it?"
"Originally? Him."
"After he died?"
Luca looked at Adrian.
"That's the question I've spent three years trying to answer."
Marcus asked, "Why fake your death?"
"Because I found evidence someone inside the second organization was preparing to remove Adrian."
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I did."
"When?"
"The night before my car exploded."
Adrian remembered the dinner.
Luca had said something strange.
You need to learn which people are loyal to you and which are loyal to the chair you're sitting in.
Adrian had dismissed it as one of Luca's lectures.
"What changed with Claire?"
Luca walked toward another wall.
"She found something."
Claire looked at him.
"I found St. Catherine."
"No. Before that."
Claire frowned.
Luca pulled a photograph from a file.
Adrian recognized his own penthouse study.
Claire stood beside the desk.
On the computer screen was a list of account numbers.
"When was this?"
"Three months before your divorce."
Adrian looked at Claire.
She stared at the photograph.
"I didn't know anyone took that."
"What were you doing?"
Claire hesitated.
"Looking for proof."
"Of?"
"That someone was using your company to launder money."
Adrian felt betrayal first.
Then forced himself to listen.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried."
"When?"
"The night we fought about security following me."
He remembered.
Claire had screamed that his house was full of people he didn't truly know.
He had thought she meant bodyguards.
She meant something else.
"I found payments," Claire said. "Hospitals. Shelters. Children's programs. All receiving much more money than the public donation records showed."
"And you thought I knew."
"At first."
The words landed heavily.
"When did you decide I didn't?"
"When I saw one approval dated during the week you were in Montreal."
"I can approve remotely."
"It used your fingerprint."
Adrian understood.
"I injured my hand in Montreal."
Claire nodded.
His right index finger had been bandaged for two weeks.
He could not have used the biometric scanner.
"Then why divorce me?"
Claire's face tightened.
"Because someone entered our bedroom."
Adrian went still.
"When?"
"While you were downstairs."
"What did they do?"
"Nothing."
"Claire."
"They put a photograph on my pillow."
"Of?"
"You."
Her eyes filled.
"You were leaving the restaurant."
Adrian waited.
"There was a red circle around your head."
He stopped breathing for a second.
"On the back it said: LEAVE HIM OR BURY HIM."
Marcus cursed quietly.
Adrian looked away.
Claire continued.
"So I did the only thing I thought might save you."
"You made me hate you."
"I tried."
Adrian laughed once, painfully.
"You were bad at it."
Claire almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the room returned to what it was.
A hiding place.
A conspiracy.
A pregnancy.
"After the divorce," Luca said, "Claire vanished from your direct circle. That made her harder to control."
"Then they took the money."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"To force her into predictable systems."
"Shelters."
"Exactly. Places their shell companies already controlled."
Adrian looked at the St. Catherine files.
"Room 317."
Luca nodded.
"Rachel Mercer."
"You know her last name."
"I know more than that."
He opened a folder.
Inside was a photograph of a dark-haired woman in medical scrubs.
"Rachel was an accountant."
Claire frowned. "She told everyone she was homeless."
"She went undercover."
"For who?"
Luca looked at Marcus.
"For me."
Adrian felt irritation flash.
"You put an undercover accountant in a shelter filled with vulnerable women?"
"I put her there because the shelter was stealing identities from pregnant women and creating false medical claims worth millions."
Claire touched her stomach.
"Rachel disappeared."
"Yes."
"Is she dead?"
"I don't know."
Adrian pointed at the hospital bracelet.
"Why was her bracelet placed in Claire's hand tonight?"
"Message."
"From whom?"
"Someone telling us Rachel is still part of this."
Marcus asked, "And Luca Moretti's name?"
Luca looked genuinely confused.
"What?"
Adrian showed him the message from the penthouse.
For the first time since appearing, Luca lost composure.
"I didn't send that."
"I assumed."
"No."
Luca took the phone.
His face became pale.
"What?"
He enlarged the photograph.
The person sitting behind Adrian's desk was mostly hidden in shadow.
Luca focused on the hand.
A ring.
Black stone.
Silver crest.
Luca whispered, "No."
Adrian stepped beside him.
"You recognize it."
Luca didn't answer.
Adrian grabbed his shoulder.
"Who?"
Luca looked at him.
"Your father had three of those rings made."
"I have one."
"Yes."
"Luca had one," Marcus said.
Adrian looked at Luca's hand.
No ring.
Luca pulled a chain from beneath his shirt.
His ring hung there.
Adrian stared.
"Where's the third?"
Luca's expression told him everything.
"Who?"
"Your father's oldest friend."
Adrian searched his memory.
Then understood.
Thomas Beckett.
Chief financial officer.
The man who had signed Claire's support reports.
The man who attended every Thanksgiving.
The man who toasted Adrian and Claire at their wedding.
"No," Adrian said.
Luca nodded.
"Thomas was part of the second organization from the beginning."
Adrian turned toward Marcus.
"Find him."
Marcus was already calling.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
He contacted the penthouse security team.
A young guard answered.
"Mr. Vale?"
"Where is Thomas Beckett?"
Pause.
"Sir... Mr. Beckett arrived about an hour ago."
Adrian's eyes hardened.
"Is he still there?"
Another pause.
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Your office."
Adrian looked at Luca.
The photograph.
The ring.
Thomas.
Then a woman's voice came through the guard's phone in the background.
Weak.
Frightened.
"Adrian?"
Everyone froze.
Claire stood.
"That voice."
The guard shouted.
A crash followed.
Connection distorted.
Adrian grabbed Marcus's phone.
"Who's there?"
The line went quiet.
Then the woman spoke again.
"Claire?"
Claire's face drained of color.
"Rachel."
Adrian looked at her.
The supposedly missing accountant was inside his penthouse.
The phone crackled.
Rachel began crying.
"Don't come here."
A man's voice interrupted.
Calm.
Familiar.
Thomas Beckett.
"Actually, Adrian, I think it's time you did."
Then the line disconnected.
A second later, Claire's phone—dead for months—lit up on the table.
One incoming call.
The screen displayed a contact name she had never entered.
DAD.
Claire stared at it.
May you like
Adrian stared at her.
Because Claire's father had been dead for nine years...
