Chapter 4 - The Woman I Buried
My dead mother appeared on my phone at 10:34 p.m. and whispered, “Claire, don’t come to the tower.”
Around her neck hung the silver locket I had placed inside her coffin.
A fresh crack ran across its glass face.
Inside was the childhood photograph she had supposedly taken to her grave.
Ethan watched the video twice.
Then he said, “Your mother’s funeral was staged.”
I could not speak.
I could barely breathe.
Anna Marlowe had died when I was twenty.
Cancer.
That was what I had been told.
I had visited her during treatments.
I had watched her lose weight.
I had held her hand while a hospice nurse told me she would not last the night.
I had identified her body the next morning.
I had buried her.
“You’re saying that wasn’t her?”
“I’m saying we verify everything.”
“That was her.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t understand.” My voice cracked. “I know the way she touches that locket. I know the scar near her thumb. That was my mother.”
Ethan said nothing.
“I buried someone.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“We’ll find out.”
I laughed.
It sounded terrible.
“You keep saying that.”
“What?”
“We’ll find out. We’ll fix it. We’ll handle it.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“What would you prefer?”
“The truth.”
“I’m giving you every piece I have.”
“Six months late.”
That landed.
He accepted it.
Salvatore leaned forward from the seat opposite us.
“Anna disappeared because she had no choice.”
I turned on him.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You let me think she was dead?”
“I didn’t know where you were.”
“Liar.”
“I knew you existed. I did not know your identity until six months ago.”
“How?”
“Victor started asking questions about Anna Marlowe.”
Ethan looked at him.
“You knew Victor was looking for Claire?”
“I knew somebody was.”
“And you said nothing.”
“To whom? You? The nephew who believed I murdered his father?”
Ethan’s hand tightened.
I cut between them.
“Enough.”
Both men looked at me.
“My mother is inside that tower.”
Ethan nodded.
“And so is Emily.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going.”
“So am I.”
“Victor told me to come alone.”
“Victor has also lied about nearly everything for three years. I don’t care what Victor told you.”
Despite the situation, something steadied in me.
Ethan was still Ethan.
Impossible.
Controlling.
Reliable in precisely the ways that irritated me.
We reached a parking garage three blocks from Moretti Tower at 10:47.
Nico had assembled six men.
No sirens.
No police.
I noticed.
“Why aren’t we calling the FBI?”
Salvatore laughed.
Ethan ignored him.
“Because Registry Seventeen may contain federal names.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we don’t know who to trust.”
That was the first moment I understood how large this was.
Not mafia drama.
Not one corrupt businessman.
A network.
Power protecting power.
My mother had spent decades hiding from it.
Nico spread building plans across the hood of an SUV.
“Main elevators are disabled. South service entrance is controlled by Victor’s people. Parking-level access is possible through the freight shaft.”
Ethan looked at me.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a discussion.”
“Then stop saying discussion-shaped sentences.”
Nico looked down to hide what might have been a smile.
Ethan leaned closer.
“You are the target.”
“Which means Victor needs me alive.”
“Until he doesn’t.”
“My mother is upstairs.”
“I know.”
“My assistant is upstairs.”
“I know.”
“And this whole thing apparently requires my blood or DNA or whatever insane system my father built.”
“Yes.”
“So keeping me three blocks away is not a plan.”
Ethan stared at me.
I stared back.
Finally, he swore under his breath.
“Stay beside me.”
“Fine.”
“Not three steps behind. Beside me.”
“Fine.”
“If I say run—”
“I know what run means.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
His expression shifted for half a second.
Then he handed me a slim protective vest.
“Put this on.”
Ten minutes later, we entered the building through a maintenance tunnel.
The tower I had worked in for six months looked completely different without power.
Emergency lights cast pale pools across the concrete.
Our footsteps echoed.
At level eighteen, Nico found the first guard unconscious.
Alive.
No visible wound.
“Victor’s cleaning house,” Salvatore murmured.
Ethan’s face hardened.
At level twenty-one, we split.
Nico took two men toward security control.
Ethan, Salvatore, and I continued upward.
At twenty-three, the stairwell door was unlocked.
My floor.
The familiar hallway beyond it was dark.
My office doors stood open.
A lamp glowed inside.
Ethan touched my arm.
“Stay behind me now.”
I didn’t argue.
We moved forward.
My desk was empty.
Emily’s chair was empty.
Only rope remained on the floor.
Then I saw the locket.
It rested on my keyboard.
I picked it up.
Warm.
Someone had been here seconds earlier.
On my monitor, a message blinked.
BASEMENT ARCHIVE.
11:18.
Ethan looked at the clock.
Forty-two minutes to midnight.
We hurried back to the service stairs.
The basement archive was not officially listed in company directories.
I had heard employees joke that old Moretti contracts went there to disappear.
Turns out the joke was accurate.
The entrance required Ethan’s palm scan.
The scanner accepted him.
The door opened.
Rows of steel shelving stretched into darkness.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
Then a light switched on at the far end.
My mother stood beneath it.
Alone.
For one impossible second, I was twenty again.
“Mama?”
Her face crumpled.
“Claire.”
I ran.
Ethan caught my arm.
“Wait.”
“She’s my mother.”
“We don’t know who else is here.”
My mother lifted both hands.
“He’s right.”
Her voice.
God.
Her voice.
I walked slowly instead.
Every step hurt.
When I reached her, I stopped.
I did not hug her.
I wanted to.
I wanted to hit her.
I wanted to collapse.
“You died.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“Twelve years.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
She flinched.
Good.
I wanted something to hurt.
“Who did I bury?”
“A woman named Teresa Cole. She had no family. She was dying at the same hospice.”
I stared.
“You switched bodies?”
“With help.”
“Why?”
“Because they found me.”
“Who?”
“The coalition.”
“Victor?”
“Yes.”
I stepped closer.
“You let me mourn you.”
“If they believed I was alive, they would have used you to reach me.”
“They’re using me now!”
“I thought Enzo destroyed the registry.”
“He didn’t.”
My mother looked at Ethan.
For the first time.
Her expression changed.
“You look like him.”
Ethan went still.
“Enzo?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated.
“Was Claire his daughter?”
My mother closed her eyes.
My entire body tensed.
“Answer him.”
She looked at me.
“No.”
Silence.
Ethan’s breath left him.
I almost laughed from pure relief before realizing how absurd that was.
“Then why did Enzo write that?”
“To protect you.”
“By claiming me?”
“Yes.”
“From whom?”
My mother looked at Salvatore.
“From him.”
Everyone turned.
Salvatore’s expression froze.
My mother stepped backward.
“Claire, Enzo was not your father.”
“Then who was?”
She swallowed.
“Salvatore.”
Everything stopped.
Salvatore stared at her.
“No.”
My mother looked at him.
“You never knew.”
His face emptied.
Ethan lowered his weapon slightly.
I looked at Salvatore.
The man I had met two hours ago.
The man my mother had hidden me from.
“My father?”
Anna nodded.
“I loved him once.”
Salvatore sat heavily on a nearby crate.
For perhaps the first time in his life, he had no words.
“But Enzo raised the legal shield around you,” my mother continued. “He put his name inside the registry. If anyone searched, they would believe you were his daughter and therefore protected by his succession rules.”
“Why?”
“Because Salvatore had enemies.”
Salvatore looked at her.
“So did Enzo.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you chose the life.”
Pain crossed his face.
“I would have chosen her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
I stepped between them.
“Not now.”
My mother nodded.
“Victor has Emily below us.”
“Below?”
“There is another level.”
Ethan frowned.
“There is no lower archive.”
“Yes, there is.”
She walked toward shelving unit seventeen.
Of course.
She pulled a hidden lever.
The entire shelf shifted.
A steel door appeared.
A red digital clock glowed above it.
00:31:44.
Thirty-one minutes.
“What happens when it reaches zero?” I asked.
My mother looked terrified.
“Victor gets every file.”
“Can we stop it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You and Ethan must both authorize destruction.”
Ethan looked at her.
“So I am the second key?”
“Yes.”
“And Claire?”
“Not by blood.”
“Then why her?”
My mother looked at me.
“Because Enzo trusted her future judgment more than his own family.”
I stared.
“He chose me before I could talk?”
“He chose the person you might become.”
That was insane.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
A voice came through speakers above us.
Victor.
“Touching reunion.”
Ethan aimed toward the ceiling.
Victor laughed.
“Come downstairs.”
The steel door unlocked.
“Or Emily dies.”
Ethan looked at me.
“No mistakes.”
We entered.
The hidden level was smaller.
At its center stood a glass-walled server room.
Emily sat inside.
Alive.
Victor stood beside her.
Three armed men surrounded him.
He smiled when he saw us.
“Perfect.”
My mother whispered, “Where is the terminal?”
Victor pointed behind us.
A screen had illuminated.
Two hand scanners.
ETHAN MORETTI.
CLAIRE MARLOWE.
I understood.
We were not here to open Registry Seventeen.
We were here to decide its fate.
Victor lifted his gun toward Emily.
“Authorize transfer.”
Ethan said, “No.”
Victor smiled.
Then he turned the gun toward my mother.
“That answer costs someone.”
Salvatore moved.
A gunshot exploded.
My mother screamed.
May you like
The lights went out.
And in the darkness, someone grabbed my hand and pressed my palm against the scanner.
