Chapter 3 - The Dead Man Who Wasn’t Dead
I could not speak.
The woman lowered the photograph.
Adrian stepped between us.
“Who are you?”
“Rachel Dane.”
Victor Dane’s daughter.
The name hit me immediately.
Victor Dane.
The gray-haired man in the photograph.
The detective who had worked with my father.
The man connected to Adrian’s family.
Rachel looked approximately forty.
Her hands trembled.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you,” Adrian said.
She ignored him.
Her eyes stayed on me.
“You look like Daniel.”
“My father died.”
“No.”
“I watched them bury him.”
“You watched them bury a closed coffin.”
I remembered.
Rain.
Black umbrellas.
My mother crying.
A sealed casket because the accident had supposedly been too violent.
My stomach turned.
“Where is he?”
Rachel looked toward Adrian.
“I can’t tell you.”
I stepped around him.
“You just told me my dead father is alive.”
“I know.”
“Then tell me where he is.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if I know, they can make me tell them.”
Adrian closed the study door.
“Who are they?”
Rachel laughed bitterly.
“You still don’t know?”
“No.”
“Then your father protected you better than mine protected me.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
Rachel explained.
Seventeen years earlier, Daniel Marlowe and Adrian’s father, Matteo Vale, had discovered corruption running through both law enforcement and the Vale organization.
Someone was feeding information between criminals and police.
Arrests failed.
Witnesses vanished.
Money disappeared.
Daniel had discovered the network.
Matteo had helped him investigate it from the other side.
Then Daniel’s car exploded.
Everyone believed he died.
But he had survived.
Barely.
Matteo helped fake his death.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because the people hunting him would have killed you too.”
I sat down.
Every memory of my childhood shifted.
My father hadn’t abandoned me.
But he had allowed me to believe he was dead.
For seventeen years.
Anger arrived beside relief.
“Where is Victor?”
Rachel’s face tightened.
“Missing.”
“Since when?”
“Three days.”
Adrian looked at Marco.
The assassination attempt had happened last night.
Not coincidence.
Rachel opened a desk drawer.
Inside was an envelope.
She handed it to me.
My name was written on it.
Daniel’s handwriting.
I recognized it immediately.
I opened it.
There were only four words.
TRUST THE GIRL WHO SEES.
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
Rachel shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Adrian looked at me.
“The girl who sees.”
“Don’t.”
“You saw the shooter.”
“That doesn’t mean my father predicted last night seventeen years ago.”
“No.”
Adrian took the letter.
“But maybe he predicted you.”
Marco interrupted.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
He looked through the curtains.
“Car outside.”
Black SUV.
No plates.
Three men stepped out.
Rachel went pale.
“They found me.”
Marco drew his weapon.
“Back exit.”
We moved.
A window shattered behind us.
Gunfire punched through the study wall.
Adrian grabbed my arm and pulled me down.
Rachel screamed.
Marco fired twice toward the hallway.
“Move!”
We ran through the kitchen.
Another guard arrived from outside.
He opened the rear door.
A car waited.
We climbed in.
As we sped away, I looked back.
The old house disappeared behind trees.
Rachel sat beside me, shaking.
Adrian watched her.
“How did they find you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“My phone was off.”
“Car?”
“Borrowed.”
“Who knew you were coming?”
She hesitated.
Adrian saw it.
“Who?”
“My father.”
Silence.
“But you said he’s missing.”
“He called me yesterday.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
Rachel swallowed.
“He told me to come here if anything happened.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Rachel, what exactly did Victor say?”
She looked at him.
“He said the waitress would bring you.”
My skin prickled.
“What?”
“He said, ‘When the waitress brings Adrian to the house, give her Daniel’s letter.’”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“He knew?”
“Yes.”
“Before the assassination?”
“Yes.”
Adrian’s face became unreadable.
That meant someone had known the attack would happen.
Victor had known.
Maybe Daniel had known.
Maybe they had allowed it.
I felt sick.
“Stop the car.”
Adrian looked at me.
“No.”
“Stop the car.”
“We’re being followed.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
His answer came quietly.
“Because you saved my life.”
That silenced me.
We reached one of Adrian’s secure properties an hour later.
A modern house hidden behind wooded hills.
His men searched Rachel.
Then us.
Phones were placed inside signal-blocking containers.
For the first time since Bellamont Lodge, I felt physically safe.
Emotionally, I was falling apart.
Adrian found me standing beside a window.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I don’t sleep much.”
“Crime-boss problem?”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“Something like that.”
I looked at him.
“Are you actually mafia?”
He leaned against the wall.
“Would the answer change what happened last night?”
“No.”
“Then save that question.”
“That sounds like yes.”
“It sounds like I’m tired.”
For a moment, he seemed less frightening.
Just a man.
A man someone had tried to murder.
“You really trust your bodyguards?”
“With my life.”
“They missed the shooter.”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“More than you know.”
I remembered the poisoned glass.
“Someone knew your security.”
“Yes.”
“Someone knew where you’d sit.”
“Yes.”
“Someone knew which champagne glass would reach you.”
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
“Then the traitor is close.”
Adrian’s eyes met mine.
“That’s what your father discovered seventeen years ago.”
“And it’s still happening.”
“Yes.”
Rachel entered.
She carried a laptop.
“I found something.”
She opened an encrypted folder copied from Victor’s files.
Photographs appeared.
Carver.
The shooter.
Several police officers.
Businessmen.
Then one of Adrian’s bodyguards.
Marco.
My breath caught.
Adrian didn’t move.
Rachel enlarged the photograph.
Marco stood beside Victor Dane outside a warehouse.
Date stamped six months earlier.
“Could be innocent,” I said.
Adrian stared at the screen.
“Marco told me he had never met Victor.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Marco entered.
He stopped when he saw the photograph.
No one spoke.
Adrian turned toward him.
“Explain.”
Marco looked at Rachel.
Then me.
Finally Adrian.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“By lying?”
“Yes.”
“Wrong answer.”
Marco reached slowly into his jacket.
Adrian’s hand moved toward his waist.
I froze.
Marco pulled out an envelope.
He placed it on the table.
“Victor gave me this six months ago.”
Adrian opened it.
Inside was a list of names.
Most meant nothing to me.
One did.
Detective Harris.
The detective who had interviewed me.
At the bottom was another name.
A name that made Adrian’s face change.
“What?” I asked.
He handed me the list.
The final name was:
LUCA VALE.
“Who is Luca?”
Adrian didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said:
“My brother.”
My phone suddenly began ringing inside the signal-blocking container.
Everyone stared at it.
“That’s impossible,” Marco whispered.
The phone continued ringing.
Adrian opened the container.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Elena?”
My knees almost gave out.
I knew that voice.
Older.
Weaker.
But unmistakable.
“Dad?”
Silence.
Then Daniel Marlowe whispered:
“Don’t trust Adrian’s brother.”
A crash sounded on his end.
Someone shouted.
My father breathed one final warning.
May you like
“He knows where you are.”
The lights went out.
