Chapter 2 - THE NAME BEFORE VINCENT
Vincent stared at the key in Serena’s palm as though it belonged to a dead man.
Serena closed her fingers around it.
“What does V.C. mean?”
Evelyn Hastings looked older under the ballroom’s emergency lights than Serena remembered.
Not merely elderly.
Exhausted.
As though thirty-nine years of silence had weight.
“Not Vincent Caruso.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Then what?”
Evelyn glanced toward the locked ballroom doors.
“Get me out of here first.”
Richard suddenly pushed past one of Vincent’s men.
“Serena, don’t listen to her.”
Serena turned.
Richard looked frightened, but not guilty in the way she expected.
There was something closer to desperation in his face.
“You knew she was alive.”
It was not a question.
Richard swallowed.
“For six months.”
The words struck harder than Serena anticipated.
Not because Evelyn lived.
Because her husband knew.
“You let me believe my grandmother had been dead for almost forty years.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
Serena laughed once.
It contained no humor.
“Men have used that sentence to excuse cruelty since the beginning of time.”
“Serena—”
“No.”
Her voice remained quiet.
That made Richard stop.
“You will not use love to rename what you did.”
Evelyn touched Serena’s wrist.
“We need to move.”
Vincent glanced toward the hotel security chief.
“The west service corridor.”
“The doors were electronically sealed.”
“Override them manually.”
The man nodded.
Vincent crouched beside Evelyn’s wheelchair.
“Can you walk?”
“For short distances.”
“I’m not asking because I doubt you.”
His gaze moved toward the ballroom.
“I’m asking because whoever killed the lights expected confusion.”
Evelyn studied him.
“You have your father’s eyes.”
Vincent went still.
“My father is dead.”
“So is Serena’s.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“That didn’t stop either of them from leaving us problems.”
They moved through the service corridor three minutes later.
Serena, Vincent, Evelyn, Beatrice, and two Caruso security men entered a private dining room on the hotel’s twenty-second floor.
Richard tried to follow.
Serena stopped him at the door.
“Not yet.”
“Serena.”
“You chose secrecy.”
She closed the door.
“For once, live with being outside it.”
Richard’s face tightened.
But he did not fight her.
Inside, Evelyn asked for water.
Her hands trembled when she lifted the glass.
Serena noticed.
“Are you ill?”
“I’m eighty-nine.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
A small smile appeared on Evelyn’s face.
“You were always difficult.”
“You vanished when I was twelve.”
The smile disappeared.
“You earned difficult.”
Silence settled between them.
Serena placed the brass key on the table.
“Start there.”
Evelyn looked at Vincent.
“Your grandfather founded something with my husband in 1959.”
“My grandfather was Antonio Caruso.”
“Publicly.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
Evelyn continued.
“Privately, Antonio used the name Victor Caruso.”
Vincent’s gaze dropped to the key.
“V.C.”
“Yes.”
The answer should have resolved the mystery.
Instead Serena saw alarm deepen in Vincent’s face.
“My father never called him Victor.”
“Because your father hated that name.”
“Why?”
Evelyn leaned back.
“Because Victor Caruso wasn’t merely a businessman.”
Vincent gave a humorless smile.
“That isn’t news.”
“He was an accountant.”
That surprised everyone.
Evelyn continued.
“For men who believed laws were inconveniences. Shipping families. Construction families. Politicians. Union chiefs. Men who moved cash through docks and called it commerce.”
Serena frowned.
“And my grandfather?”
“Judge Nathaniel Hastings.”
Serena knew that part.
Her grandfather had been respected.
Photographed with mayors and senators.
A reformer.
Evelyn looked at her.
“Nathaniel discovered Victor’s records.”
“Did he prosecute him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the records implicated half the men who would have controlled the prosecution.”
Vincent leaned against the table.
“So they partnered.”
“They created a safeguard.”
Evelyn tapped the key.
“The Veritas Covenant.”
V.C.
Serena felt the first lock open in her mind.
“What was it?”
“A repository.”
“For money?”
“For truth.”
Evelyn met her eyes.
“Documents. Ledgers. photographs. recordings. Enough evidence to make certain powerful families behave because none of them knew exactly what the Covenant held.”
Beatrice exhaled.
“Blackmail.”
“Insurance,” Evelyn corrected.
Vincent’s expression remained cold.
“Same weapon. Better word.”
Evelyn did not argue.
Serena touched the sapphire necklace still visible in the ballroom photograph on Beatrice’s phone.
“And the Tears of the Ocean?”
“The original eight stones were the map.”
“Map to what?”
“To the Covenant.”
The door opened.
One of Vincent’s men entered.
“We found something in the elevator.”
Vincent turned.
“What?”
He held out a silver bracelet.
Chloe’s.
Serena had noticed it earlier because a small moon charm hung from the clasp.
Now the bracelet was broken.
Blood marked one edge.
“Where?”
“Twenty-first floor.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Camera?”
“Disabled for ninety seconds.”
Evelyn whispered, “Crane.”
Serena looked toward her.
“You know Elliot Crane too?”
“I know his father.”
Another answer.
Two more questions.
Vincent stepped toward Evelyn.
“Who was his father?”
“Daniel Crane.”
Vincent’s face darkened.
Serena had never seen him startled before.
“Daniel Crane died in the Pier Eight fire.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Exactly.”
Beatrice frowned.
“What happened at Pier Eight?”
Vincent answered this time.
“Nineteen ninety-eight. Caruso warehouse. Twelve dead.”
Serena looked at the tape label again.
HASTINGS / CARUSO — 1998.
“The same year.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn’s eyes lowered.
“The Covenant nearly died that night.”
Serena felt cold.
“Was the fire an accident?”
“No.”
“Who started it?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“Your father believed Richard’s father did.”
Serena froze.
Richard’s father, Charles Sterling, had died eleven years earlier.
A respected financier.
A man who had walked Serena down the church steps after her own father died.
Richard had always described him as honorable.
“What did Charles want?”
“The Covenant.”
“And did he get it?”
“No.”
A sound came from the corridor.
Raised voices.
Richard.
Vincent opened the door before his guards could stop him.
Richard stood there holding an old black leather case.
Serena recognized it instantly.
The case Chloe had taken from the stage.
Richard looked at Evelyn.
“You still haven’t told her the worst part.”
Evelyn’s face drained of color.
Richard entered.
Vincent’s men reached for him.
Serena lifted one hand.
“Let him speak.”
Richard placed the case on the table.
Inside was the reel-to-reel tape.
“I took this from Crane.”
Vincent’s stare sharpened.
“Where?”
“The kitchen loading dock.”
“And Chloe?”
Richard’s eyes flickered.
“I couldn’t find her.”
Serena saw something in his face.
Concern.
Real concern.
It hurt differently than jealousy.
Richard reached into his jacket and placed another object beside the key.
A photograph.
Old.
Creased.
Serena picked it up.
Her father stood beside Vincent’s father.
Between them was a boy approximately eight years old.
Richard.
Serena’s breathing stopped.
On the back, in her father’s handwriting, were six words.
IF WE FAIL, PROTECT THE BOY.
Serena slowly raised her eyes.
Richard’s voice broke.
May you like
“I wasn’t born a Sterling.”
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