Chapter 3 - THE SECRET BENEATH THE CRANE
Damian moved before I even understood the lights were gone.
One second I was standing beside his desk.
The next, his hand was at the center of my back, guiding me—not grabbing, not dragging—toward the stone wall beside the fireplace.
“Down.”
I crouched.
Gabriel drew his weapon.
The office doors rattled as security sealed them from the outside.
Red emergency lights flickered to life along the baseboards.
Damian’s face appeared in crimson shadow.
He touched an earpiece.
“Report.”
Static answered.
Then a man’s voice.
“Electrical breach in the east service corridor. Three shots fired. No confirmed casualties.”
“Victor?”
“Unaccounted for.”
Damian looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel swore.
I pressed my palms against my knees to stop them shaking.
“Victor knows I recognized him.”
Damian’s eyes came to me.
“He may.”
“He sent the message.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because Tyler never knew I saw the other man clearly.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Explain.”
My mouth felt dry.
I hadn’t told this story properly in six years.
Not to the police.
Not to friends.
Not even to myself.
But somewhere in this house, Victor Crane might be holding a gun.
So I began.
“Tyler told me he was working overnight security at a warehouse near the Menomonee River. I wanted to surprise him.”
Damian’s mouth tightened slightly at the word surprise.
“I brought dinner. Stupid little things. Burgers. Fries. A slice of pie because it was his birthday.”
My voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else.
“When I got there, his car was parked behind the warehouse. The passenger door was unlocked. I left the food inside because I heard voices around the loading dock.”
Gabriel listened without interrupting.
“I walked around the corner and saw Tyler with two men.”
“One was Victor?” Damian asked.
I nodded.
“The other man was on his knees.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t remember much. Mid-thirties maybe. Dark hair. Expensive coat. Blood on his face.”
Damian’s expression changed.
Gabriel looked at him.
Neither spoke.
“What?” I asked.
Damian’s voice was suddenly quiet.
“Did he have a scar?”
My heart thudded.
“Where?”
“Left side of his chin.”
I closed my eyes.
I saw rain dripping from a man’s jaw.
Blood at his mouth.
A pale mark under his lower lip.
“Yes.”
Damian turned away.
Gabriel whispered something I couldn’t hear.
“What?”
Damian didn’t answer.
I stood.
“Who was he?”
His shoulders were rigid.
“Damian.”
He looked back at me.
“My brother.”
I forgot the alarm.
Forgot Victor.
Forgot everything.
“Your brother?”
“Luca Romano.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“He disappeared six years ago in Milwaukee.”
“No, I—I saw news reports about Luca Romano. They said his car went into the lake.”
“That was the official assumption.”
Gabriel’s voice had gone flat.
“They found the vehicle near Racine three weeks later. No body.”
I backed into the desk.
“But the man I saw—”
“Was Luca.”
Damian’s eyes held mine.
“And you watched Tyler Bennett kill him.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“I would have told someone if I knew.”
“You did tell someone.”
I froze.
“How do you know that?”
Gabriel answered.
“An anonymous witness called Milwaukee police two days after Luca disappeared. Female. She described a shooting near a warehouse but refused to provide her name.”
My pulse beat painfully in my neck.
“I was scared.”
“No one is accusing you,” Damian said.
“I hung up.”
“You were twenty-five years old and living with one of the killers.”
“I still hung up.”
“And you survived.”
His voice sharpened.
“That matters.”
I looked at him.
He had lost his brother.
For six years, he had not known exactly how.
And the woman standing in his office had carried part of the answer without realizing whose death she had witnessed.
“I’m sorry.”
Damian stared at me for a long moment.
Then he did something I didn’t expect.
He shook his head.
“No.”
“But—”
“You don’t apologize for being terrorized into silence.”
The words hit somewhere deep.
Somewhere ugly.
Somewhere I had kept Tyler’s voice alive long after leaving him.
Gabriel turned toward the security monitor as power began returning sector by sector.
“East corridor is back.”
The office lights flickered on.
Damian lifted his phone.
“Lock every external gate. Nobody leaves. Nobody enters unless I approve them personally.”
A response crackled through his earpiece.
Then Gabriel frowned.
“What?”
He listened.
“Repeat that.”
His eyes met Damian’s.
“Victor’s car is still here.”
Damian’s voice dropped.
“Where is Victor?”
“No one’s seen him since the dining room evacuation.”
A knock sounded.
Everyone went silent.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
Gabriel relaxed slightly.
“Security code.”
He opened the door.
Two armed men stood outside.
“West wing clear. Kitchen clear. Service hall clear.”
“Find Crane.”
“We’re checking his rooms.”
Damian looked at me.
“You’re not leaving this office.”
“I’m not staying alone.”
“You won’t be alone.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
I folded my arms.
That might have been the first time anyone in the house had visibly disagreed with Damian Romano while still expecting to remain employed.
His security men looked uncomfortable.
Gabriel looked amused.
Damian did not.
“Harper.”
“If Victor is the man I saw, I can identify him.”
“I’m aware.”
“And I know things about Tyler that you don’t.”
“Also aware.”
“And I’m not sitting behind a locked door while everyone else decides what happens to me.”
His jaw tightened.
“Someone tried to kill you.”
“Which makes this very much my problem.”
For several seconds, he simply stared at me.
Then Gabriel cleared his throat.
“She has a point.”
Damian looked at him.
Gabriel immediately lifted both hands.
“A bad point. Terrible point.”
Despite everything, a laugh nearly escaped me.
Damian noticed.
Something softened in his expression for half a second.
Then it disappeared.
“You stay between Gabriel and me.”
“Fine.”
“You do exactly what we say if something happens.”
“Within reason.”
“Harper.”
“Fine.”
We moved through the estate with six armed guards.
At night, the mansion felt completely different.
The grand staircase and marble galleries I cleaned every morning had become tactical choke points. Men in dark suits guarded corners. Radios whispered. Doors opened and closed.
Victor’s office was on the lower level beside the administrative wing.
The door stood open.
Empty.
His computer was gone.
So were two filing drawers.
Gabriel walked toward a hidden wall safe behind a painting.
“Open.”
Nothing.
“Damian.”
A security technician rushed forward.
“Safe was cleared.”
“When?”
“Internal log says 7:52 this evening.”
Twenty minutes before the dinner started.
Victor had known what was coming.
I looked around the room.
Everything was orderly.
Too orderly.
A framed photograph sat on the bookshelf.
Victor stood beside Damian’s father and two younger men.
One was Damian.
The other—
I stepped closer.
Luca.
He had the scar.
I gripped the shelf.
“That’s him.”
Damian looked at the photograph.
“Luca?”
“The man from the warehouse.”
Silence.
The last uncertainty disappeared.
Gabriel cursed softly.
Damian said nothing.
He stared at his brother’s photograph.
Then at Victor standing beside him.
Smiling.
“Why?” I whispered.
“That,” Damian said, “is what we’re going to find out.”
I turned toward the desk.
A silver object caught the light beneath a pile of folders.
The ring.
The crane.
I reached for it.
“Don’t.”
Damian stopped me before I touched it.
Gabriel pulled on gloves and lifted the ring carefully.
Dark discoloration marked one side.
“Blood?”
“Maybe.”
Damian’s expression hardened.
“He left it deliberately.”
“A message?” I asked.
“Or bait.”
Gabriel looked beneath the desk.
Then froze.
“Everybody back.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Back!”
Damian grabbed my upper arm and pulled me behind him as Gabriel dropped to one knee.
A small black device had been taped beneath the desk.
Wires.
A blinking light.
Bomb.
My breath vanished.
Gabriel examined it.
Then released a slow breath.
“Tracker.”
Damian’s face darkened.
Gabriel held up the device.
“Not explosive. Audio transmitter.”
Victor had been listening.
Possibly for weeks.
Damian glanced around the office as if the walls had personally betrayed him.
“Pull everything. Phones. Cameras. Wireless systems. I want this house electronically stripped.”
Gabriel nodded.
Then one of the guards spoke.
“Mr. Romano.”
He was holding Victor’s desk phone.
“The line just activated.”
No one moved.
The speaker light glowed.
Damian pressed it.
Static.
Then a familiar voice filled the office.
“Damian.”
Victor.
My skin crawled.
Damian’s face revealed nothing.
“Where are you?”
Victor laughed softly.
“Always impatient.”
“You murdered my brother.”
A pause.
“You finally found your witness.”
Damian glanced at me.
Victor continued.
“I wondered how long it would take Harper to remember the ring.”
My stomach knotted.
“You knew who I was,” I said.
Victor went silent.
Then he chuckled.
“For six weeks.”
I felt sick.
“Why hire me?”
“Oh, Harper. I didn’t hire you.”
My eyes narrowed.
“I merely arranged for the agency to place you.”
Damian’s hand curled into a fist.
Victor went on.
“You were supposed to remain invisible. That was the safest thing you could have done.”
“For who?”
“For everyone.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“No.”
Victor’s tone turned almost offended.
“I tried to clean up a mistake.”
Damian leaned over the phone.
“Come near her again and I will bury you.”
Victor laughed.
“There he is.”
Something about the words sounded pleased.
“The Damian Romano everyone fears.”
“I’m not interested in entertaining you.”
“You should be. You’re standing in a room I controlled for nineteen years, inside a house whose weaknesses I know better than you do.”
Gabriel was already gesturing for technicians to trace the call.
Victor continued.
“You always believed power meant knowing where your enemies were.”
A cold feeling crept up my spine.
Damian’s gaze shifted toward the doorway.
“What did you do?”
Victor’s voice softened.
“You should have paid more attention to your friends.”
The line went dead.
At that exact moment, gunfire erupted outside.
Not at the gate.
Inside the house.
The sound came from the west wing.
Damian spun.
His face drained of color.
“Mother.”
He ran.
I followed.
By the time we reached the main staircase, smoke was pouring from the corridor leading toward Sofia Romano’s private rooms.
Security guards were shouting.
A woman screamed.
Damian disappeared into the smoke without waiting for anyone.
“Damian!” Gabriel yelled.
I started after him.
Gabriel caught my shoulder.
“No.”
“His mother is in there!”
“And Victor wants you dead.”
Another explosion shook the windows.
Sprinklers activated overhead.
Water rained across the marble.
Then a security guard came stumbling out of the smoke, blood spreading across his shirt.
He collapsed at Gabriel’s feet.
Gabriel crouched.
“Who did this?”
The man grabbed his jacket.
“Crane…”
“Where?”
The guard’s terrified eyes moved to me.
“Not Crane.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
He coughed blood.
“The other man.”
“Who?”
His fingers tightened.
Then he whispered a name I had spent six years trying not to hear.
“Bennett.”
A shadow moved behind the smoke.
A man stepped into the red emergency light.
Older.
Broader.
A scar now crossing one eyebrow.
But I recognized him instantly.
Tyler.
He looked directly at me.
May you like
And smiled.
“Hi, Harper.”
