Chapter 4 - The Secret Beneath Falcone House
Nobody spoke for several seconds after the screen went dark.
The cellar suddenly felt colder.
Daniel Rusk had not simply been a corrupt security chief.
He had been there fourteen years ago.
Standing ten feet from my mother.
Holding a gun.
Roman replayed the final seconds.
Again.
Again.
Again.
As if repetition might transform the image into somebody else.
It didn't.
Declan paced behind us like a caged animal.
Gabriel sat completely still.
Mrs. Hess lowered herself onto a crate.
I could not stop hearing my mother's voice.
Maeve has the other key.
“What key?” Roman asked.
“I told you. I don't know.”
“Think.”
“I'm thinking!”
My voice echoed through the cellar.
Roman's jaw tightened.
I immediately regretted shouting.
Not because I was afraid of him.
Because for the first time, Roman looked afraid too.
I closed my eyes.
My childhood came back in broken pieces.
Our small apartment.
My mother's blue coffee mug.
Her habit of hiding Christmas gifts inside the oven because my father never cooked.
A jewelry box.
A silver necklace.
Keys.
Then I remembered something.
“There was a key.”
Everyone looked at me.
I touched my throat instinctively.
“I thought it was junk.”
“What kind?” Gabriel asked.
“Brass. Small. Mom kept it on the same chain as the necklace.”
“Where is it?”
“My father's house.”
Declan stared at me.
“Your father still has it?”
“He died four years ago.”
Silence.
I swallowed.
“Cancer.”
Roman's voice softened.
“I'm sorry.”
I looked away.
“After he died, Chloe and I packed everything. I kept a box of Mom's things.”
“Where?”
My stomach dropped.
“Our apartment.”
The apartment I was about to be evicted from.
The apartment currently sitting empty.
Gabriel was already calling someone.
Roman said, “Nobody goes there until we secure the house.”
“Victor could already know.”
“Victor does know,” Mrs. Hess said.
Roman turned.
“How?”
“Because Daniel Rusk knows.”
Declan swore.
“We need Victor contained.”
Roman looked at him.
“Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“If we move without proof, every compromised person around him disappears.”
“Our house was just attacked.”
“And we don't know how deep this goes.”
Declan pointed toward the unconscious men.
“Feels pretty deep.”
Gabriel ended his call.
“I sent a team to Maeve's apartment.”
Roman nodded.
“No entry. Observe only.”
“Already told them.”
I hated how casually they could organize people with weapons around my former home.
I hated even more how relieved it made me feel.
We stayed underground until Falcone security regained control of the estate.
Three attackers were captured.
Two escaped through the tunnel.
Four guards were injured.
Daniel Rusk was gone.
Nobody could reach Victor Falcone.
At three seventeen in the morning, Roman finally allowed us upstairs.
The mansion looked wounded.
Glass covered the east corridor.
A marble statue had lost half its face.
Blood stained the staircase where one guard had been carried out.
The beautiful house had always felt dangerous.
Now it looked honest.
Chloe was taken to a secure bedroom in Roman's private wing.
Declan personally checked every window.
Gabriel installed a chair outside the door and announced he was sleeping there.
Chloe stared at him.
“You don't have to.”
He smiled faintly.
“I do. Your sister scares me.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Roman walked me toward his study.
“I need to show you something.”
“More secret files?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
His study occupied the northeast corner of the mansion.
Dark wood.
Books.
No photographs except one on the desk.
Three teenage boys beside a tall man with black hair.
Their father.
Sebastian.
Roman noticed me looking.
“He was difficult.”
“That's a very rich-family way of saying somebody was mean.”
That surprised a quiet laugh out of him.
“He was mean.”
I looked at him.
Roman Falcone laughing felt strange.
Human.
Dangerously human.
Then his expression changed.
“He also loved us.”
I nodded toward the photograph.
“You miss him.”
“Every day.”
There was no performance in the answer.
Just truth.
Roman opened a cabinet and removed a sealed evidence envelope.
Inside was another photograph.
My mother.
Younger.
Standing beside Sebastian Falcone at some kind of charity event.
She was smiling.
My throat closed.
I hadn't seen that expression in years.
“She looked happy.”
Roman watched me rather than the picture.
“Our father trusted her.”
“How do you know?”
“He mentioned someone once. A bookkeeper who had more courage than half his executives.”
I looked up.
“He said that?”
“I was nineteen. I didn't care about accounting investigations.”
His face tightened.
“I wish I had.”
“You were nineteen.”
“I was old enough.”
“To stop your uncle from murdering people?”
“We don't know that yet.”
“You believe it.”
He didn't answer.
I looked again at my mother.
For the first time since arriving at Falcone House, the anger inside me weakened.
Not disappeared.
Just shifted.
Roman and I had both spent years missing parents without knowing the truth.
“You said your father died six months before my mom.”
“Six weeks before.”
“And you never suspected Victor?”
“No.”
“That must hurt.”
Roman looked at me.
“Which part?”
“Realizing the person who comforted you might have caused the thing you needed comforting for.”
That landed.
He turned away.
A long silence followed.
Then he said, “Victor moved into this house after our father's funeral. Stayed four months.”
I felt sick.
“He helped us arrange the burial. He stood beside my mother.”
“What happened to her?”
Roman's shoulders stiffened.
“She died two years later.”
“How?”
“Overdose.”
I looked at him.
“Was she—”
“No.”
He answered too quickly.
“She hated medication. Even painkillers.”
Another death.
Another convenient explanation.
I whispered, “Roman.”
“I know.”
A knock came at the door.
Declan entered.
His shirt had blood on one shoulder.
I stood immediately.
“You're hurt.”
He looked down.
“Not mine.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Gabriel followed.
“We found something.”
He placed a tablet on the desk.
Surveillance footage.
The timestamp showed three fifty-eight that afternoon.
Hours before the attack.
Daniel Rusk entered a small outbuilding near the northern gardens.
Two minutes later, Mrs. Hess followed.
We all turned toward her.
She had entered behind Gabriel.
Her face looked resigned.
Declan stepped toward her.
“You met him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To warn him.”
Roman's eyes hardened.
“You warned the man who murdered Maeve's mother?”
“I warned him that Victor was going to kill him.”
That stopped everyone.
Mrs. Hess continued.
“Rusk contacted me three days ago. He said Victor believed Maeve had been placed here deliberately.”
“She was,” Gabriel said.
“Not by me. Not by Rusk.”
Roman frowned.
“Then who?”
“I don't know.”
Mrs. Hess pulled something from her pocket.
An old folded letter.
“I found this in Sebastian's private chapel fourteen years ago. Your father gave instructions that it should be delivered only if a Carter ever came to Falcone House.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“You had this the whole time?”
“Yes.”
“You let me scrub toilets while carrying a letter from my dead mother?”
Her expression tightened.
“It is from your mother to Sebastian.”
Roman opened it.
The paper shook slightly in his hand.
I had never seen Roman's hands shake.
He read aloud.
“Sebastian, if anything happens to me, the Harbor originals are safe. The key is with Maeve, though she doesn't know it. Do not bring her into this. Victor knows about the copies but not the original files. If you fail, let my daughters live ordinary lives. That will be enough.”
I sat down.
Chloe and I had spent fourteen years trying desperately to survive an ordinary life.
Apparently that was exactly what our mother had wanted.
Gabriel's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“The team at your apartment found evidence of forced entry.”
My chest tightened.
“The box?”
“Missing.”
I stood.
“The key is gone?”
“We don't know.”
Roman grabbed his coat.
“We go now.”
Declan immediately said, “No.”
Roman stared at him.
“You want to repeat that?”
“Yes. No.”
Declan pointed toward the broken windows.
“Rusk knows our security. Victor knows our people. Chloe stays here, Maeve stays here, and I go.”
“You're not going without me,” I said.
“Watch me.”
“It is my apartment.”
“And whoever searched it might still be there.”
“Then you need me to tell you what's missing.”
Declan opened his mouth.
Roman interrupted.
“She comes.”
Declan stared at his brother.
Roman's tone left no room for argument.
“I stay beside her.”
Something passed between them.
Declan finally nodded.
The drive to Providence happened beneath freezing rain.
Roman sat beside me in the rear SUV.
Neither of us spoke.
Halfway there, he said, “You can still leave.”
I laughed softly.
“Where?”
“I'll arrange housing for you and Chloe.”
“No.”
“Maeve.”
“I don't want your money.”
“It isn't charity.”
“What is it?”
He looked at me.
“Protection.”
“Same problem.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“Charity is something you give because you feel generous. Protection is something I owe you because my family brought danger into your life.”
I stared at him.
“My life was already dangerous. I had twelve dollars.”
That nearly made him smile.
Then he reached into his coat.
For one irrational second, I tensed.
He pulled out an envelope.
“My first week's pay?”
“Three days.”
I opened it.
A payroll statement.
Every hour listed.
Overtime.
Hazard premium.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Hazard premium?”
“You were shot at.”
“Is that in the employee handbook?”
“It is now.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Roman looked at me.
Something shifted.
The inside of the SUV became too quiet.
His gaze moved briefly to my mouth.
Mine moved to his.
Then the vehicle stopped.
Declan's voice came through the radio.
“We're here.”
Perfect timing.
My apartment door had been destroyed.
Drawers emptied.
Cushions cut.
Nothing valuable remained, though there had never been much valuable to begin with.
I walked directly to the closet.
The cardboard box was gone.
I closed my eyes.
“No.”
Roman stood behind me.
“It was here?”
“Yes.”
I knelt.
Then noticed something.
The dust beneath the bottom shelf had been disturbed.
I reached underneath.
My fingers touched tape.
I pulled out a small envelope.
My father's handwriting covered the front.
MAEVE.
My hands shook.
I opened it.
Inside was a brass key.
And one note.
Your mother made me promise I would hide this where even you wouldn't look.
I laughed and cried at the same time.
“That jerk.”
Roman crouched beside me.
“You found it.”
“Dad moved it.”
A sound came from the hallway.
Declan shouted.
“DOWN!”
Gunfire exploded through the apartment.
Roman threw himself over me.
Glass shattered.
Someone screamed outside.
The lights died.
Then a man's voice came through the darkness.
Amplified through a portable speaker.
“Maeve Carter.”
Roman's entire body stiffened.
The voice continued.
“Bring me Nora's key.”
I clutched it inside my fist.
Roman whispered, “Victor.”
A second later, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Maeve?”
Chloe's terrified voice came through.
My heart stopped.
“Chloe?”
“I don't know where I am.”
Roman looked at me.
Declan turned from the hallway.
Gabriel's voice shouted through somebody's radio back at Falcone House.
“CHLOE'S GONE!”
Then another voice came onto the call.
Smooth.
Older.
Amused.
“Hello, Maeve.”
Victor Falcone chuckled softly.
“You have something I want.”
May you like
A pause.
“And now I have something you love.”
