Chapter 2 - THE DEAD MAN IN LOCKER R-17
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The storage unit was completely dark except for the thin gray line of evening light slipping beneath the metal door.
Then Dominic spoke.
“Samuel?”
The name sounded different coming from him now.
Not angry.
Not threatening.
Almost young.
A flashlight clicked on.
One of Dominic’s security men aimed it toward the back corner of the storage unit.
An older man stood between the metal filing cabinet and the concrete wall.
He was thinner than the photographs I had seen of Samuel Romano. His silver hair had grown long around his ears. His coat hung loosely from his shoulders.
But the resemblance to Dominic was unmistakable.
Same dark eyes.
Same straight nose.
Same habit of becoming perfectly still when everyone else was afraid.
Celeste stumbled backward.
“You’re dead.”
Samuel looked at her.
“So you were told.”
Dominic crossed the unit in three steps.
His guards moved with him.
“Six years.”
Samuel didn’t flinch.
“You let me bury you six years ago.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You had a funeral.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“No.”
Samuel’s eyes shifted toward me.
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Dominic grabbed the front of his uncle’s coat.
“Why are you alive?”
Samuel lowered his voice.
“Because the people who wanted me dead needed to believe they succeeded.”
Dominic released him.
Behind us, the emergency lights finally flickered on.
The VHS television remained dark.
Nathan checked the player.
“Power surge. Tape should be fine.”
I barely heard him.
I was watching Samuel.
“What did you mean?”
He looked at me.
“When?”
“You said not to trust the woman Dominic came here with.”
Celeste gave a humorless laugh.
“Oh, please. We all know who he meant.”
Samuel’s eyes stayed on mine.
“No, you don’t.”
Dominic turned sharply.
Samuel pointed toward Celeste.
“I meant her.”
Celeste’s face tightened.
For one second, relief hit me.
Then Samuel added:
“But Grace shouldn’t trust everyone who came with her either.”
Nathan looked up.
So did I.
“What does that mean?”
Samuel ignored the question.
Dominic stepped between us.
“No more riddles.”
Samuel studied his nephew.
“You still do that.”
“Do what?”
“Think the room belongs to you because everyone is afraid to speak.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
Samuel looked toward the VHS tape.
“Your father thought that too.”
The room changed.
Dominic took a slow breath.
“Start talking.”
Samuel sat on the wooden rocking horse’s crate.
“The mortgage was fake.”
“We know.”
“I created it.”
Silence.
I stared at him.
“You put my grandmother’s name on six hundred thousand dollars of debt?”
Samuel nodded.
“Yes.”
Dominic’s voice went cold.
“And you forged my signature.”
“Yes.”
Celeste spoke first.
“There. He admitted it.”
Samuel looked at her.
“You might want to remain quiet.”
“Why?”
“Because I know who paid you to find me.”
Her face emptied.
Dominic noticed.
“So she did know you were alive.”
Samuel nodded.
“For eight months.”
My stomach turned.
Eight months.
Exactly how long Celeste had been engaged to Dominic.
Dominic made the connection too.
Their eyes met.
He said nothing.
That was worse.
Celeste shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
Samuel laughed once.
It was the saddest sound I had heard all day.
“From what? The truth?”
She turned toward Dominic.
“Your family was hiding things from you.”
“And your solution was to forge a seizure against Grace’s house?”
“I didn’t forge it.”
“You used it.”
Her mouth closed.
Samuel leaned forward.
“The mortgage was never intended to take Margaret’s home.”
“Then what was it for?” I demanded.
“To hide where the money came from.”
Nathan moved closer.
“The $575,000.”
Samuel nodded.
“Anthony couldn’t create a trust connected directly to himself. Too many people watched his accounts. So he created debt on paper. The money looked like repayment of an old obligation.”
“For a child,” Dominic said.
Samuel looked at him.
“Yes.”
Dominic’s jaw shifted.
“What child?”
Samuel didn’t answer.
Celeste suddenly headed for the door.
One of Dominic’s men blocked her.
“Move.”
He didn’t.
She turned toward Dominic.
“You’re keeping me prisoner now?”
“No.”
His voice was calm.
“You can leave as soon as Samuel answers one question.”
She laughed nervously.
“And what question is that?”
Dominic never looked away from his uncle.
“Why does my fiancée care whose child was born in 2008?”
Samuel closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, I saw something I hadn’t expected.
Guilt.
“The woman in Margaret’s photograph was named Elena Ward.”
Dominic stopped moving.
Nathan glanced at me.
Celeste whispered, “Samuel.”
He continued.
“Elena worked for Romano Imports in 2007.”
Dominic stared at him.
“I know who Elena was.”
That sentence told me more than the words themselves.
I looked at Dominic.
“What happened to her?”
Nobody answered.
Finally Dominic said, “She died.”
Samuel looked directly at him.
“No.”
The word landed like a brick through glass.
Dominic’s face didn’t change.
But his hand closed into a fist.
“What did you say?”
“Elena did not die in 2008.”
“I went to her funeral.”
“You went to a closed casket.”
Dominic took one step toward him.
“My father identified her.”
“Your father lied.”
The room became impossibly quiet.
I remembered Margaret on the television.
Anthony Romano standing beside the woman with the newborn.
The trust.
The forged documents.
Dominic’s fake authorization.
“What happened to the baby?” I asked.
Samuel looked at me.
Then at Dominic.
“That is why Anthony paid Margaret.”
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“Say it.”
Samuel hesitated.
“Samuel.”
“The baby was Elena’s daughter.”
Dominic swallowed.
“So?”
Samuel stared at him.
“And yours.”
Nobody breathed.
Celeste covered her face.
Dominic didn’t move.
I don’t know what I expected.
Anger.
Denial.
A demand for proof.
Instead he asked one quiet question.
“What was her name?”
Samuel’s eyes softened.
“Sofia.”
Dominic looked toward the dead television.
“Sofia.”
He said it as though trying to remember something that had never been given to him.
“How old?”
“Eighteen.”
Dominic turned away.
I saw his shoulders rise once.
Then settle.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“Elena told me she lost the baby.”
“She was told the baby died.”
Dominic spun back.
“What?”
Samuel nodded.
“Anthony separated them.”
Nathan stared at him.
“Why?”
Samuel looked toward Celeste again.
“Because someone inside the Romano organization had threatened to kill the child if Dominic didn’t surrender control of three companies.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
“What companies?”
“Shipping. Imports. Construction.”
Dominic understood something I didn’t.
“Kessler.”
Samuel said nothing.
That silence was confirmation.
Celeste began crying.
Dominic looked at her.
“Why are you crying?”
She shook her head.
“Don’t.”
“Who is Kessler to you?”
“Dominic—”
“Who?”
Her lawyer stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
Nathan turned toward him.
“No, I think we’re finally getting somewhere.”
Celeste’s attorney reached for her arm.
“We’re leaving.”
Samuel stood.
“Mason.”
The lawyer froze.
Samuel’s voice hardened.
“Tell Bernard he should have stayed buried too.”
I saw Dominic’s eyes narrow.
Mason pulled Celeste toward the door.
Dominic’s guards blocked them.
Then Mason did something nobody expected.
He shoved Celeste directly into one of the guards.
The emergency light went out again.
Someone hit the manual release on the storage corridor.
An alarm screamed.
By the time Dominic’s men restored the lights, Mason was gone.
Celeste was still there.
And she looked more frightened of his escape than anyone else.
Dominic walked toward her.
“Bernard Kessler.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t make me say it here.”
“Why?”
“Because Mason will tell him Samuel talked.”
“So?”
Celeste looked toward the open corridor.
Then she whispered:
“Because Bernard has Sofia.”
Dominic went utterly still.
Samuel swore under his breath.
“How?”
Celeste’s tears fell freely now.
“You think I was trying to steal Grace’s house?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“I was trying to find what Margaret hid inside it before my father did.”
My mouth went dry.
“Your father?”
Celeste closed her eyes.
When she opened them, the performance was gone.
The wealthy fiancée.
The arrogance.
The perfect coat.
All of it.
“Bernard Kessler is my father.”
Dominic’s voice was nearly inaudible.
“And you planned to marry me without mentioning that?”
“He sent me to you.”
Every person in the storage unit froze.
Celeste looked at Dominic.
“He wanted me inside your family before Sofia turned eighteen.”
“Why eighteen?”
Samuel answered.
“Because the trust activates completely on her eighteenth birthday.”
Nathan picked up the original index.
“What happens then?”
Samuel stared at me.
Not Dominic.
Me.
“Margaret built in a failsafe.”
My heart started pounding again.
“What failsafe?”
“If anyone attempted to seize Willow Creek Road using the false mortgage, ownership of the trust assets temporarily transferred to Margaret’s successor trustee.”
Nathan’s eyes widened.
“Who is the successor?”
Samuel reached toward the metal filing cabinet.
He opened the top drawer.
Inside was one sealed envelope.
My name was written across it.
GRACE MILLER.
I stared at it.
Dominic looked at me.
Samuel said quietly:
“Grace, Celeste wasn’t really trying to take your house.”
He handed me the envelope.
“She was trying to stop you from becoming the most dangerous person in the Romano family.”
And when I opened it, the first line told me exactly why.
For the next thirty days, I controlled the trust.
Including the shares that could decide who controlled Dominic Romano’s companies.
But the second line was worse.
Because Margaret had added one handwritten instruction.
IF THIS CLAUSE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED, SOFIA HAS ALREADY BEEN FOUND. DO NOT LET DOMINIC TAKE HER HOME UNTIL HE KNOWS WHAT HIS FATHER DID.
May you like
And Dominic was standing close enough to read every word.
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