Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
Sebastian Romano did not open the library door.
For five long seconds, nobody moved.
Amara stood behind him with one hand pressed against the edge of his desk, her eyes fixed on the polished wood separating them from a man who had supposedly been buried six years earlier.
Grant had his weapon drawn.
Sebastian held the red ledger beneath one arm.
Outside, the elderly voice came again.
“Sebastian, listen to me.”
Sebastian’s face had gone completely still.
Amara had learned enough about him over thirteen months to know that stillness was more dangerous than anger.
“My father is dead,” he said.
There was a pause outside.
“I know what you buried.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
Grant glanced at him.
“Boss, don’t.”
Sebastian ignored him.
“What was in the coffin?”
The voice answered immediately.
“Enough weight to fool men who didn’t want to ask questions.”
That changed something.
Not belief.
But possibility.
Sebastian looked at Grant.
“Side entrance?”
“Security’s dead.”
“Windows?”
“Locked electronically.”
“Which means someone inside still controls the house.”
Amara’s stomach tightened.
Celeste.
Except the man outside had warned them that Celeste was not the real danger.
Sebastian moved closer to the door.
“Tell me something nobody else knows.”
Silence.
Then the man spoke.
“When you were eleven, you broke your left wrist jumping from the stable roof. You told your mother you fell from a bicycle because you thought I’d be angry.”
Sebastian stopped breathing.
Amara looked at him.
The voice continued.
“You kept the hospital bracelet inside the wooden box under your bed for three years because your mother wrote, ‘My fearless idiot,’ on the back.”
Grant lowered his weapon an inch.
Sebastian did not.
“Anybody could have learned that.”
“No,” the voice said. “Because the box was buried with your mother.”
The room changed.
Sebastian reached for the lock.
Grant caught his arm.
“Boss.”
“If it’s a trap, he already knows exactly where we are.”
“That doesn’t mean we open the door.”
Sebastian looked toward Amara.
She expected him to order her away.
Instead he asked, “What do you think?”
The question surprised her.
She listened.
No footsteps.
No whispering.
No movement except the elderly man’s breathing.
“He sounds afraid,” she said.
Sebastian’s eyes stayed on the door.
“Fear can be performed.”
“Yes.”
She swallowed.
“But he warned you before he came here. If he wanted you trapped, he could have stayed quiet.”
Grant frowned.
Sebastian considered that.
Then he unlocked the door.
He opened it three inches.
A man stood alone in the hallway.
Gray hair.
Deep lines around his mouth.
A dark overcoat hanging loosely from shoulders that had once been broad.
Sebastian stared through the opening.
The man’s eyes were the same.
Not similar.
The same.
Sebastian opened the door fully.
Amara had seen the funeral portrait downstairs hundreds of times.
The man standing in the hallway was older, thinner, and carrying six years of damage across his face.
But he was Vittorio Romano.
Sebastian’s father.
Vittorio looked at his son.
Neither spoke.
Then Sebastian grabbed him by the coat and slammed him against the wall.
Grant stepped forward.
Amara froze.
“You let me bury you.”
Vittorio did not resist.
“You let me stand over a coffin.”
“I had no choice.”
“You had six years.”
“I know.”
“My mother died believing you were gone.”
Pain moved across Vittorio’s face.
“No. Your mother died before any of this started.”
Sebastian released him as if burned.
“What?”
Vittorio looked toward the red ledger beneath his son’s arm.
“Not here.”
Sebastian laughed once.
There was nothing amused about it.
“You don’t get to come back from the dead and tell me where we talk.”
A door slammed somewhere downstairs.
Grant looked toward the staircase.
Vittorio’s face sharpened.
“They know I’m here.”
“Who?”
“Your uncle Dominic.”
Sebastian stared.
“My uncle lives in Naples.”
“Not for the last four years.”
Another sound came from below.
Running footsteps.
Grant moved toward the railing.
Vittorio grabbed Sebastian’s wrist.
“If Dominic gets that ledger, every person connected to those accounts becomes expendable.”
Sebastian pulled away.
“What accounts?”
“The Romano Foundation wasn’t created to hide money.”
Sebastian opened the ledger.
Columns of numbers filled the pages.
Charities.
Shell companies.
Property trusts.
Names.
Vittorio pointed to a series of initials.
“It was created to identify who was stealing from the family.”
Sebastian looked up.
“What?”
“I started the investigation seven years ago. Your mother discovered transfers moving through medical charities. Millions disappearing.”
Amara felt cold.
“Celeste said Sebastian had been asking questions about the Foundation.”
Vittorio looked at her for the first time.
“And you are?”
“Amara Cole.”
Recognition flickered across his face.
Sebastian noticed.
“You know her?”
Vittorio hesitated.
Amara saw it.
So did Sebastian.
“Answer me.”
“I know the name.”
Amara’s heart stumbled.
“How?”
Before Vittorio could respond, Grant’s phone briefly lit up.
One bar of internal network access.
He checked the screen.
“Boss.”
Sebastian turned.
“Camera feed came back for three seconds.”
“What did you see?”
Grant’s expression hardened.
“Four armed men entering through the service corridor.”
Sebastian looked at Vittorio.
“Dominic?”
“Probably.”
“Where’s Celeste?”
“I don’t know.”
“Brooke?”
“No idea.”
Sebastian handed the ledger to Amara.
“Keep this.”
Her eyes widened.
“Why me?”
“Because everyone knows Grant is security and everyone knows I’ll protect it.”
His gaze settled on her.
“Nobody expects the housekeeper they framed to be holding the reason they came.”
Vittorio almost smiled.
“Still thinking like your mother.”
Sebastian looked at him coldly.
“Don’t talk about her yet.”
He turned to Grant.
“Get Amara through the old wine passage.”
Grant nodded.
Amara clutched the ledger.
“I’m not leaving you.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“This isn’t a discussion.”
“You asked me what I thought five minutes ago.”
“That was different.”
“No. You only liked my opinion because it helped you open the door.”
Vittorio watched them.
Despite everything, something almost amused passed through his eyes.
Sebastian lowered his voice.
“Amara.”
“If that ledger is why they came, splitting up makes sense. But if your father knows what the names mean, he comes with me.”
Vittorio’s amusement vanished.
Sebastian considered it.
Grant said, “She’s right.”
Sebastian gave him a look.
Grant shrugged.
“You pay me to say that when it matters.”
A crash came from downstairs.
Then Celeste screamed.
“Sebastian!”
Everyone froze.
Her voice came again.
“Sebastian, help me!”
Amara instinctively moved toward the hall.
Sebastian caught her arm lightly.
“No.”
“She sounds hurt.”
“She sounded convincing when she accused you too.”
The scream came again.
This time followed by Brooke.
“Please!”
Vittorio whispered, “That’s how Dominic works.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“How?”
“He makes you choose who to save.”
Sebastian’s expression changed.
A memory, perhaps.
Something old.
Something ugly.
Then Grant’s phone buzzed.
A message had entered through the restored internal network.
One photograph.
Grant opened it.
Brooke sat tied to a chair in the downstairs dining room.
Celeste stood behind her.
Not tied.
Not frightened.
Holding a phone.
Beside her stood a silver-haired man Sebastian recognized immediately.
Dominic Romano.
His father’s younger brother.
And beneath the photograph was a message.
BRING THE LEDGER.
OR THE GIRL DIES FIRST.
Amara looked at Sebastian.
He was staring at Celeste.
Not Dominic.
At Celeste.
The woman he had planned to marry.
The woman who had framed Amara.
The woman who now stood beside his uncle.
Sebastian’s voice was almost inaudible.
“She chose him.”
Vittorio shook his head.
“No.”
Sebastian looked at him.
Vittorio pointed toward Celeste’s hand in the photograph.
Her fingers were wrapped around the phone.
But her thumb was bent strangely against the case.
Three fingers visible.
Two hidden.
A pattern.
Vittorio’s eyes narrowed.
“She’s sending you a signal.”
Amara looked closer.
“What signal?”
Sebastian’s face changed.
It was an old Romano emergency code.
One Vittorio had taught him as a child.
Three visible fingers.
Two hidden.
Meaning only one thing.
I AM BEING WATCHED.
Celeste was not standing beside Dominic because she had chosen him.
She was warning Sebastian.
And if that was true, then someone else had planted the necklace, changed the safe code, and manipulated all of them.
Grant enlarged the photograph.
That was when Amara noticed the reflection in the dining-room mirror.
A fifth person stood behind the camera.
Only half his face was visible.
Grant went completely pale.
Sebastian looked at him.
“What?”
Grant did not answer.
Sebastian grabbed the phone.
Then he saw the reflection clearly.
And for the second time that night, someone Sebastian trusted turned into a stranger.
Because the man behind Dominic—
May you like
was Grant Holloway’s father.
A man Grant had sworn died twenty-two years ago.
