Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE
Someone screamed.
A woman dropped to the floor.
Another shot cracked through the darkness.
Daniel shouted, “Gabriel, down!”
A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me behind the stone column beside the foyer stairs.
I couldn't see who it was.
Then Gabriel's voice came inches from my ear.
“Stay behind me.”
Emergency lights flashed red along the baseboards.
The mansion turned into shadows.
Guests crouched beneath tables and against walls.
Security guards moved with weapons drawn.
“Daniel!” Gabriel called.
“I'm good.”
“Ethan?”
“Here.”
Madison didn't answer.
Gabriel looked toward where she had been standing.
Empty.
“Find her.”
Two guards disappeared into the east hallway.
Daniel checked the front entry.
The glass beside the door had shattered.
One bullet was buried in the ceiling.
The other had struck a portrait above the fireplace.
Nobody appeared injured.
Gabriel noticed immediately.
“He wasn't shooting at us.”
Daniel nodded.
“Warning shots.”
“Or a distraction,” Ethan said.
We all turned toward the hallway Madison had been staring at earlier.
Gabriel moved first.
We followed through the dark mansion until a guard called from the service corridor.
“Boss!”
He was standing beside an open window.
Rain blew across the tile floor.
A section of hedges outside had been crushed.
Madison was gone.
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
Daniel touched his earpiece.
“South gate is still locked. East cameras are down.”
“For how long?”
“Six minutes.”
Ethan laughed once, bitterly.
“She planned this.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“She planned more than this.”
Daniel's men began clearing the property.
Within ten minutes, backup generators restored full power.
The birthday party was over.
Gabriel ordered the guests escorted home after every name and vehicle had been recorded.
No one complained.
Nobody wanted to remain inside Romano estate after gunfire.
Ethan stood by the fireplace while Gabriel examined Madison's black notebook.
I watched both men.
The resemblance was harder to ignore now.
Not their faces.
Their silence.
Their anger.
Neither knew what to do with the other.
Finally Ethan said, “I came here because my mother disappeared this afternoon.”
Gabriel raised his head sharply.
“You said she was home.”
“I hoped she was.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“I didn't know whether I could trust you.”
“You still walked into my house.”
“Because she left me instructions.”
That changed everything.
Gabriel closed the notebook.
“What instructions?”
Ethan reached inside his coat again.
This time he pulled out a brass key.
Larger than the key to room 214.
“My mother gave me this three months ago.”
“What does it open?”
“I don't know.”
“She didn't tell you?”
“She said if she ever disappeared, I should bring it to Gabriel Romano.”
Gabriel stared at the key.
“She said my name?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“She said not to trust anyone who worked for your father.”
Daniel crossed his arms.
“That covers a lot of people.”
Ethan nodded toward Madison's notebook.
“Including Raymond Hale.”
Gabriel looked at Daniel.
“Where is Hale tonight?”
Daniel made a call.
Thirty seconds later he said, “His Beacon Hill residence is empty.”
“Office?”
“Security says he hasn't been there since Thursday.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“Find him.”
Ethan spoke.
“My mother also gave me a phrase.”
Gabriel waited.
“November doesn't end in November.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“No idea.”
Gabriel suddenly looked toward the old chair upstairs.
“Maybe my mother knew.”
We returned to the study.
The chair still sat upside down beside Gabriel's desk.
He examined every support panel.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the carved date.
November 4, 2001.
I crouched beside the underside.
“The carving isn't centered.”
Gabriel looked down.
“What?”
“It looks like a name and date, but look at the spacing.”
Ethan crouched beside me.
“Elena. Eleven-four-two-thousand-one.”
I traced the numbers.
“One-one-four.”
Daniel noticed first.
“114.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“Another room?”
We searched the property plans.
There was no room 114.
But there was an old Romano family property numbered 114 Commonwealth Avenue.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“I haven't been there since I was eighteen.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“My father's old townhouse.”
Daniel frowned.
“I thought that property was sold.”
“So did I.”
He checked the county records.
It hadn't been sold.
It belonged to a shell company controlled by Raymond Hale.
We left immediately.
Gabriel insisted Ethan ride with him.
I sat across from them in the armored SUV.
The silence was suffocating.
Finally Gabriel asked, “What did Elena tell you about me?”
Ethan looked out the window.
“Not much.”
“That isn't true.”
“She said you were seventeen.”
Gabriel's expression tightened.
“She said you were kind to her.”
Silence.
“She said your father wasn't.”
Gabriel looked toward the rain streaking the glass.
“I loved her.”
Ethan turned.
Gabriel didn't look at him.
“I didn't know she was pregnant. I didn't know she survived. I didn't know you existed.”
Ethan studied him.
“I spent my whole childhood thinking my father knew exactly where I was.”
Gabriel finally met his eyes.
“And I spent mine believing your mother was dead.”
Neither man apologized.
Neither forgave.
But something shifted.
114 Commonwealth Avenue was a narrow brownstone surrounded by expensive homes.
The front door opened with Ethan's key.
Inside, the air smelled stale.
Furniture sat beneath white sheets.
No electricity.
Daniel used a flashlight.
We searched the ground floor.
Empty.
Second floor.
Empty.
Then Ethan found a framed photograph inside a bedroom drawer.
Elena.
Seventeen.
Gabriel.
Seventeen.
They were sitting on the hood of an old car, laughing.
Gabriel took the picture.
His thumb touched Elena's face.
“That was two weeks before she disappeared.”
Ethan looked away.
I noticed an envelope beneath the photograph.
It was addressed in Isabella Romano's handwriting.
For Gabriel, when Victor can no longer stop him.
Gabriel opened it.
Inside was a single page.
My son,
If you are reading this, then I failed to tell you the truth while I was alive.
Your father believed fear could solve every problem.
When Elena became pregnant, Victor decided she was a threat to the future he had planned for you.
I helped Elena leave Boston.
I told you nothing because Victor promised that if you searched for her, he would find her first.
I thought silence would keep both of you alive.
I was wrong.
Raymond helped me move Elena several times.
At first, I trusted him.
Do not make the same mistake.
Victor discovered Ethan survived in 2010.
What happened after that is why you must never assume your father died the way you were told.
Gabriel stopped reading.
Daniel frowned.
“Victor died in 2018.”
Gabriel stared at the page.
“My mother wrote this before she died in 2014.”
Ethan whispered, “She thought your father might fake his death.”
Daniel looked uneasy.
“Boss, I was at Victor Romano's funeral.”
“So was I.”
“You saw the body?”
Gabriel didn't answer.
Daniel repeated the question.
“Did you?”
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
“No.”
The coffin had remained closed because Victor's death had supposedly involved a violent car accident.
Gabriel looked at the final paragraph.
“There is more.”
He read aloud.
“If Victor is alive, the answer is beneath Saint Michael, where he hid the truth from God.”
Ethan frowned.
“Saint Michael?”
Gabriel knew immediately.
“The family mausoleum.”
We reached the cemetery shortly after midnight.
Rain had become sleet.
The Romano mausoleum stood at the edge of the hill, gray stone beneath bare trees.
Gabriel unlocked the iron gate.
Inside were six burial niches.
His grandparents.
Two uncles.
His mother.
His father.
Victor Romano.
Daniel checked the corridor.
“No movement.”
Gabriel approached Victor's plaque.
**VICTOR ANGELO ROMANO
1952–2018**
Ethan stared at it.
“My whole life changed because of a dead man.”
Gabriel placed both hands against the stone panel.
“Maybe not.”
We found a small metal latch beneath the carved statue of Saint Michael.
Daniel pulled it.
A hidden drawer opened.
Inside was a cassette recorder.
A folder.
And a sealed medical examiner's report.
Gabriel opened the report.
His eyes moved down the page.
Then stopped.
“What?” I asked.
He handed it to Daniel.
Daniel read.
The DNA identification from Victor's accident had never been independently verified.
The body had been identified using dental records supplied by—
Raymond Hale.
Ethan whispered, “Jesus.”
Gabriel opened the folder.
Inside was a photograph.
Victor Romano.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Walking into a private clinic.
The date was 2020.
Two years after his funeral.
Gabriel stared at his supposedly dead father.
Then Daniel's phone rang.
He answered.
His face hardened.
“What happened?”
A voice spoke rapidly through the receiver.
Daniel looked at Gabriel.
“We found Madison's car.”
“Where?”
“Logan Airport.”
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
“Did she board a flight?”
“No.”
Daniel paused.
“She left the car in short-term parking.”
“And?”
“There was someone in the passenger seat.”
Ethan stood.
“Who?”
Daniel looked directly at him.
“A woman matching Elena Ward's description.”
Ethan went white.
“My mother?”
“She was unconscious.”
Gabriel grabbed his coat.
“Where is she now?”
Daniel swallowed.
“That is the problem.”
“The car is empty.”
Ethan stared at him.
Daniel continued.
“The airport footage shows Madison helping Elena out of the car.”
“That makes no sense,” I said.
“It gets worse.”
Daniel turned the phone toward us.
A security image filled the screen.
Madison was walking beside Elena.
Elena didn't appear to be a prisoner.
Her eyes were open.
She was carrying a suitcase.
And standing on Elena's other side—
was an elderly man with silver hair.
Gabriel took the phone.
For the first time, I saw true fear in his eyes.
Ethan whispered, “Who is that?”
May you like
Gabriel looked at the man who had been buried eight years earlier.
“My father.”
