Chapter 2 - THE DEAD MAN WHO WALKED IN
For two seconds, nobody moved.
Then Roman DeLuca became terrifyingly calm.
“Marco,” he called into the darkness.
His bodyguard answered from the stairs.
“Boss.”
“Seal the house.”
Cassandra spun toward him. “Roman, listen to me.”
“No one leaves.”
The emergency lights flickered on, bathing the cellar in dim red light.
Roman looked toward Marco.
“Every exterior door. Every vehicle. Every tunnel Walter ever showed us. Shut them down.”
Vincent gave a humorless laugh.
“You’re locking a hundred donors inside the house?”
“I’m locking one person inside.”
Roman’s eyes settled on his uncle.
“The rest are inconvenienced.”
Vincent’s smile disappeared.
Rachel barely heard them.
Her mind had stopped on two words.
Her father.
The man her mother had claimed disappeared before Rachel could remember him.
The man whose face had never appeared in a single family photograph.
The man Rachel had spent twenty years pretending she did not care about because caring hurt too much.
She looked at Walter.
“You said my father is dead.”
Walter shook his head weakly.
“I never said that.”
“My mother did.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Walter tried to stand.
His knees buckled.
Rachel caught one arm while Roman caught the other.
Only then did Roman seem to notice exactly how weak Walter was.
“Doctor,” Roman told Marco.
“Already coming.”
“And Cassandra?”
Cassandra stiffened.
Roman looked at her.
“Take Ms. Bell to the blue sitting room.”
“You cannot be serious.”
Roman’s expression never changed.
“I am reconsidering several things tonight. Our wedding is one of them.”
Cassandra stared at him.
Then at Rachel.
For the first time since Rachel had known her, Cassandra Bell looked genuinely afraid.
Not embarrassed.
Not angry.
Afraid.
Vincent stepped forward.
“You’re allowing a maid and an old man with possible confusion to destroy your engagement?”
Roman turned his head.
“My old man with possible confusion was locked in a concrete room for six days.”
Vincent stopped.
Roman continued quietly.
“And my maid knew more about it than my family.”
The word my landed strangely in Rachel’s chest.
Not possessive.
Protective.
Roman looked toward Marco.
“Separate them.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“You don’t give me orders like one of your employees.”
“No.”
Roman met his eyes.
“Employees get warnings.”
Marco moved between them.
Vincent allowed himself to be escorted upstairs.
Walter touched Rachel’s locket again.
“The disc.”
Rachel looked down.
It remained in her palm.
“What does it open?”
“Nothing by itself.”
Roman’s attention shifted back.
“What does that mean?”
Walter swallowed painfully.
“Your father didn’t trust keys.”
“He built a biometric vault.”
“He built two systems.”
Roman frowned.
Walter pointed toward the brass disc.
“That is half of the second.”
Rachel turned it beneath the emergency light.
The DeLuca crest was engraved on one side.
On the other were six tiny grooves she had not noticed.
Roman took out his phone.
No signal.
The internal security network had cut outside communications.
“The vault is in my father’s private study.”
Walter shook his head.
“That’s the vault everyone knows about.”
Roman went still.
“There’s another?”
“There is always another.”
Despite everything, a faint shadow of humor crossed Walter’s tired face.
“Your father was Antonio DeLuca.”
Roman clearly did not find that amusing.
“Where?”
Walter looked toward Rachel.
“Under the chapel.”
Rachel stared at him.
The mansion had a private stone chapel built near the east garden. It had not been used regularly since Roman’s mother died.
Roman asked, “And whoever triggered the alarm?”
“Opened the first vault.”
“Why?”
“To make you believe that’s where the secret was.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“A distraction.”
Walter nodded.
Then his gaze moved toward the ceiling.
“They know we found him.”
Rachel felt cold.
“How?”
Walter looked toward the hidden steel door.
“Because there was a camera.”
Roman turned.
High in the corner, almost invisible against the stone, sat a tiny black lens.
He stared at it.
Then walked directly beneath it.
His voice remained conversational.
“Whoever is watching?”
Rachel had never heard silence sound threatening before.
“You have five minutes to enjoy believing you’re ahead of me.”
He reached up.
Crushed the camera beneath his thumb.
And dropped the pieces onto the floor.
Walter almost smiled.
“That,” he whispered, “was your father.”
Roman looked at him.
“What was?”
“The quiet part.”
A doctor arrived moments later.
As Walter received fluids in one of the downstairs guest suites, Roman emptied the ballroom.
Guests were told there had been a security malfunction.
No one argued.
People rarely argued with Roman DeLuca.
Rachel found her brother, Tyler, in Roman’s library thirty minutes later.
He stood the moment she entered.
“Rachel?”
She crossed the room and wrapped both arms around him.
Tyler stiffened in surprise.
“Okay. What happened?”
Rachel held him tighter.
“Nothing.”
He pulled back.
“You only hug me like that when something terrible happened.”
She laughed once, but tears came instead.
Tyler’s expression changed.
“Rach.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re crying.”
“I know.”
Behind them, Roman quietly closed the door.
Tyler noticed him.
Every nineteen-year-old in Chicago knew Roman DeLuca’s name.
Tyler swallowed.
“Why am I in a mafia boss’s library?”
Roman loosened his cuff.
“Long story.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“Is Rachel?”
Roman glanced at her.
“Not while she’s in my house.”
Rachel looked at him.
Something passed between them.
Something she did not have time to understand.
Roman gave Tyler a protected guest room and two guards.
Then he took Rachel back toward the east wing.
The mansion felt completely different without guests.
Too large.
Too quiet.
Like the walls were listening.
They reached the old chapel shortly after midnight.
Walter insisted on coming despite the doctor’s objections.
He used a cane and leaned heavily on Marco.
Roman pushed open the carved wooden doors.
Dust floated through moonlight.
A stone altar stood beneath a stained-glass window.
Rachel had cleaned the chapel twice.
She had never seen anything unusual.
Walter approached the altar.
“Antonio built this room for your mother.”
Roman’s jaw shifted slightly.
Rachel remembered Roman’s mother had died when he was fifteen.
Walter pressed a carved rose beneath the altar.
A mechanical click sounded.
The altar moved three inches.
Rachel stared.
Behind it was a narrow staircase.
Roman looked at Walter.
“You might have mentioned that.”
“Your father told me not to.”
“He’s been dead eighteen years.”
“He was very persuasive.”
Roman almost smiled.
Almost.
They descended.
At the bottom stood another door.
Older than the steel door beneath the wine cellar.
No keypad.
No scanner.
Only a circular depression in the center.
Exactly the size of Rachel’s brass disc.
She looked at Roman.
He looked at her.
“Your choice,” he said.
Rachel frowned.
“Why mine?”
“It’s your key.”
“But it’s your family vault.”
Roman’s eyes stayed on hers.
“Tonight I’m beginning to suspect those are not separate things.”
Rachel placed the disc into the opening.
Nothing happened.
Walter whispered, “Turn it.”
She did.
A second compartment opened beside it.
Inside was an old-fashioned fingerprint plate.
Roman stared.
“Mine?”
Walter shook his head.
“Rachel’s.”
Her stomach dropped.
“My fingerprint?”
“Your bloodline.”
Rachel stepped away.
“I don’t understand.”
Walter closed his eyes.
“Your father designed the second lock.”
Roman stared at him.
“Who was he?”
Walter opened his mouth.
A gunshot exploded somewhere above them.
Rachel jumped.
Roman immediately pulled her behind him.
Another shot.
Then Marco’s radio cracked.
“Boss!”
Roman grabbed it.
“What?”
“Someone breached the west corridor.”
“How many?”
“We don’t know.”
A burst of static.
Then:
“They’re headed for the chapel.”
Roman looked toward Rachel.
“Open the vault.”
She pressed her thumb to the plate.
The scanner lit green.
The door unlocked.
Walter exhaled.
Rachel stared at him.
“Why did it recognize me?”
Walter’s answer was lost beneath footsteps pounding overhead.
Roman opened the vault.
Inside were no stacks of money.
No jewelry.
No weapons.
Only a desk.
A chair.
And one old video recorder.
On the desk sat an envelope.
Yellowed with age.
Written across the front were four words.
FOR RACHEL MONROE ONLY.
Rachel stopped breathing.
Roman picked it up.
Before he could hand it to her, Walter whispered:
“Rachel… your father wasn’t a Monroe.”
Rachel looked at him.
Walter’s face was full of sorrow.
May you like
“His real name was Gabriel DeLuca.”
And upstairs, someone began pounding on the chapel doors.
