Chapter 4 - THE CHOICE THAT WAS DESIGNED TO BREAK HIM
Victor raised his pistol and fired into the projector.
The image vanished in a shower of sparks.
“You just destroyed the feed,” Lily said.
“No.”
“I destroyed their view of our faces.”
He crossed to the projector cable and followed it into the wall.
A small camera was hidden behind the lens.
Victor pulled it free.
“They wanted to watch me choose.”
“They wanted to see whether you saved Serena or Ethan.”
Victor looked at the blue sock in his hand.
“The mansion address is a trap.”
Lily studied the wheel marks.
“Maybe.”
“They took Ethan from the clinic and brought his sock here.”
“Then they gave us two locations tied to you.”
“Why bring me?”
Victor looked at her key.
“Because one key is real and one is not.”
Lily held the brass key beside the image frozen in her memory.
“The blood on Serena’s key was fresh.”
“It could be theater.”
“Everything is theater to Serena.”
Victor checked the time.
“Sixteen minutes.”
He called his driver.
“Send one team to the river warehouse.”
“Send no one to the mansion.”
Lily frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I told no one the second address.”
“You are going there yourself.”
“We are.”
They ran back toward the ambulance.
As they crossed the chapel, Lily saw something beneath a broken pew.
A child’s plastic bracelet.
Ethan’s clinic identification band.
She picked it up.
The printed name had been scratched away.
On the inside, someone had written a single letter in red ink.
E.
Lily’s heart pounded.
“Elena used to mark her emergency plans with E.”
Victor stopped.
“What emergency plans?”
“She created routes, passwords, and meeting points after she learned someone was following her.”
“You knew that and never told me?”
“She made me promise not to tell you until I had proof.”
“Why would my wife hide a threat from me?”
“Because she thought the threat was inside your organization.”
Victor’s face became unreadable again.
They reached the ambulance.
The driver handed Victor a radio.
“The river team is in position.”
“Wait for my order.”
The ambulance sped north toward the Blackwood mansion.
Victor watched the clock on the dashboard.
Ten minutes remained.
Lily gripped the bracelet.
“What if they expected you to distrust the mansion address?”
“They expected me to send men to both.”
“Then why are we doing exactly what they would not expect?”
“Because the mansion has one place Elena could hide something from my security system.”
Lily looked at him.
“The old wine cellar.”
Victor nodded.
“It predates every camera, every alarm, and every renovation Dante supervised.”
The ambulance entered the estate through a maintenance gate.
The main house was dark.
No guards stood at the entrance.
Victor’s expression tightened.
“There should be twelve men outside.”
They found the first guard unconscious near the service door.
The second lay beside the kitchen with a needle mark in his neck.
“They used sedatives,” Lily said.
“They wanted the house quiet.”
Victor picked up the guard’s radio.
Only static answered.
They moved through the pantry and descended toward the wine cellar.
A faint lullaby floated from below.
Lily recognized it immediately.
Elena used to sing it to Ethan.
Victor heard the melody and stopped breathing for a moment.
“She recorded that the week he was born,” he said.
The cellar door stood open.
Inside, hundreds of bottles lined stone walls.
At the far end, a white crib sat between two wine racks.
A figure leaned over it.
Victor raised his weapon.
“Step away from my son.”
The figure turned.
It was Rosa.
Her blouse was torn.
Blood covered one side of her face.
She held Ethan against her chest.
“Do not shoot,” she begged.
Lily rushed forward.
Ethan was alive.
He whimpered when he saw her.
His free hand reached toward her.
Lily took him carefully, supporting the injured arm.
Victor checked his breathing.
Relief crossed his face so quickly that it almost looked like pain.
“Where is Sofia?” Lily asked Rosa.
Rosa began to cry.
“They never had her.”
“What?”
“The recording was old.”
“They made me believe she was screaming.”
“Who made you?”
Rosa looked at Victor.
“I never saw his face.”
“He wore a hood.”
“He forced me to sign the statement at the clinic.”
“Then he brought me here with Ethan.”
Victor looked around the cellar.
“Why leave you alive?”
Rosa’s eyes dropped.
Lily saw shame before she heard the answer.
“Because I was supposed to kill him.”
Victor’s hand moved toward his gun.
Rosa backed against the wall.
“They gave me a syringe.”
“They said it would stop his heart without leaving a mark.”
“I could not do it.”
“Where is the syringe?”
Rosa pointed beneath the crib.
Victor picked it up with a handkerchief.
A clear liquid filled the barrel.
Lily looked at the cellar door.
“This is not finished.”
The lullaby stopped.
A metallic click sounded behind the wall.
Victor pushed Lily and Ethan down as a hidden panel opened.
Gunfire tore through the wine racks.
Bottles exploded.
Red wine sprayed across the stone like blood.
Victor fired toward the panel.
Rosa screamed.
Lily shielded Ethan with her body and crawled behind a thick support column.
Two masked men entered through the secret passage.
Victor shot the first in the shoulder.
The second threw a smoke canister.
Gray vapor filled the cellar.
Lily could no longer see Victor.
Ethan began to cough.
She pressed his face against her chest and moved toward the stairs.
A hand seized her ankle.
She kicked wildly.
The masked man dragged her backward.
Lily held Ethan with one arm and grabbed a broken wine bottle with the other.
She slashed behind her.
The glass cut across the man’s forearm.
He released her.
Victor emerged through the smoke and struck him with the pistol.
The man collapsed.
“Upstairs,” Victor ordered.
Lily carried Ethan toward the stairs.
Rosa followed.
Then the cellar door slammed shut above them.
A lock engaged.
Victor tried the handle.
“Move back.”
He fired into the lock.
The heavy door did not open.
The smoke thickened.
Rosa began to choke.
Lily searched the walls.
“The secret passage.”
Victor turned toward the hidden panel.
The wounded attacker was crawling toward it.
Victor grabbed his jacket.
“Where does it lead?”
The man spat blood.
“To hell.”
Victor pressed the barrel against his knee.
“Try again.”
The man smiled.
“You already sent your men to the wrong building.”
Victor’s radio crackled.
Gunfire sounded through the speaker.
The river team leader shouted.
“We found Miss Montigue.”
“She is alive.”
“There are explosives.”
Victor grabbed the radio.
“Get out.”
The response dissolved into a blast.
The cellar floor shook.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
The wounded attacker laughed.
Victor struck him unconscious.
Lily found a narrow gap behind the open panel.
Cold air moved through it.
“This way.”
They entered the passage one at a time.
Victor carried Rosa.
Lily carried Ethan.
The tunnel sloped beneath the mansion and ended at an iron door.
Lily inserted Elena’s brass key.
It fit.
The lock turned.
Beyond the door was a small underground room no one had entered in years.
Photographs covered the walls.
Serena appeared in many of them.
So did Dante Russo.
So did Lucien Montigue.
At the center hung a photograph of Victor beside Elena on their wedding day.
A red circle had been drawn around Victor’s face.
Beneath it, Elena had written four words.
HE DOES NOT KNOW.
Victor stared at the message from his dead wife.
Then a monitor on the desk flickered to life.
Dante Russo appeared on the screen.
He was sitting in Victor’s office upstairs.
“Good morning, boss,” Dante said.
May you like
“You finally found the room Elena built to expose you.”
THE NANNY'S TESTIMONY
