Chapter 2 - The Man Who Knew Too Much
The second beep came three seconds later.
I didn't move.
Neither did anyone else in the ballroom.
Two hundred guests stood beneath the chandeliers, caught between disbelief and the sudden, animal instinct to run. A woman in a silver gown pressed both hands over her mouth. Somewhere near the orchestra, a champagne glass slipped from someone's fingers and shattered against the marble floor.
Marcus kept walking.
He had almost reached the double doors when I spoke.
"Close the exits."
My security chief, Victor Hale, reacted instantly. Two guards moved to the doors while another stepped between Marcus and the nearest hallway.
Marcus stopped and slowly turned.
"Dante, what the hell is this?" he demanded. "You're frightening your guests over a child's imagination?"
"Then you won't mind waiting while we check the box."
His smile returned, but it no longer reached his eyes.
"Of course not. Check whatever you want."
I looked at Victor.
"Nobody touches that package. Clear the area around the table. Quietly. No one runs, and no one uses a phone."
Victor nodded and began directing guests toward the far side of the ballroom. He spoke calmly, as if he were reorganizing a dinner party rather than trying to prevent a catastrophe.
Clara clutched Sophie against her chest.
"Mr. Moretti, I'm so sorry. She shouldn't have interrupted—"
"Stop apologizing."
My voice came out sharper than I intended. Sophie flinched.
I softened it immediately.
"You did the right thing, sweetheart. You may have saved every person in this room."
She stared at me with wide eyes.
"Are you going to be mad at Uncle Marcus?"
I didn't answer.
Because for the first time in twenty years, I didn't know what I was going to do to a man I considered family.
Victor returned with two members of the security team. One had experience with suspicious packages. He studied the black box without touching it, then looked beneath the table.
His expression changed.
"Boss, there's a device attached under here."
The room seemed to lose its air.
"Can you identify it?" I asked.
"Not safely from here. We need the bomb squad."
"Call them. Use the secure line."
Victor stepped away to make the call.
Marcus let out an impatient laugh.
"This is absurd. If someone wanted you dead, Dante, they wouldn't announce it with a birthday present."
"That's exactly why I'm listening to the five-year-old."
His jaw tightened.
I noticed it. So did Victor.
Marcus had been my closest friend since we were nineteen. We'd grown up in the same neighborhood, worked our way into the same dangerous world, and buried people whose names we rarely spoke aloud. When my mother died, Marcus had stood beside me through the funeral and the weeks afterward, sleeping in a chair outside my bedroom because he was afraid I'd do something reckless.
He knew my habits. My weaknesses. My security arrangements.
He knew which doors I used, which guards I trusted, and how to get within arm's reach of me without raising suspicion.
If he'd decided to betray me, he had a hundred opportunities.
Why choose my birthday?
"Marcus," I said, "who gave you the guest list?"
He blinked.
"What?"
"The final guest list. The one with the revised security assignments."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You approved the seating arrangements yesterday."
"Because you asked me to."
"And you knew where the gifts would be placed."
"Everybody knew that."
"No. The staff knew. My security team knew. You knew."
He looked around at the watching guests.
"You're accusing me in front of two hundred people because a child says she saw something?"
"I'm asking a question."
"Then ask it somewhere private."
"Why? Afraid you'll answer differently when no one's listening?"
His face hardened.
For one brief second, I saw the man beneath the tailored suit, the boy who used to steal cigarettes behind a neighborhood church and swear he'd never become the kind of man who sold out his friends.
Then he smiled again.
"You've become paranoid, Dante."
Maybe I had.
Paranoia was what kept men like me alive.
But something else kept me from looking away: Sophie was staring at Marcus with the same expression she'd worn when she warned me about the box.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
I crouched beside her again.
"Sweetheart, I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Start at the beginning."
Clara looked terrified.
"She's five. She may have misunderstood."
"Then we'll find out."
Sophie twisted the hem of her yellow dress.
"I went looking for Mommy because I wanted more cake. I went down the little hallway by the kitchen."
"Which hallway?"
"The one with the pictures of the horses."
I knew it. The service corridor ran behind the east wing and connected the kitchen to the private study.
"And then?"
"Uncle Marcus was in the room with the big desk. He was talking on his phone. The door was open a little."
"What did you hear?"
She swallowed.
"He said, 'When he opens it.' Then he said it again."
"Anything else?"
"He said everybody would think it was an accident."
The words settled over us like dust.
Marcus's expression changed.
It lasted less than a second, but I saw it.
So did Sophie.
"He told the phone that the other way was ready," she whispered. "Then he came out and saw me."
"What did he do?"
"He smiled at me. But it wasn't a happy smile."
Clara's eyes filled with tears.
"Oh, Sophie."
"He told me not to tell anybody what I heard. He said grown-up secrets were like monsters. If I talked about them, they would come find me."
My hands curled into fists.
I had threatened men with less.
But before I could speak, Victor hurried back.
"The bomb squad is on its way. They're asking us to evacuate the building, but they want everyone moved away from the east wing first."
"Do it."
Victor hesitated.
"There's another problem."
"What?"
"The security system just went offline in the west corridor. Someone used an administrator credential to disable the cameras."
I looked at Marcus.
He was no longer smiling.
"Which credential?" I asked.
Victor's answer chilled me more than the device beneath the table.
"Yours, boss."
At that moment, the lights flickered.
A single electronic tone sounded from somewhere beyond the ballroom.
Sophie buried her face in her mother's shoulder.
And Marcus whispered, almost too quietly for anyone else to hear, "You were supposed to open the box."
I stepped toward him.
"What did you say?"
May you like
He looked me directly in the eyes.
Then the mansion went dark.
