Chapter 5 - Beneath the Restaurant
Clara had worked above a prison for 3 years.
The realization sickened her.
The Velvet Oak reopened at noon as if nothing had happened.
No bodies.
No police tape.
No evidence Declan Gallagher had died there hours earlier.
Power erased messes quickly in Manhattan.
Dominic entered through the front.
Clara entered through the kitchen.
Gabriel went underground through a utility tunnel.
Elena remained in a secure vehicle.
The plan depended on Janus believing they were divided.
It almost worked.
Clara found the hidden elevator behind the wine cellar.
There was no button.
Only a keyhole.
The Grand Central key fit.
The elevator descended.
Twenty feet.
Forty.
Sixty.
The doors opened.
Clara expected concrete.
Instead, she found an office.
Beautiful.
Quiet.
Walls of books.
Computer screens.
Seven leather chairs around a circular table.
Janus.
One chair was occupied.
A man slowly turned around.
Clara recognized him immediately.
Dr. Nathaniel Kessler.
Ben’s oncologist.
“Hello, Clara.”
Her blood became ice.
“You treated my brother.”
“I monitored him.”
“You gave him leukemia?”
Kessler almost looked offended.
“No. Benjamin genuinely developed leukemia. Tragic coincidence. But his diagnosis gave us access to him.”
Clara wanted to kill him anyway.
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“My mother?”
“Also safe.”
Kessler gestured toward the chairs.
“You’ve caused considerable trouble.”
“You poisoned Dominic.”
“We introduced poison into a glass. You decided where it went.”
The words struck harder than Clara expected.
Gallagher.
His convulsions.
His body.
Kessler saw the guilt.
“Interesting, isn’t it? One tiny choice.”
Clara forced herself to remain calm.
“You wanted to see what I’d do.”
“We needed Thomas Jennings’s daughter frightened enough to act instinctively.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas told us the cipher could only be reconstructed through your pattern recognition.”
Kessler placed a laptop on the table.
Numbers filled the screen.
“Decode this.”
“No.”
He showed her Ben.
A live camera.
“Decode it.”
Clara sat.
Her father’s childhood games suddenly returned.
Prime numbers.
Musical intervals.
Street addresses.
She recognized patterns.
But she deliberately entered the wrong sequence.
Kessler smiled.
“Your father did the same thing.”
Clara stopped.
“You knew him?”
“I killed him.”
Every muscle in her body tightened.
Kessler leaned closer.
“Your father was stubborn.”
Clara wanted to lunge across the table.
Instead she asked, “And my mother?”
“Anne was more practical.”
A door opened.
Anne Jennings entered.
Not restrained.
Not frightened.
Clara stood.
“Mom?”
Anne looked at her daughter.
“Clara.”
Then she walked to Kessler’s side.
Clara felt something inside her break.
“No.”
“I can explain.”
“You’re with them.”
“I kept you alive.”
“You let me bury you.”
Anne’s eyes filled with tears.
“It was necessary.”
“For 12 years?”
“Janus would have killed you.”
“You’re Janus!”
“No.”
Kessler smiled.
“Technically, she’s an associate.”
Clara stared at her mother.
Anne whispered, “Your father wanted to expose them. I wanted to save my children.”
“So you betrayed him?”
Silence answered.
Clara’s stomach twisted.
“You told them where Dad was.”
“I didn’t know they would kill him.”
“You gave him to them.”
“I was trying to save you!”
Clara backed away.
All those Christmases at an empty grave.
All those nights Ben cried for their mother.
A hidden door exploded inward.
Dominic entered through smoke.
Gunfire erupted.
Kessler ran.
Anne dragged Clara down.
Dominic fired twice.
Gabriel appeared from the opposite corridor.
Within seconds, the room was secured.
Kessler escaped through another tunnel.
Ben was found 2 rooms away.
Clara ran to him.
They collided.
For several seconds, she could not speak.
Ben held her.
“You came.”
“Always.”
Anne stood in the doorway.
Ben saw her.
His face emptied.
“Mom?”
Anne began crying.
Ben did not embrace her.
That hurt her more than anger could have.
Dominic searched the computers.
“Clara.”
She approached.
He showed her financial transfers.
Billions.
Judges.
Police commissioners.
Corporations.
And one name repeated across decades.
ROSSI, D.
Clara looked at Dominic.
“That isn’t me.”
“The dates begin before you were born.”
Gabriel understood.
“Another D. Rossi.”
Elena’s voice came through the radio.
“There was one.”
Dominic froze.
“My grandfather.”
“Domenico Rossi.”
Dominic stared at the records.
Domenico had founded the Rossi organization.
Officially, he died in 1996.
Elena whispered:
“But there was never a body.”
Clara almost laughed from exhaustion.
“Does anyone in either of our families actually stay dead?”
Then Ben spoke.
“Clara.”
He held something.
A flash drive.
“I stole it from the guy guarding me.”
Dominic inserted it.
One video file.
They played it.
An elderly man appeared.
Thin.
White-haired.
Very much alive.
Dominic stared at the screen.
His grandfather.
Domenico Rossi.
“Dominic,” the recording began, “if you are watching this, your father’s rebellion has finally reached its end.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“I built Janus before your father was old enough to understand power.”
Elena sank into a chair.
The recording continued.
“Vittorio tried to destroy my work. Thomas Jennings helped him. Both paid the price.”
Clara took Dominic’s hand without realizing it.
He looked down.
Neither pulled away.
Domenico smiled from the screen.
“Now bring Clara Jennings to me.”
The camera widened.
Kessler stood beside him.
So did 5 other people.
One chair remained empty.
Seven chairs.
Six people.
The missing seventh member.
Then someone entered the frame.
Clara recognized him.
So did Dominic.
Gabriel whispered:
“No.”
The seventh chair belonged to the last person anyone had suspected.
New York’s celebrated anti-organized-crime U.S. Attorney.
Michael Jennings.
Clara’s uncle.
Her father’s younger brother.
The man who had supposedly died 7 years ago.
Michael looked into the camera.
May you like
And smiled.
“Hello, Clara.”
