Chapter 7 - THE SECRET INSIDE THE CELLOThe cello had been stolen by a man who was supposed to be dead.
For nearly a decade, Cassian had searched for Dr. Adrian Mercer through private investigators, hospital administrators, and international medical registries.
Every lead had ended in silence.
Now the missing surgeon had walked into Cassian's supposedly impenetrable penthouse, taken Lydia's instrument, and left a message.
Cassian stared at his phone.
“Check every camera.”
“The surveillance system was wiped,” the security officer replied.
“Then check the street cameras.”
“Already working on it.”
“Find him.”
Cassian ended the call.
Lydia stood beside Evelyn, her expression pale but determined.
“Mercer was my doctor?”
“Yes,” Evelyn answered.
“And he's the one who believed I might recover some of my sight?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would he steal my cello?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“Because he knows what your father hid.”
Cassian turned toward her.
“How?”
“Adrian helped Daniel conceal it.”
The room went quiet.
Lydia frowned.
“You told me a specialist modified the case.”
“He did. Adrian arranged it.”
Cassian studied Evelyn.
“Why didn't you tell us that earlier?”
“Because I didn't know he was alive.”
“You're leaving out something.”
Evelyn looked exhausted.
“I've spent ten years being moved between locked rooms, Cassian. I don't know what happened to everyone.”
Lydia listened to the tremor in her mother's voice.
She wanted to believe her.
But the past twenty-four hours had taught her that love and truth were not always the same thing.
“Mom,” she said, “did you really refuse my treatment?”
Evelyn's face crumpled.
“No.”
“Your signature is on the paperwork.”
“I know.”
“Then explain.”
Evelyn took both of Lydia's hands.
“They told me you had died from complications after surgery. They showed me a death certificate. They made me believe I'd lost you.”
Lydia went completely still.
“You thought I was dead?”
“For almost two years.”
Cassian looked sharply at Evelyn.
“Who told you?”
“Alessandro's people.”
“Who specifically?”
Evelyn hesitated.
Then whispered, “Gabriel Torres.”
Cassian felt his stomach tighten.
Gabriel had served as head of security for nearly eight years.
Before that, he had worked under Cassian's father.
He had access to medical records, private facilities, financial accounts, and the family's most sensitive operations.
He had also been the man who supposedly helped Cassian investigate Evelyn's death.
Cassian finally understood.
Gabriel had not been protecting the family's secrets.
He had been controlling which secrets Cassian discovered.
By dawn, Cassian had moved everyone to a secluded property in Westchester County.
The estate had once belonged to his grandmother.
Unlike his Manhattan residence, it was not connected to the Moretti organization's central security network.
Only four people knew they were there.
Cassian.
Lydia.
Evelyn.
And Rosa.
Samuel remained outside with two trusted guards who had no ties to Gabriel.
Lydia sat beside a grand piano in the music room.
She had not slept.
Her cello was gone.
Her mother was alive.
And the man she had feared most was now the only person standing between her and a network of killers.
Cassian entered quietly.
“I brought breakfast.”
“I'm not hungry.”
“You need to eat.”
“Please don't start telling me what I need.”
He set the tray on a nearby table.
“Fair enough.”
Lydia turned toward his voice.
“Why did you keep watching me?”
Cassian stopped.
She had asked the question he had spent ten years avoiding.
“After the accident, I arranged for your rehabilitation expenses. Then your music education. Later, your apartment security.”
“I know about the anonymous scholarship.”
He looked surprised.
“You do?”
“I figured out years ago that someone was paying part of my tuition.”
“Why didn't you investigate?”
“I did. The payments went through a foundation with no public donor information.”
Cassian said nothing.
“I thought it was someone who knew my parents.”
“It was.”
“Did you ever come to my performances?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“More than I can count.”
Lydia's expression changed.
“You sat in the audience?”
“Usually near the back.”
“And you never introduced yourself?”
“I didn't think I deserved to.”
She lowered her head.
“You should have let me decide that.”
Cassian nodded.
“You're right.”
The admission surprised her.
For a long moment, they listened to the faint ticking of the grandfather clock.
Then Lydia asked, “Why did you say 'mine'?”
Cassian's expression tightened.
He had replayed that moment a hundred times.
“I was terrified,” he admitted.
“Of me?”
“Of losing you.”
“You don't own me, Cassian.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He moved closer but stopped several feet away.
“I've spent my life believing that protecting someone meant controlling everything around them. Where they went. Who they met. What they knew.”
“And?”
“And I was wrong.”
Lydia swallowed.
“I'm not a debt you can repay.”
“No.”
“I'm not a ghost from your past.”
“No.”
“Then what am I?”
Cassian's voice became barely audible.
“The person who makes me want to become someone better.”
Lydia turned away.
She wanted to hate him.
Part of her still did.
But another part remembered the man who had retrieved her cane from the marble floor while six armed guards waited for permission to kill.
She had felt the change in his hands.
The fear.
The recognition.
The desperate relief.
And she was beginning to understand that Cassian Moretti's greatest weakness was not his enemies.
It was his guilt.
Before either could speak again, Cassian's phone vibrated.
A video file appeared from an unknown number.
He opened it.
Dr. Adrian Mercer sat in a dimly lit room.
His hair had gone gray, and a deep scar crossed his forehead.
Behind him, Lydia's cello rested on a table.
“Cassian,” Mercer began, “if you're watching this, Gabriel has already betrayed you.”
Cassian leaned forward.
Mercer continued.
“Daniel Hayes was smarter than all of us. He knew the archive would eventually be discovered if it existed in only one place.”
He held up a small black storage device.
“This is the financial record. Names, payments, dates, and evidence linking powerful men to crimes they believed were buried forever.”
Cassian stared at the screen.
“But Daniel created a second record,” Mercer said. “A record no one knew about except him and me.”
Lydia moved closer.
“What is he saying?”
Cassian repeated Mercer's words.
The doctor continued.
“The second record identifies the person who originally authorized the operation that destroyed the Hayes family.”
Cassian frowned.
“Alessandro.”
Mercer shook his head on the recording.
“No, Cassian. Your father approved it. But someone else initiated it.”
He leaned toward the camera.
“Someone who had been controlling both the Moretti and Romano families for decades.”
A sharp noise sounded behind him.
Mercer turned.
The video shook.
A man's voice shouted, “Doctor, move!”
Then came gunfire.
The camera fell sideways.
Mercer collapsed out of frame.
A pair of polished black shoes entered the image.
A familiar voice spoke.
“End the recording.”
Cassian recognized it instantly.
Gabriel.
The screen went black.
Seconds later, a text message appeared.
Bring Lydia to the opera warehouse tonight, or Mercer dies.
Lydia stood beside Cassian.
“What happened?”
He closed his eyes.
“They have your doctor.”
“Then we go.”
“It's a trap.”
“I know.”
“Lydia—”
She reached for his hand.
For the first time, she did not pull away.
“My father died trying to expose these people. My mother lost ten years of her life. I lost my sight.”
Her voice steadied.
“I'm not spending another ten years hiding.”
Cassian looked at their joined hands.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
But as he began planning their next move, Evelyn stood silently in the hallway.
In her hand was a second phone.
On its screen, a message waited.
Has she agreed to come?
May you like
Evelyn typed three words.
Yes. She has.
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