Chapter 2 - THE DOOR THAT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO OPEN
For three seconds, nobody in the dining room moved.
Twenty wealthy guests sat frozen beneath the chandeliers. Silverware hovered above expensive plates. A string quartet near the windows had stopped playing, its musicians exchanging frightened glances.
Sebastian Romano had built his reputation on never allowing anyone to see him lose control.
Now, he was staring at his fiancée as though the woman beside him had become a complete stranger.
"Tell me he's confused," Sebastian said quietly.
Vanessa wiped her eyes.
"Of course he is. You've seen what the stroke did to him."
"Then you won't mind showing me the basement."
Her expression tightened.
"Sebastian, don't make a scene."
"You made the scene when you shoved my father away from his own dinner."
He turned toward his security chief, Dominic Reyes.
"Lock the exits. Nobody leaves until I understand what's happening."
A nervous murmur spread through the dining room.
Vanessa immediately seized his arm.
"You cannot detain my guests because an old man is having an episode!"
Sebastian looked down at her hand.
"Take it off."
She obeyed.
He had never spoken to her that way before.
Clara remained beside Antonio, holding his trembling hand while a housekeeper retrieved his fallen napkin. The old man looked exhausted, but his eyes followed Sebastian with desperate intensity.
"Sir," Clara whispered, "I think your father wants us to go now."
Sebastian turned to her.
"Why?"
Antonio tapped the wheelchair armrest twice, paused, then tapped three more times.
Clara watched carefully.
"He's frightened."
"Of what?"
She looked toward Vanessa.
"Of someone hearing us."
Vanessa laughed sharply.
"This is absurd. She's a maid, Sebastian. She has been in this house three weeks. You are seriously going to trust her over me?"
"No," Sebastian answered. "I'm going to investigate what she's telling me."
He motioned for Dominic.
Within minutes, Sebastian, Clara, Antonio, and four guards stood before the heavy oak door at the end of the mansion's eastern basement corridor.
The door was old enough to predate the mansion's newest security system. Its brass handle had darkened with age, and three fresh scratches marred the lock.
Sebastian crouched to examine them.
Someone had opened the door recently.
"Who has the keys?" he asked.
Dominic checked the ring at his belt.
"Your master key opens the main basement. This section has a separate lock."
Sebastian remembered the night his father sealed the eastern corridor.
He had been eighteen. Michael was twenty-two.
Their uncle, Daniel Romano, had disappeared after an argument over the family's shipping empire. Their father had returned from the basement alone, ordered the corridor closed, and threatened to disown anyone who questioned him.
Six months later, Daniel was declared dead.
No body had ever been found.
Sebastian had assumed his father knew more than he admitted.
He had never imagined that the answer might still be behind this door.
"Break it," he ordered.
Dominic's men worked on the lock.
Vanessa appeared at the top of the stairs, breathless.
"You cannot do this!"
Sebastian didn't turn.
"Go upstairs."
"Michael will hear about this."
That made Sebastian look at her.
"Why are you bringing up Michael?"
Vanessa said nothing.
The lock finally snapped.
The door swung inward.
A stale smell of damp concrete and disinfectant drifted into the corridor. Beyond it lay a narrow passage lined with old electrical panels and discarded furniture.
At the far end, a single fluorescent light flickered.
Clara felt Antonio's hand tighten around hers.
Then they heard it.
Three faint knocks.
Everyone froze.
The sound came from behind a steel door marked with a faded number.
17.
Sebastian approached slowly.
"Who's in there?"
Silence.
He tried the handle.
Locked.
Dominic stepped forward with a crowbar, but Sebastian raised a hand.
"Wait."
He leaned toward the door.
"Daniel?"
Antonio began to cry.
From inside came another sound.
A weak, unmistakably human voice.
"Sebastian?"
His blood turned cold.
He knew that voice.
He had heard it in childhood, across summer dinners and Christmas mornings, in the days before the family fractured.
It belonged to his uncle.
Daniel Romano was supposed to have been dead for twenty years.
Dominic forced the lock.
The door opened.
A thin man sat on a narrow bed beneath a bare bulb. His hair had turned almost completely white. His face was hollow, his cheeks sunken, and one hand trembled as he gripped the edge of the mattress.
But his eyes were unmistakable.
Sebastian stumbled backward.
"Uncle Daniel?"
The man stared at him, tears streaming down his face.
"You look like your mother."
Sebastian couldn't speak.
Behind him, Vanessa whispered something that sounded like a prayer.
Clara moved closer to the doorway, trying to understand what she was seeing.
Daniel looked at Antonio.
"Brother," he rasped. "You finally sent someone."
Antonio reached toward him with both hands.
For the first time since the stroke, the old man's expression changed from terror to relief.
Then Daniel grabbed Sebastian's wrist.
"Listen to me. You have to get your father out of this house."
"Why?"
"Because Michael isn't working alone."
Sebastian's jaw tightened.
"Who else?"
Daniel glanced toward Vanessa.
She was standing perfectly still.
Then his eyes returned to Sebastian.
"Your fiancée."
Vanessa bolted for the stairs.
Dominic caught her before she reached the landing.
But Daniel wasn't finished.
He leaned forward, struggling for breath.
"There's something else. They didn't keep me alive because of the inheritance."
Sebastian crouched in front of him.
"Then why?"
Daniel stared directly into his eyes.
"Because twenty years ago, I found out who really ordered your mother's car to be driven off that bridge."
Sebastian stopped breathing.
His mother had died when he was twelve.
His father had always blamed a rival crime family.
Daniel's fingers closed around his wrist.
"Your father didn't cause her death, Sebastian."
He swallowed painfully.
May you like
"Your father helped cover it up."
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