Chapter 11 - THE NAME UNDER THE FLOOR
Three months after Victor Kane disappeared, Adrian Moretti stopped believing in quiet nights.
The Moretti estate had survived gunfire, betrayals, police raids, and one very public attempt to assassinate Adrian at his own charity gala.
But none of those things had changed the house as much as Claire Bennett and her daughter had.
Lily now had a small bedroom in the east wing.
Her stuffed rabbit sat permanently on Adrian’s leather sofa.
Claire no longer wore the gray housekeeping uniform.
Adrian had insisted on promoting her to estate manager, although everyone in the household knew the title was partly an excuse to keep her close.
He had also stopped sleeping in his own bedroom.
Not because he was afraid.
Because Lily had discovered that Adrian’s library contained the largest fireplace in the house and had decided that Tuesdays were “movie nights.”
Adrian had learned more about animated princesses in three months than he had learned about international organized crime in twenty years.
And somehow, he preferred the princesses.
Claire stood in the doorway that evening watching him struggle with a broken toy.
“You're holding it upside down.”
Adrian frowned.
“I know.”
“You've been holding it upside down for ten minutes.”
“I was testing whether you would correct me.”
Claire smiled.
“You're impossible.”
“So I've been told.”
Their eyes met.
For one quiet second, neither looked away.
The relationship between them had changed slowly.
Neither had named it.
There had been no dramatic confession.
No rushed kiss.
Just small things.
Adrian leaving coffee outside Claire's door when she worked late.
Claire remembering exactly how he liked his shirts folded.
Adrian carrying Lily upstairs when she fell asleep against his shoulder.
Claire touching his hand whenever she noticed the old scar beneath his collar.
They were building something neither of them trusted enough to call love.
Not yet.
Then Lily came running into the library.
“Mr. Adrian!”
Adrian immediately stood.
“What happened?”
“I found something.”
Claire followed her.
Lily held a small brass key.
“Where did you get that?”
“Under my bed.”
Claire's face changed.
“That wasn't there before.”
Adrian took the key.
A tiny number had been engraved into the metal.
17.
He looked at Claire.
“Do you know what it opens?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Adrian called Daniel.
“Search every room for a lock marked seventeen.”
Twenty minutes later, they found it.
Not in the house.
Beneath the old greenhouse.
The estate had been built in 1912, and the greenhouse had been abandoned for decades. Adrian rarely went there.
The key opened a narrow iron panel beneath the stone floor.
Inside was a metal box.
Claire's breathing stopped.
Adrian opened it.
There were photographs.
Dozens.
Some showed Claire as a teenager.
Some showed Lily's father.
And some showed Adrian.
But the oldest photograph made Claire step backward.
It showed a young woman standing beside Adrian's father.
The woman was holding a baby.
Claire stared.
“That’s my mother.”
Adrian looked at the photograph.
The woman beside his father was Margaret Bennett.
Claire's mother.
“She knew my father?”
“Apparently.”
Beneath the photograph was a handwritten note.
The child must never know what happened at Blackridge.
Claire's hands began shaking.
“Blackridge?”
Adrian's face hardened.
Blackridge was the name of an abandoned Moretti property.
A place Adrian had been forbidden to visit as a child.
He had always been told his father used it for business.
But his father had died before Adrian could ask questions.
Daniel entered the greenhouse.
“Boss.”
Adrian looked up.
“What?”
“We found something else.”
Daniel placed an old file on the table.
The cover carried a date.
Twenty-six years earlier.
Adrian opened it.
His eyes moved across the first page.
Then stopped.
The file contained a photograph of Adrian at fourteen.
Beside him stood a teenage girl.
Claire.
She was younger, thinner, smiling nervously.
Adrian stared at her.
“I've seen this picture before.”
Claire looked confused.
“When?”
Adrian's voice became quiet.
“I don't remember.”
Daniel looked between them.
“That’s the problem.”
Adrian turned the page.
A medical report.
A disappearance report.
And one sentence circled in red.
Memory suppression following traumatic incident.
Claire's face went pale.
“What incident?”
Nobody answered.
Then the greenhouse lights went out.
A gunshot cracked through the darkness.
The window shattered.
Adrian grabbed Claire and pulled her behind the stone wall.
Daniel drew his weapon.
Lily screamed.
Adrian immediately covered the child's ears.
Outside, tires screamed against gravel.
A black SUV disappeared through the trees.
Daniel ran toward the window.
“Whoever fired that shot wanted us to find the file.”
Adrian looked down at the photograph of himself and Claire.
For the first time, the past wasn't simply returning.
May you like
It was hunting them.
And somewhere in that past was a secret powerful enough to make someone willing to kill again.
