Chapter 2 - The Eleven Missing Minutes
Adrien’s uncle was named Vittorio Moretti.
Even before that night, I knew the name.
Everybody in the city did.
Not because newspapers printed it often.
They didn’t.
People like Vittorio survived by keeping their names away from paper.
But restaurants changed reservation lists when he called.
Union representatives suddenly stopped returning phone calls.
Construction permits appeared after months of delays.
And once, while working as a paramedic, I had treated a man who had been shot twice outside a nightclub.
He refused pain medication.
Refused police.
Refused even to tell me his name.
But when my partner asked who had done it, the injured man whispered only one sentence.
“Tell Vittorio I kept my mouth shut.”
That was enough.
Now the same man was downstairs.
Sitting in Adrien’s chair.
Adrien zip-tied the intruder’s wrists with cords from the curtains and locked him in the bathroom.
“You have zip ties in a bedroom?” I asked.
“I have relatives.”
Fair answer.
He retrieved the fallen pistol and checked the magazine.
“Fourteen rounds.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I prefer twenty.”
“You have unusual standards.”
“So I’m told.”
The chemical smell remained faint but present.
“We have to leave this room.”
“I know.”
Adrien opened a narrow panel behind the wardrobe.
A dark passage appeared.
I stared.
“Seriously?”
“House was built in 1891.”
“That doesn’t answer why you have secret passages.”
“My grandfather was paranoid.”
“And you’re not?”
Adrien glanced toward the bound gunman.
“I’m beginning to think not enough.”
We entered.
The panel closed behind us.
The passage was barely shoulder-wide, lit by small emergency bulbs near the floor.
Adrien moved slowly.
Sedation still affected him.
I noticed his balance shift twice.
“You’re not fine.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“Good. Because I’d hate to discover mafia bosses are medically delusional too.”
He looked back.
“You keep calling me a mafia boss.”
“What should I call you?”
“Adrien.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
He continued walking.
I followed.
The passage opened behind a paneled wall in an upstairs library.
Empty.
Adrien checked the hallway.
Two guards stood at the far end.
They wore Moretti security pins.
But when Adrien appeared, both raised their weapons.
That told us everything.
Adrien dragged me back behind the wall before they fired.
Bullets punched through wood.
“Your employees seem unhappy,” I said.
“Those aren’t mine anymore.”
He fired twice around the corner.
One guard dropped his weapon and ducked.
The other retreated.
We moved.
Fast.
Down a service staircase.
Through a pantry.
Into the kitchen.
Empty trays remained from the evening’s dinner.
A broken wineglass lay near the island.
Adrien stopped.
“What?”
“The dinner ended at eleven.”
I checked the wall clock.
4:41 a.m.
We had been unconscious for hours.
He pulled out his phone.
Gone.
Mine too.
“Security office,” he said.
“Wouldn’t that be occupied?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.”
He almost smiled again.
We crossed through the laundry wing and reached a steel door.
Adrien entered a code.
Red light.
Denied.
He tried another.
Denied.
“Someone changed your passwords.”
“I gathered that.”
I looked at the wall.
“Emergency access?”
He pointed to a fire-alarm panel.
I opened it.
Inside were suppression controls and a manual release.
“You used to do this legally?” he asked.
“Mostly.”
I pulled the release.
The security door unlocked automatically under fire code.
Adrien stared at me.
“Remind me never to imprison you.”
“I’ll put it on your calendar.”
Inside, the security room looked as though someone had abandoned it mid-shift.
Three monitors remained active.
Coffee steamed in a cup.
A chair lay overturned.
One wall displayed camera feeds.
Most showed empty corridors.
Several were frozen.
Adrien moved to the console.
“Can you access logs?” I asked.
“Yes.”
He entered a local administrator code.
This one worked.
The screen filled with entries.
11:03 p.m. — ballroom camera.
11:08 — east corridor.
11:12 — study.
Then nothing.
The next event was 11:24.
I leaned closer.
“Where’s eleven thirteen to eleven twenty-three?”
“Missing.”
“Exactly eleven minutes?”
“Eleven minutes and forty-two seconds.”
He clicked the archive.
Error.
FILE NOT FOUND.
“That’s our window,” I said.
“The study feed?”
“Gone.”
He opened access-control logs.
Someone had entered his study at 11:12 using my temporary catering badge.
My name appeared beside it.
MARA ELLISON.
My stomach went cold.
“I never scanned that door.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“You were already inside. Staff entered through the adjoining dining room during service.”
Another line appeared.
11:15 p.m. — master bedroom.
MARA ELLISON.
11:16 — master bedroom.
ADRIEN MORETTI.
It looked as though I had drugged him, brought him upstairs, and entered his room willingly.
Impossible.
But neat.
Very neat.
“They cloned my badge,” I said.
“Or someone used it after you collapsed.”
“What does your access system record besides badge number?”
“Camera verification.”
“Which is missing.”
“Yes.”
Adrien leaned back.
“This wasn’t planned tonight.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Too many layers. Sedative. Camera in your study. Camera upstairs. Ventilation tampering. Badge manipulation. Missing logs.”
He looked at me differently.
Not like staff anymore.
“Keep going.”
“Somebody expected you to notice the camera in the study.”
His brow furrowed.
“That was deliberate?”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“To make you stand up.”
Silence.
“You reached underneath the desk.”
“For the alarm.”
“Which gave the sedative enough time to hit.”
Adrien’s eyes narrowed.
“They knew my reaction.”
“Yes.”
That realization disturbed him more than the gunman.
This wasn’t an outside enemy.
It was someone who knew him.
His habits.
His study.
His security system.
Maybe even how quickly he noticed things.
I removed the memory card from my waistband.
Adrien stared.
“You took it?”
“From the bedroom camera.”
He inserted it into the console.
Four video files appeared.
Three were short.
One lasted thirty-eight minutes.
We opened the earliest.
Black screen.
Then motion.
A figure entered the bedroom wearing gloves and a hood.
Average height.
Male.
He checked the bed.
Adjusted the tripod.
Then stepped close to the camera.
For one frame, his sleeve lifted.
A watch appeared.
Silver case.
Dark leather band.
Distinctive blue face.
Adrien froze the image.
“You know it?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“Adrien.”
“My uncle owns one like that.”
“Vittorio?”
“Yes.”
“But he could know someone else with the same model.”
“Only twelve were made.”
That was inconveniently specific.
The next file showed two men carrying Adrien into the bedroom.
Another pair followed carrying me.
My head hung limp.
They placed us on the mattress.
One man opened Adrien’s shirt.
The other removed my shoes.
Then the gloved figure arranged my hairpins.
I watched my unconscious body on the screen and felt an anger so cold it steadied me.
He touched my hair.
My clothes.
My face.
Not sexually.
Worse in some ways.
Clinically.
As though I were an object in his composition.
The man then positioned Adrien’s hand on my hip.
He stepped back.
Studied us.
Adjusted Adrien’s wrist by two inches.
Then left.
“The camera proves we were staged,” I said.
“If we still have it.”
I pulled the memory card out.
“Then we keep it.”
Adrien nodded.
Suddenly a new window opened on the computer.
REMOTE CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.
Someone was inside the system.
Files began disappearing.
“They know we’re here.”
Adrien tried to disconnect the network.
Too late.
Security logs vanished line by line.
Camera archives erased themselves.
But one folder resisted deletion.
TEMP_CACHE_4.
“Open it,” I said.
He did.
Inside was one corrupted video file.
Timestamp: 11:17 p.m.
We clicked.
Static.
A corridor.
Two men wheeling a laundry cart.
Then another figure appeared.
Not Vittorio.
A younger man.
Dark suit.
Clean-shaven.
He stopped beside the cart and looked directly toward the camera.
Adrien’s entire body changed.
“Who is he?”
He answered quietly.
“My cousin.”
The man on screen reached into the cart.
When he lifted his hand, he was holding my missing service jacket.
Then he turned toward Adrien’s bedroom.
Adrien whispered the name.
“Luca.”
Before I could ask more, every monitor went black.
A voice came from the intercom.
Vittorio again.
“You were always too curious, nephew.”
Emergency lights turned red.
Adrien raised his pistol.
The steel door behind us locked automatically.
Then ventilation fans roared overhead.
I smelled the same sweet chemical odor.
Stronger this time.
“They’re pumping it in,” I said.
Adrien fired at the lock.
Nothing.
I covered my nose with my sleeve and searched the room.
“Fire suppression.”
“What?”
“If the system thinks there’s smoke, ventilation should shut down.”
I grabbed a chair and smashed the nearest smoke detector.
No response.
“Not enough.”
Adrien pointed at the equipment rack.
“Server batteries.”
I understood.
I yanked two power cables loose.
Sparks snapped.
Smoke curled upward.
An alarm screamed.
VENTILATION SHUTDOWN.
The fans stopped.
Emergency locks released.
Adrien kicked open the door.
We stumbled into the corridor.
Behind us, an automated fire system began flooding the security room with inert gas.
Ahead, footsteps thundered.
Men were coming.
Adrien grabbed my wrist.
“This way.”
“Where?”
“Garage.”
“You have a car?”
“I have twenty-three.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
We ran.
But at the bottom of the staircase, Adrien stopped so suddenly I nearly hit him.
A television mounted in the foyer had switched on.
Security footage played across it.
Edited footage.
It showed me entering Adrien’s study.
Adrien drinking coffee.
Adrien collapsing.
Then me standing over him.
Except I wasn’t standing.
Someone had digitally altered the missing section.
A voice-over declared that an attempted poisoning had occurred inside the Moretti residence.
My photograph appeared.
MARA ELLISON — SUSPECT.
Then Adrien’s.
ADRIEN MORETTI — CONDITION UNKNOWN.
And finally Luca’s face appeared.
He stood at the front entrance speaking to men gathered in the foyer.
“We cannot allow this attack to weaken the family.”
Adrien watched silently.
Luca continued.
“Until my cousin recovers, I will assume responsibility for security and operations.”
A dozen men nodded.
Then someone stepped into frame behind Luca.
Vittorio.
The older man placed a hand on his nephew’s shoulder.
And smiled.
Adrien stared at the screen.
His cousin hadn’t simply participated in the setup.
He was replacing him.
But the detail that terrified me most wasn’t Luca’s speech.
It was the timestamp in the corner.
The recording had been made at 11:31 p.m.
Only fifteen minutes after we were carried upstairs.
Which meant Luca had declared Adrien incapacitated before anyone outside the conspiracy could possibly have known what had happened.
I looked at Adrien.
“He rehearsed that.”
Adrien’s eyes hardened.
“No.”
He raised the gun.
May you like
“He expected me never to wake up.”
And somewhere inside the Moretti mansion, Luca Moretti was about to discover that the man whose empire he had stolen was walking downstairs.
