Chapter 4 - Someone Inside My House Was Watching Us
The silver falcon was warm.
Marco discovered that immediately.
“Someone held this recently.”
My gaze swept the room.
Two guards had been stationed outside the suite.
Elena had never left.
Sophie was beside her.
Dr. Gable stood in the hallway.
No one else should have entered.
Yet the object lay beneath Nora’s crib.
Marco checked the bathroom.
Empty.
Closet.
Empty.
Then he noticed the service panel behind a decorative wall cabinet.
The mansion had old maintenance passages from renovations done before I purchased it.
Narrow utility corridors ran between several rooms.
They were supposed to be sealed.
This one wasn’t.
Fresh scratches marked the latch.
Marco opened it.
Darkness stretched behind the wall.
One guard entered first.
Thirty seconds later, he radioed.
“Passage clear.”
“Where does it exit?”
“Laundry corridor.”
The same corridor renovated after the burst pipe.
Victor had created invisible access throughout the mansion.
Suddenly everything made sense.
The camera gaps.
The hidden wiring.
The mysterious woman Sophie saw.
Someone could move through my home without appearing on main hall cameras.
Marco ordered every wall passage searched.
I picked up the falcon with gloved fingers.
A small piece of paper was taped underneath.
An address.
An abandoned railway warehouse twenty-three miles south.
And a time.
4:30 A.M.
Below it:
Come alone if you want Celeste’s truth.
Marco read it.
“No.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You’re not going.”
“I’m going.”
“Then not alone.”
“She’ll leave.”
“Let her.”
I looked at him.
“This involves Celeste.”
“It also involves three living children.”
That stopped me.
Through the open door I could see Theo asleep again.
His fist curled beside his cheek.
Marco lowered his voice.
“She knows exactly what button to press.”
“She may have killed my wife.”
“And she may want you angry enough to walk into a trap.”
“She succeeded.”
“Then be smarter than she expects.”
At 2:00 a.m., we moved the children.
A secure medical residence owned by Dr. Gable sat fourteen miles north.
Few people knew the address.
Marco sent a decoy convoy east.
The real vehicles left through a private access road.
Elena and Sophie went with the babies.
Before Sophie entered the SUV, she tugged my sleeve.
“Mr. Moretti?”
I crouched.
“Yes?”
“Don’t go to the scary lady.”
Children sometimes make complex decisions sound easy.
“I need to.”
“Why?”
“Because she knows something about their mother.”
Sophie considered this.
Then she handed me her ugly doll.
I stared at it.
“What’s this?”
“She helps when I’m scared.”
Elena smiled despite everything.
“Sophie…”
“It’s okay.”
I took the doll.
The mismatched button eyes stared at me.
“I’ll bring her back.”
Sophie pointed sternly.
“You have to.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
At 4:12, I approached the railway warehouse.
Not alone.
Marco followed two hundred yards behind.
Four tactical officers positioned around the perimeter.
But Isabella didn’t know that.
At least I hoped she didn’t.
The warehouse doors stood open.
I entered.
Rows of rusted equipment disappeared into shadow.
One overhead light glowed.
Beneath it sat Victor Hale.
Tied to a chair.
His face bruised.
Alive.
“Victor.”
He lifted his head.
“Mr. Moretti.”
I approached carefully.
“Where is she?”
His eyes widened.
“Don’t.”
A woman stepped from the shadows.
Isabella Vale looked almost unchanged.
Dark hair.
Black coat.
Elegant posture.
Eleven years older but somehow sharper.
“Hello, Adrien.”
I stopped.
“You look good for a dead woman.”
She smiled.
“You look tired for a powerful man.”
“What did you do to Celeste?”
Straight to the point.
Her smile faded.
“Still impatient.”
“You have five seconds.”
“You came for answers.”
“I came because you mentioned my wife.”
She walked slowly around Victor.
“I liked Celeste.”
My hands tightened.
“Don’t say her name.”
“She was kind.”
“Don’t.”
“She deserved better than you.”
I took one step forward.
Victor shook his head violently.
“Mr. Moretti, please.”
Isabella noticed.
“You should listen to him.”
“Why?”
“Because the floor beneath you is pressure-sensitive.”
I froze.
She smiled again.
“Still dramatic, I know.”
Marco’s voice whispered through my concealed earpiece.
“Hold.”
I kept my eyes on Isabella.
“What do you want?”
“Truth.”
“You don’t care about truth.”
“No. But you do now.”
She gestured toward Victor.
“He helped me enter your house.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“Why?”
“He needed money.”
Victor’s voice cracked.
“My son had debts.”
Isabella laughed softly.
“Everyone has a reason.”
I stared at Victor.
“You installed the devices?”
“Some.”
“The nursery?”
“No.”
Isabella’s expression changed slightly.
That mattered.
“Who did?”
She ignored the question.
Instead she held up a flash drive.
“This contains everything about Celeste’s final week.”
“Give it to me.”
“One condition.”
“Of course.”
“You release something you took from me eleven years ago.”
I knew immediately.
The Geneva Archive.
A collection of financial records and identities I seized when I destroyed her operation.
I had never used it.
But I had never destroyed it.
Insurance.
“You want the archive.”
“I want what belongs to me.”
“It contains names of people who trusted you.”
“They paid me.”
“You planned to sell them twice.”
She smiled.
“You really did become moral after meeting Celeste.”
“What did you do to her?”
For the first time, Isabella looked genuinely angry.
“I did not kill your wife.”
I almost laughed.
“Your company owned the ambulance contractor.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was watching her.”
“Why?”
“To watch you.”
“Then explain the medication.”
Isabella’s expression tightened.
“That is why I called you.”
A door slammed behind me.
Marco’s voice hissed.
“Movement east side.”
Isabella looked toward the darkness.
Not confident now.
Alarmed.
Then a gunshot cracked.
Victor jerked.
Blood appeared on his shoulder.
I moved instinctively.
The warehouse erupted.
Marco’s team entered.
Isabella dropped behind a steel column.
Another shot came from high above.
Not her.
A sniper.
Someone else.
“Down!” Marco shouted.
I dragged Victor behind machinery.
Isabella fired upward.
Whoever attacked us was targeting both sides.
That changed everything.
A second bullet struck the concrete near Isabella.
She looked at me across the warehouse.
“Now do you believe me?”
“Believe what?”
“There is someone else.”
The sniper disappeared through an upper exit.
Marco’s men pursued.
Isabella ran toward a side door.
I blocked her.
She raised her weapon.
I raised mine.
For three seconds we stood facing each other.
Then she slowly lowered it.
“If I wanted your babies dead, Adrien, they would be dead.”
“Careful.”
“I scared them because I needed you to discover the surveillance network.”
My mind stopped.
“What?”
“The sound emitter was mine.”
Rage surged.
“You hurt my children.”
“I terrified them temporarily.”
I stepped toward her.
She didn’t move.
“Say that again.”
“I needed you to look beneath the nursery.”
“Why not call me?”
“Because your security system is compromised.”
“By Victor?”
She looked toward him.
“No.”
Victor, bleeding behind the machinery, whispered:
“It’s Marco.”
Silence.
I stared at him.
“What did you say?”
His eyes shifted toward the warehouse entrance where Marco had disappeared after the sniper.
“It wasn’t me who gave her access to the main system.”
My pulse slowed.
Victor swallowed.
“She paid me to open the maintenance passages. But the cameras, access codes, nursery schedules…”
He winced.
“I didn’t have clearance for any of that.”
Isabella stepped closer.
“Someone close to you has been feeding information for months.”
My hand tightened around the weapon.
“Who?”
Victor began to answer.
Then his phone, lying on the floor nearby, rang.
The screen displayed one word.
MARCO.
But Marco’s voice came through my earpiece at the same moment.
“Adrien, we lost the sniper.”
I stared at the ringing phone.
Marco was outside.
So who was calling Victor using his name?
Isabella picked up the phone.
A text appeared.
HE KNOWS TOO MUCH. FINISH IT.
She looked at me.
“That message didn’t come from Marco Bellini.”
“Then who?”
She turned the screen toward me.
“It came from inside your security office.”
Back at the mansion, only a handful of people remained.
Including the one person who had access to every camera, every door, and every schedule in my home.
Marco’s deputy.
Daniel Cross.
And at that exact moment, Daniel was supposed to be supervising the evacuation records.
May you like
Including the address where my children had been taken.
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