Chapter 4 - What Fell Through the Shaft
The freight elevator descended slowly.
Roman ordered everyone back.
Meera pulled Evan behind a concrete column.
Marcus stood beside Roman.
The indicator clicked.
39.
40.
41.
The old motor groaned.
Evan covered his ears.
Roman noticed.
“Too loud?”
Evan shook his head.
“Wrong sound.”
Again.
That phrase.
Wrong.
Roman was beginning to understand that Evan didn't hear machinery the way other people did.
He heard patterns.
And patterns told him when something had changed.
The elevator stopped at thirty-four.
Marcus frowned.
“Why there?”
Ortega looked at the building plans.
“Storage level.”
Roman made a decision.
“We go up.”
Meera stared at him.
“We?”
“You and Evan stay here.”
“No.”
“You just said you wanted to leave.”
“I did. Then I found a photograph proving someone has been watching my child.”
She looked around the compromised basement.
“I'm not leaving him with strangers.”
Roman couldn't argue with that.
They used a public service elevator that Ortega personally inspected before allowing anyone inside.
Floor thirty-four was dark.
The hotel had once planned a private nightclub there. Construction stopped years ago.
Plastic sheeting covered unfinished walls.
Furniture sat beneath dust covers.
The freight elevator doors stood open.
Empty.
Roman entered.
On the floor was a phone.
Marcus picked it up.
One video file was open.
Roman pressed play.
Trent appeared.
He was frightened.
“This wasn't supposed to happen.”
The recording shook.
“I was told the elevator would stop. That's all. They said Roman would be delayed long enough for a meeting to happen upstairs.”
Roman's eyes narrowed.
Trent continued.
“I didn't know they changed the governor. I didn't know somebody could get hurt.”
A voice off-camera asked, “Who paid you?”
Trent looked toward the unseen person.
Then the recording ended.
Marcus checked the metadata.
“Recorded twelve minutes ago.”
Meera whispered, “So he's still in the building.”
Evan tugged her hand.
“Someone's behind there.”
He pointed toward plastic sheeting.
Marcus approached carefully.
Behind it was a door.
Inside they found Trent.
Alive.
Terrified.
He recoiled when Roman entered.
“I didn't try to kill you.”
Roman stared at him.
“You ran.”
“Because I knew what it looked like.”
“You authorized strangers into my building.”
“They threatened me.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
“You tampered with security.”
“Yes.”
“You knew something was planned tonight.”
Trent's eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
Roman stepped closer.
“What?”
“A meeting.”
“Between whom?”
“I don't know.”
Roman said nothing.
Trent broke under the silence.
“They wanted you stuck in the elevator for twenty minutes.”
“Why?”
“So somebody could enter your office.”
“What were they taking?”
“Nothing.”
Roman's brow tightened.
“Then why enter?”
Trent looked toward Evan.
The boy was watching him.
“They were putting something there.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“What?”
“I don't know.”
“Where?”
“Your father's office.”
Roman turned immediately.
They went to forty-three.
The floor was immaculate.
Private offices.
Conference rooms.
Roman's executive suite.
At the end of the hallway stood a dark wooden door that had not been opened in years.
His father's office.
Roman removed a key from beneath his shirt.
Meera realized he wore it on a chain.
He unlocked the door.
Dust.
Old leather.
Books.
A desk.
His father, Victor Black, had ruled the Black Crown from this room for twenty-seven years.
Roman had left it untouched.
Marcus searched carefully.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Evan stood at the doorway.
Then tilted his head.
“Ticking.”
Everyone froze.
Roman heard nothing.
Marcus heard nothing.
Meera did.
Barely.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Ortega followed the sound.
Behind a framed photograph they found a small electronic transmitter.
Not explosive.
A recording device.
Marcus exhaled.
“They wanted surveillance in your father's office?”
Roman stared at it.
“But I never use this room.”
Trent shook his head.
“They knew you would tonight.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
Evan walked toward the desk.
Meera stopped him.
“Don't touch anything.”
He obeyed.
But he pointed.
“That's open.”
Roman looked.
One desk drawer sat perhaps half an inch forward.
Roman knew that desk.
He knew his father.
Every drawer had been closed the day Victor died.
Roman opened it.
Inside was an envelope.
His name was written across the front.
ROMAN.
The handwriting belonged to his father.
Roman stopped breathing.
Marcus whispered, “Boss?”
Roman picked it up.
The paper was old.
Whatever was inside had been placed there years ago.
Which meant tonight's conspirators had not planted it.
They had been looking for it.
Roman opened the envelope.
Inside was a key.
And a handwritten note.
Roman read it silently.
His face changed.
Meera watched something she had not expected to see in him.
Fear.
Not physical fear.
Something deeper.
The fear of discovering that the past had never actually ended.
“What does it say?” Marcus asked.
Roman handed him the note.
Marcus read aloud.
“If you're reading this, somebody finally came looking for what I hid.”
Everyone went silent.
There was another line.
Marcus stopped.
Roman took the paper back.
Meera saw his fingers tighten.
“What?”
Roman read it himself.
“Trust the person nobody thinks matters.”
His eyes moved slowly across the room.
Past Marcus.
Past Trent.
Past Ortega.
Until they landed on Evan.
The boy wasn't looking at Roman.
He was staring at the ceiling.
“Evan?”
No response.
“Evan.”
The child raised one finger.
“Something's moving.”
“Where?”
“Above us.”
Roman looked upward.
There was only one floor above the private offices.
The penthouse mechanical level.
Ortega checked the plans.
“No elevator access.”
Evan shook his head.
“Not an elevator.”
“What, then?”
He listened.
His face tightened.
“A box.”
A second later came a tremendous metallic impact from inside the wall.
Everyone jumped.
Ortega ran toward the shaft access.
He opened the inspection panel.
Something had fallen from above and become wedged against a maintenance bracket.
A black steel case.
The same kind they had found downstairs.
Marcus and Ortega carefully retrieved it.
Roman opened it.
Inside were documents.
Bank records.
Photographs.
Old ledgers.
And a photograph of two young men standing beside Victor Black twenty years earlier.
One was Roman.
The other was his younger brother, Julian.
On the back, Victor had written six words.
One son will destroy the other.
Roman stared at the photograph.
Then the elevator behind them chimed.
The doors opened.
A man stepped out.
Same height as Marcus.
Same dark suit.
Same haircut.
But the watch was on his right wrist.
Evan whispered:
“That's him.”
The impersonator smiled.
Then removed the earpiece hidden beneath his hair.
Roman stepped forward.
“Who sent you?”
The man looked directly at him.
“You already know.”
Roman's jaw tightened.
“My brother?”
The man's smile disappeared.
“No.”
He glanced toward the old photograph.
May you like
“Your father.”
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