Chapter 2 - THE LIGHTS WENT OUT
The instant the lights outside died, Zoe grabbed my sleeve.
“Mr. Romano?”
Her voice was barely a whisper.
I placed one finger against my lips.
“Stay behind me.”
She obeyed immediately.
Too immediately.
That bothered me.
Children should argue.
They should ask why.
They should complain that adults are being unfair.
Zoe moved behind me with the practiced silence of someone who had learned that being unnoticed could keep her safe.
I took out my phone.
No signal.
That confirmed it.
The mansion did not lose electricity.
Not accidentally.
The Romano estate had three backup systems, independent communications, and enough security infrastructure to keep half a city block functioning through a blackout.
Someone had shut us down deliberately.
My name is Luca Romano.
At thirty-nine, I controlled businesses people could see and others they preferred not to know existed.
Men called me ruthless.
Sometimes they were right.
But there were rules in my house.
No drugs around children.
No violence around families.
No innocent person used to settle a debt.
And no one under my roof was supposed to fear losing shelter because they missed one day of work with a fever.
Apparently someone had forgotten those rules while I was gone.
“Zoe,” I whispered.
She looked up.
“The man in your picture. When did you see him?”
“After dinner.”
“Where?”
“By the gate.”
“Was he alone?”
She nodded, then hesitated.
“No.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who was with him?”
She pointed to her teddy bear.
“What does that mean?”
She hugged the bear tighter.
“He talked to Mr. Keller.”
Dante Keller.
My chief of security.
My most trusted guard.
The man in the drawing.
I already knew that.
But now there was someone else.
“Who talked to Keller?”
Zoe swallowed.
“I don’t know his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“Fancy.”
“Fancy?”
“Shiny shoes.”
Despite the situation, I almost smiled.
Children remembered different things than adults.
“What else?”
“He smelled like Grandpa’s church.”
I frowned.
“Church?”
“Smoke.”
“Cigarettes?”
She shook her head.
“Sweet smoke.”
Cigar.
Then footsteps sounded beyond the corridor.
I stood.
Zoe gripped my shirt.
“Inside the cabinet.”
Her eyes widened.
“I don’t like dark.”
My chest tightened.
“I know.”
“I can be brave.”
“You don’t have to be.”
That confused her.
I opened a low linen cabinet built into the wall.
“Just stay here until I come back.”
“What if you don’t?”
There it was.
The question children should never have to ask.
I crouched.
“I will.”
“Promise?”
I had broken promises before.
To my father.
To myself.
To women who believed I could someday become a different man.
But I looked at Zoe and said, “Promise.”
She climbed inside with her teddy bear.
I closed the door enough to hide her without locking it.
The footsteps approached.
I stepped into the corridor.
A shadow appeared.
“Boss?”
I recognized the voice.
Marco Bellini.
One of the younger guards.
His flashlight rose.
The second he saw me, relief crossed his face.
“Mr. Romano.”
“Why are the lights out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s Keller?”
Marco hesitated.
That was all I needed.
“Where?”
“He told the night team to report to the west perimeter.”
“When?”
“About fifteen minutes ago.”
“Why?”
“He said a sensor was malfunctioning.”
The west perimeter.
The opposite side from the front gate.
Keller had emptied the strongest guard positions just before someone outside shut down the lights.
“Who stayed at the front?”
Marco looked uncomfortable.
“Keller.”
Of course.
“Listen carefully.”
He straightened.
“Take Zoe Williams to the underground safe room.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“The maid’s kid?”
I looked at him.
He corrected himself instantly.
“Zoe. Yes, boss.”
“No radio.”
“Understood.”
“Find Dr. Harris. Her mother is sick.”
“Claire?”
So that was her name.
Claire Williams.
I knew every employee on my payroll.
Or I thought I did.
Claire had started eight months earlier, according to the weekly staffing reports. Widowed. Twenty-nine. Housekeeping staff. Lived in the cottage behind the east garden with her six-year-old daughter.
I had never spoken to her.
That suddenly felt like negligence.
Marco opened the cabinet.
Zoe crawled out.
The instant she saw another man in a black suit, fear returned to her face.
I held out my hand.
She took it.
“Marco is taking you to your mother.”
“You coming?”
“Soon.”
She pulled something from her pocket.
A red crayon.
“For luck.”
I stared at it.
“Is that how luck works?”
She nodded seriously.
“You keep it.”
I put the crayon inside my jacket.
“Then I can’t lose.”
Zoe seemed satisfied.
Marco led her away.
I continued toward the front of the mansion alone.
The hall smelled wrong.
Not smoke.
Rain.
Cold night air.
The front door was open.
Someone had disabled the alarm.
Outside, the courtyard was black except for moonlight reflecting off the fountain.
Then a voice came from the doorway.
“You were supposed to be in New York until Sunday.”
Dante Keller stepped from the shadows.
He held no weapon openly.
That meant nothing.
“You sound disappointed,” I said.
He stopped twelve feet away.
“For a man who built his reputation on caution, you came home quietly.”
“I wanted to surprise everyone.”
“You succeeded.”
“Especially you.”
Silence.
Keller’s face was calm.
Too calm.
We had worked together for thirteen years.
He had guarded me in courtrooms.
Hospitals.
Funerals.
Once, after I was wounded in Milwaukee, he sat outside my room for thirty hours without sleeping.
Trust is dangerous because betrayal rarely comes from strangers.
“What happened to the cameras?” I asked.
“Electrical fault.”
“Try again.”
His jaw shifted.
“The system went down.”
“And the guards?”
“West sensor.”
“Interesting.”
He said nothing.
“Because a six-year-old saw you standing outside the gate telling someone I wasn’t supposed to come home tonight.”
That did it.
His eyes changed.
Only for a second.
But thirteen years teaches you what a man’s face looks like when he realizes a lie has failed.
“Kids misunderstand things,” he said.
“Zoe draws surprisingly well.”
Keller’s hand moved slightly toward his coat.
I did not move.
“Don’t.”
His hand stopped.
Then headlights appeared beyond the gate.
One car.
Then another.
Then four.
Not mine.
Keller looked toward them.
For the first time, he seemed nervous.
I understood.
The traitor was not waiting outside.
The traitor had opened the gate.
“Who did you sell me to?” I asked.
Keller’s expression hardened.
“You have no idea what this is.”
“Then explain.”
“They don’t want you dead.”
“That’s comforting.”
“They want something you have.”
“What?”
He almost answered.
Then a voice shouted from outside.
“Dante!”
Keller looked toward the gate.
That moment saved me.
Because Marco’s men, the few I still trusted, emerged from the upper balcony and flooded the courtyard with emergency lights.
White beams exploded across the darkness.
The cars stopped.
Men outside scattered.
Keller turned.
I moved first.
Seconds later he was against the stone wall, his wrist pinned behind him.
I did not need to hurt him.
The humiliation of being caught alive was worse.
Marco rushed from the east corridor.
“Safe room secure.”
“Claire?”
“Doctor’s with her.”
Good.
Outside, the unknown vehicles reversed away from the gate before my men could close the road.
I watched their taillights disappear.
“Who were they?” Marco asked.
Keller laughed bitterly.
“You’re all dead.”
I turned him around.
“Who?”
He smiled.
“Ask Claire Williams.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What did you say?”
Keller’s smile widened.
“You think she came here because she needed housekeeping work?”
Marco looked at me.
I stared at Keller.
“You leave the child out of this.”
“The child is the reason they found you.”
My blood went cold.
“Explain.”
Keller leaned closer.
“Claire Williams isn’t her real name.”
I said nothing.
“And Zoe?”
His expression became almost pitying.
“That little girl has been living beneath your roof for eight months, Luca.”
He paused.
“And you still haven’t figured out who her father was.”
I released him into Marco’s custody.
“Lock him downstairs.”
Keller laughed as they dragged him away.
“Go ask her!”
I was already moving.
Across the mansion.
Through the east gallery.
Down the servant staircase.
Past men trying to give me reports.
I heard none of them.
When I reached the garden cottage, Dr. Harris was stepping outside.
“How is she?”
“High fever. Severe exhaustion. Probably pneumonia. I gave her medication, but she should be monitored.”
I pushed open the bedroom door.
Claire Williams lay beneath a blanket.
Pale.
Sweating.
Her dark hair stuck to her forehead.
Zoe slept beside her, still hugging that battered bear.
Claire opened her eyes.
The moment she saw me, fear replaced fever.
“You came home.”
I closed the door.
“Apparently that was unexpected.”
She struggled upright.
“Where’s Zoe?”
“Safe.”
Her shoulders loosened.
I pulled the red crayon from my pocket and placed it on the table.
“She saved my life tonight.”
Claire stared at it.
Then at me.
“Mr. Romano—”
“Luca.”
She swallowed.
“Luca.”
“Dante Keller says your name isn’t Claire Williams.”
All color disappeared from her face.
I continued.
“He says I should ask who Zoe’s father was.”
Claire’s eyes filled with tears.
“Please.”
“Who was he?”
She looked toward her sleeping daughter.
For several seconds, I thought she would refuse.
Then she whispered the name.
“Adrian Romano.”
The room tilted.
I stared at her.
“No.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Adrian Romano.
My younger brother.
Dead seven years.
Killed in a warehouse fire that started the bloodiest war Chicago had seen in a decade.
I looked at Zoe.
Dark curls.
Strong chin.
The way she narrowed her eyes when thinking.
Features I had somehow seen without seeing.
“How old is she?”
“Six.”
My voice disappeared.
Claire answered anyway.
“Adrian died seven months before she was born.”
I stepped backward.
The child who had polished my shoes because she was afraid her mother would lose their home.
The child who had handed me a crayon for luck.
The child who had just exposed the man trying to betray me.
Was my brother’s daughter.
My niece.
May you like
And someone outside my gate had known before I did.
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