Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN IN MY CLOSETComing home early should have been harmless.
Instead, it nearly got me killed.
I entered my Manhattan estate shortly after ten that night, expecting the usual silence of a house occupied by one man and too many secrets.
Instead, I found the kind of silence that made the back of my neck tighten.
No security guard stood beside the marble entrance.
No footsteps came from the service corridor.
The enormous grandfather clock in the foyer ticked loudly, each second sounding like a warning.
I stopped.
Something was wrong.
I looked toward the security desk.
The monitor was black.
The alarm panel beside it showed no lights.
Dead.
Impossible.
I had personally ordered a backup power system after a break-in three years earlier.
Even if the main electricity failed, the security system was designed to remain active for forty-eight hours.
Someone had shut it down.
My hand slipped beneath my jacket.
The pistol was still there.
I moved toward the staircase.
Every instinct told me to leave.
But this was my house.
My family had owned the property for nearly sixty years.
Nothing happened inside these walls without my knowledge.
At least, that was what I had believed.
I climbed slowly.
Halfway up, I heard something.
A soft scrape.
Then another.
From my bedroom.
I reached the second floor and stopped beside the hallway.
My bedroom door stood slightly open.
I never left it that way.
I pushed it wider with the barrel of my gun.
Nothing.
The room looked untouched.
The curtains were closed.
The chandelier was off.
My desk stood exactly where it belonged.
Then something grabbed me from behind.
A hand slammed over my mouth.
An arm wrapped around my chest.
My first reaction was automatic.
I twisted hard, caught the attacker's wrist, and nearly drove her face into the wall.
Then I saw her.
Elena Cruz.
My maid.
Her eyes were wide.
Her finger pressed against her lips.
“Don't make a sound.”
I stared at her.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She dragged me into the walk-in closet.
Before I could answer, the bedroom lights came on.
Three men entered.
All armed.
I watched through a gap between the hanging suits.
The first man wore a black coat.
The second carried a compact rifle.
The third looked younger.
They moved with the confidence of men who knew exactly where they were going.
The man in the coat walked straight to my grandfather's painting.
He grabbed the frame.
Pulled it aside.
My stomach dropped.
Behind it was the private safe.
Almost nobody knew about that safe.
My grandfather had installed it personally.
He had told my father.
My father had told me.
And I had never told anyone.
The man entered a code.
Wrong.
He tried again.
Wrong.
He cursed.
“Boss said the code starts with the year.”
I looked at Elena.
She was breathing too slowly.
Too calmly.
“How do you know they're here?” I whispered.
“Later.”
“Elena.”
“Later, Vincent.”
I froze.
Nobody in my house called me Vincent.
Not my employees.
Not my lawyers.
Not even most relatives.
Everyone called me Mr. Moretti.
Only family used my first name.
And Elena had worked for me for six years.
She had never called me Vincent.
I studied her face.
Before I could ask, one of the men approached the closet.
Elena grabbed my sleeve.
She pushed me behind a row of expensive suits.
Then she slipped something from beneath her dress.
A pistol.
My eyes widened.
“You're armed?”
She checked the magazine.
“Would you rather I wasn't?”
The men stopped outside.
My heartbeat became painfully loud.
Then I heard a familiar voice.
“Check every room.”
Marcus.
My nephew.
The boy I had raised after his father died.
The boy I had paid to attend the best schools in America.
The boy I had taught everything about the organization my family had built.
He entered my bedroom slowly.
He looked around.
“Tony confirmed Vincent left the warehouse an hour ago.”
I felt something cold settle in my chest.
Tony.
My security chief.
A man who had worked for my family for twenty-three years.
“He should be here,” Marcus continued.
One of the men asked, “What if he refuses to talk?”
Marcus smiled.
“Everyone talks when you find the right pressure point.”
He walked toward my desk.
Then stopped.
“And if Moretti refuses?”
The room went quiet.
Marcus looked toward the closet.
“We use the girl.”
My eyes shifted to Elena.
“The maid?”
“She knows more than she should.”
Elena went rigid.
I leaned toward her.
“What does Marcus want?”
Her eyes met mine.
“This isn't about your money.”
“Then what?”
She swallowed.
“He came looking for proof.”
“Proof of what?”
She hesitated.
Then whispered:
“Your brother didn't die in an accident.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What?”
“He was murdered.”
I stared at her.
My brother, Adrian, had died eighteen years ago when his car crashed on a mountain road outside Albany.
The police had ruled it an accident.
I had accepted it.
Marcus had been six years old.
I had raised him because his father was gone.
My entire adult life had been built around the belief that I had lost my brother to fate.
Now Elena was telling me fate had nothing to do with it.
“Who killed him?”
She looked toward the closet door.
Then whispered:
“Ask Marcus.”
Footsteps approached.
Slowly.
Marcus stopped directly outside the closet.
The handle moved.
He smiled.
“Vincent?”
My hand tightened around my gun.
“I know you're listening.”
Elena grabbed my wrist.
“Whatever happens next,” she whispered, “don't let him open this door.”
May you like
The handle began to turn.
And then the bedroom window exploded.
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