Chapter 5 - The Dead Man at the WindowThe first thing I learned about a gunshot was that it sounded much louder indoors.
The second was that my body could become terrified before my mind had time to understand why.
Vincent pushed me behind a thick interior wall as another bullet struck somewhere downstairs. I crouched beside a cabinet, protecting my broken arm while the house filled with the thud of running feet and the sharp voices of men shouting instructions.
I couldn't see the attackers.
I couldn't see Nico.
I could barely see Vincent.
But I could hear him speaking into his phone with the same measured calm he'd used in my hospital room.
“North entrance is compromised. Secure the stairs. Nobody fires through the second-floor wall.”
He listened.
“I'm aware of where she is.”
He ended the call and crouched beside me.
“Are you hit?”
I shook my head.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Good. When Nico gives the signal, we're moving to the basement.”
“What if they get inside?”
“They won't get near you.”
The words were reassuring.
The gunfire made them difficult to believe.
I pressed my back against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to control my breathing.
For five years, Aaron had made violence feel personal. Every slammed door, every broken glass, every threat had been designed to convince me that I was alone and powerless.
This was different.
The danger was bigger, louder, and somehow less intimate.
These people were not trying to teach me a lesson.
They were trying to take me.
A burst of gunfire erupted from the front of the house.
I gasped.
Vincent's hand closed around my shoulder.
“Look at me.”
I forced myself to open my eyes.
“Breathe,” he said. “Slowly.”
I tried.
“Again.”
My breathing steadied a little.
“Good.”
There was no time for another word.
Nico appeared in the doorway.
“Basement. Now.”
He carried a small medical bag and wore a dark vest beneath his suit. Vincent helped me stand, careful not to touch my injured arm, and guided me toward a narrow staircase hidden behind a bookcase.
Halfway down, I heard a crash above us.
Someone had entered the house.
A man's voice shouted, “Second floor!”
I stumbled.
Vincent caught me.
“Keep moving.”
“What if they find the key?”
“Then we'll find another way to get the truth.”
We reached the basement seconds before a bullet struck the stairwell wall.
Nico locked the door behind us.
The basement had no windows. A reinforced steel door stood at the far end, beside shelves stocked with water, blankets, and medical supplies. A row of small monitors displayed the front entrance, the garden, and several views of the surrounding street.
On one screen, a man in a dark jacket moved past the kitchen window.
On another, two figures crouched beside the front steps.
I recognized the posture of the taller man.
He moved exactly like Aaron when he was angry, shoulders tense and chin thrust forward.
I leaned closer to the screen.
“That's him.”
Vincent turned.
“Who?”
“The man on the right. He's wearing Aaron's coat.”
Nico studied the image.
“Not Aaron. Same height, but the face is different.”
I shook my head.
“No. I know that coat.”
It was a charcoal wool coat with a torn cuff. I had repaired that cuff myself three winters earlier. Aaron had complained about the price of a replacement, then promised he would stop throwing his clothes onto the floor.
The coat had been hanging in our apartment when I fled to the bathroom.
Someone had taken it.
Someone had put it on another man.
“Why would they do that?” I whispered.
Vincent watched the screen.
“Because they want us looking at the wrong person.”
Then a new image appeared.
A man stood at the rear entrance of the property. He wore a black cap and held something small in his hand.
He looked directly at the camera.
And smiled.
A moment later, the screen went black.
Nico swore under his breath.
“They've cut the exterior feed.”
Vincent reached for another phone.
“Switch to the backup system.”
“Already done.”
A different camera came alive.
The man in the cap was gone.
But he had left something behind.
A small cardboard box sat on the rear steps.
I stared at it.
“Is that a bomb?”
“Not necessarily,” Nico said.
“That's a comforting answer.”
He almost smiled.
“Stay here.”
Vincent and Nico moved toward the security panel. Through the speaker, we heard a series of commands and the electronic click of locks engaging around the property.
Then the shooting stopped.
The sudden silence was worse than the noise.
I could hear my own pulse.
I could hear the small, uneven breaths coming from my mouth.
I could hear Vincent's shoes as he crossed the basement.
The speaker crackled.
A voice came through.
“Vincent.”
He stopped.
I knew that voice.
It had spoken to me once before, though not directly.
It belonged to the man who had visited the diner three months earlier, the man with the serpent ring who had spoken quietly to Vincent while I refilled their drinks.
“Gabriel,” Vincent whispered.
My blood turned cold.
The camera on the rear steps flickered back to life.
The cardboard box had been opened.
Inside lay a man's photograph, a black leather glove, and a folded sheet of paper.
Vincent ordered Nico to read the message through the camera's zoom.
Nico leaned toward the monitor.
His expression hardened.
“What does it say?” I asked.
Neither man answered.
I moved closer.
The photograph showed a young man in a dark suit standing in front of a warehouse. Beside him was a woman holding a little girl by the hand.
The girl had dark hair tied in two uneven ponytails.
I stared at the picture.
It was me.
I recognized the yellow sweater, the crooked smile, and the small scar beneath my chin from the fall I'd taken while learning to ride a bicycle.
The woman beside me was my mother.
The young man standing beside her was Gabriel Moretti.
I looked at Vincent.
“Why was I with your brother?”
He did not answer immediately.
He was staring at the message.
Finally, he read it aloud.
“Ask Lena what happened at the warehouse on Pier Nineteen. Ask her what her father made her forget.”
I felt sick.
“I was twelve. I never went to a warehouse with your brother.”
Vincent turned toward me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Try to remember.”
“I told you, I don't remember.”
A strange sensation moved through my head, like the feeling of waking from a dream that had vanished before I could understand it.
A metal door.
Rain striking a roof.
My father's voice telling me to close my eyes.
A man crying somewhere nearby.
Then nothing.
I pressed my palm against my forehead.
“What is happening to me?”
Vincent reached for my uninjured hand but stopped before touching it.
“Lena, look at the photograph.”
I did.
The young version of me was holding something.
A small brass object dangled from a blue ribbon.
The key.
My father had given it to me before he died, but this photograph had been taken earlier.
Much earlier.
Which meant the key had belonged to me before the night my father supposedly entrusted it to me.
Or someone had made sure I believed that he had.
My knees weakened.
Vincent caught me before I fell.
“Easy.”
I stared at him.
“Did your brother know my father?”
“Apparently.”
“Did he know me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Vincent looked at the photograph again.
“That's what we need to discover.”
A loud crash shook the basement door.
Nico drew his weapon.
A second crash followed.
Then a third.
The lock began to bend.
Vincent moved in front of me.
The speaker crackled again, and Gabriel's voice filled the basement.
“You have eight minutes, little brother.”
Vincent's expression changed.
“What does that mean?” I whispered.
He looked at the door.
“It means he wants me to choose.”
“Choose what?”
A small indicator light appeared on the security panel.
The basement's emergency system had activated.
Nico stared at the monitors.
“Sir, we've lost the upper floor.”
Vincent's phone vibrated.
He glanced at the screen.
For the first time since I had met him, he looked uncertain.
Then he turned the phone toward me.
It was a live video.
Aaron sat tied to a chair in a dark room, blood running from a cut above his eyebrow.
Behind him stood the man wearing the serpent ring.
The man slowly lifted his head toward the camera.
His face was unmistakable.
Gabriel Moretti.
Vincent's dead brother.
Gabriel smiled.
“Brother,” he said, “you can save the girl, or you can save your wife.”
The video shifted.
A woman appeared on the screen.
Her face was bruised, her hands were bound, and silver hair framed eyes I had not seen since I was sixteen.
I stopped breathing.
“Mom?”
The woman in the video lifted her head.
My mother looked directly into the camera.
May you like
And whispered the words that shattered everything I thought I knew.
“Lena, don't trust Vincent.”
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