Chapter 7 - A Mother Who Was Never DeadCora couldn't speak.
Her mother stood twenty feet away.
Alive.
Older.
Her hair streaked with gray.
A scar curved beneath one eye.
But it was her.
"Mom?"
The woman took one step forward.
"Cora."
Cora started toward her.
Dante stopped her.
"Wait."
"That's my mother."
"We don't know that."
The woman smiled sadly.
"Your father used to say the same thing."
Cora looked at Dante.
"Let me go."
"No."
The woman lowered her hands.
"I didn't come here to hurt you."
"Then why did you fake your death?"
Her mother's face crumpled.
"Because I had no choice."
"Eight years."
"I know."
"You let me bury you."
"I know."
"You let me believe I was alone."
"I know."
Cora's eyes filled.
"You don't get to say you know."
Her mother looked down.
"I was trying to keep you alive."
"From whom?"
She looked at Dante.
"From him."
Dante's expression hardened.
"Elena?"
"No."
"Then who?"
Cora's mother whispered one name.
"Lucien Moretti."
Dante went very still.
"My father?"
"Yes."
Cora stared.
"He was already dead."
"His death was staged."
Dante's face became unreadable.
Cora looked between them.
"What is going on?"
Her mother took a breath.
"Your father discovered Lucien was planning to erase the entire accounting network."
"And?"
"He refused."
"Then Lucien ordered him killed."
"Yes."
Cora shook her head.
"That's what Dante said."
Her mother nodded.
"But Dante doesn't know the rest."
Dante raised his gun slightly.
"What rest?"
"Your father wasn't the only person who knew."
Silence.
Her mother stepped closer.
"There were five."
Cora remembered the photograph.
The fifth person.
"Who?"
Her mother looked at Cora.
"You."
Cora's face went blank.
"What?"
"Your father hid the final ledger in your room when you were sixteen."
Dante looked at Cora.
"He knew someone would eventually come looking."
"I don't remember anything."
"You wouldn't."
Her mother reached into her coat.
She removed a tiny cassette recorder.
"Because he erased the memory himself."
Cora stared.
"What do you mean?"
"Your father gave you something."
"What?"
"A phrase."
Her mother pressed play.
Static.
Then a man's voice.
Cora's father's voice.
"If anything happens to me, tell Cora that the red door isn't a door."
Cora's eyes widened.
The sentence triggered something.
A red door.
Her childhood.
A basement.
Her father's hand.
Numbers written in chalk.
Then screaming.
Cora staggered.
Dante caught her.
"Easy."
She pushed him away.
"I remember."
Her mother grabbed her arm.
"What?"
"The room."
Cora whispered.
"There was another room behind the red door."
Her mother went pale.
"You remember?"
"I remember my father crying."
Dante stared at her.
"What else?"
Cora looked at him.
"He told me never to trust the man with the silver ring."
Her mother's face changed.
"What?"
"The silver ring."
Dante's eyes narrowed.
"Victor."
Cora shook her head.
"No."
"What?"
"The man I remember had it on his left hand."
Dante looked confused.
"Victor wears it on the right."
Silence.
Cora's mother's breathing stopped.
"What?"
She whispered:
"Then there are two."
The lights flickered.
A gunshot cracked through the room.
Cora's mother collapsed.
"Cora!"
Dante grabbed her.
Blood spread across her mother's coat.
Cora screamed.
Dante pulled her behind the steel table.
More gunfire.
Someone shouted from the tunnel.
"Give us the ledger!"
Dante fired back.
Cora crawled toward her mother.
"Mom!"
Her mother grabbed her hand.
"Don't let them..."
Her voice weakened.
"Don't let them find..."
"What?"
"The second name."
Cora bent closer.
"Which name?"
Her mother whispered three words.
Then her eyes closed.
Cora stared at her.
Dante pulled her back.
"We have to move."
"She's alive?"
"Yes."
"Then take her."
"We can't carry her and fight them."
Cora looked down.
Her mother's hand was still closed around something.
A tiny brass key.
Cora took it.
Dante saw it.
"What is that?"
She looked toward him.
"I don't know."
Then the tunnel door exploded inward.
Victor Kane stepped through the smoke.
Silver ring shining on his right hand.
But behind him stood another man.
Same coat.
Same height.
Same ring.
Except the ring was on the left hand.
Cora's blood turned cold.
May you like
There were two men.
And one of them was the person she had been warned about all her life.
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