Chapter 14 - The Room Beneath the House
The steel door opened.
Inside was a room filled with monitors.
Dozens of screens.
Cameras from every part of the mansion.
Emma’s old bedroom.
The kitchen.
The library.
The front gates.
Even my study.
Someone had watched everything.
For years.
Emma was tied to a chair in the center.
Lucia stood beside her.
Her hands were bound.
A man in a dark suit stood behind them.
Elias Vane.
He looked completely ordinary.
That made him worse.
“Dominic.”
I raised my weapon.
“Let them go.”
“Of course.”
He smiled.
“But first…”
He pressed a button.
Every screen changed.
Old footage appeared.
My father.
Maria.
Antonio.
Carlo.
Kolov.
Then me.
As a child.
Watching from inside a car.
My father was right.
I had seen the river.
I had seen Antonio.
I had seen Maria.
But there was one detail I had forgotten.
Carlo had been there.
Not as a witness.
As the man who handed Kolov the weapon.
Elias spoke.
“Your family destroyed ours.”
“No.”
“Your father refused to cooperate.”
“He protected his family.”
“He betrayed the crown.”
“What crown?”
“The network.”
Elias stepped closer.
“Your father was supposed to give us control of Manhattan.”
“He refused.”
“So we used Carlo.”
I looked at the screen.
Carlo had betrayed us.
But Elias continued.
“Then your father faked his death.”
“Why?”
“To draw attention away from Emma.”
Emma started crying.
Elias looked at her.
“She was the one variable no one could predict.”
I looked at Emma.
“Why her?”
“Because Maria knew the truth.”
“What truth?”
Elias smiled.
“That Emma isn't merely your daughter.”
I felt my blood freeze.
“She is the legal heir to your father's hidden assets.”
“Assets?”
“Forty billion dollars.”
Silence.
The ledger.
The offshore accounts.
The hidden network.
Everything connected.
Emma had inherited control of it without knowing.
Elias wanted access.
Carlo wanted power.
Kolov wanted revenge.
But Elias wanted something larger.
He wanted the system.
I looked at the screens.
“How do I stop this?”
Elias laughed.
“You cannot.”
He pressed another button.
A countdown appeared.
Ten minutes.
“If I don't receive the original ledger in ten minutes, every file goes public.”
“And?”
“Your empire collapses.”
I looked at Emma.
She was shaking.
Then she whispered:
“Dad.”
I looked at her.
“Don't give it to him.”
Elias smiled.
“She knows.”
“What?”
Emma lifted her head.
“Mom told me everything.”
I stared.
“What everything?”
Emma looked directly at Elias.
“You didn't find the ledger.”
Elias frowned.
“You don't have it.”
His smile disappeared.
Emma continued.
“Because Dominic found the wrong one.”
I looked at her.
She smiled through her tears.
“The real ledger is somewhere you've never looked.”
I suddenly understood.
Emma had been my housekeeper for fourteen months.
She had cleaned every room in the mansion.
She knew the house better than anyone.
Elias stared at her.
“Where?”
Emma looked at me.
Then toward the ceiling.
“Inside the crest.”
I froze.
The torn fabric from her uniform.
The gold-and-black symbol.
The same crest they had beaten her for.
Inside the embroidered emblem was a hidden compartment.
And something inside it had been there for twenty years.
Elias lunged.
I fired.
The room exploded into chaos.
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And as the first bullet shattered the glass beside him, Emma screamed:
“DON'T LET HIM REACH MY MOTHER!”
