Chapter 4 - The First Vault Was Beneath the Restaurant Where I Had Worked for Two Years, and My Father Had Hidden a Message Meant Only for MeThe first map led to the Sterling.
My workplace.
I stared at Dominic.
"You knew?"
"No."
"How could my father hide something beneath a restaurant?"
"Restaurants are excellent places to move people unnoticed."
That sounded exactly like something my father would say.
We closed the restaurant after midnight.
Dominic's team searched the kitchen.
Nothing.
Then I noticed the floor tiles near the wine cellar.
One was slightly different.
I touched it.
A click.
The floor opened.
A staircase descended.
At the bottom was a narrow corridor.
The walls were covered with symbols.
I recognized them.
My father's handwriting.
He had left instructions.
Olivia, if you found this, I failed to keep you out of this world.
I cried.
Dominic stood behind me.
The next line:
Trust the man who brought you here, but do not trust the men who work for him.
I looked at Dominic.
"That's ominous."
"It gets worse."
It did.
The hidden room contained documents.
Financial records.
Names.
A map of Europe.
And a photograph.
William Hart with Dominic's father.
Standing beside them was a third man.
I recognized him.
The professor from the Emerald Room.
Professor Elias Vane.
He had been the expert who couldn't translate the journal.
Dominic stared.
"Impossible."
"What?"
"Vane was one of my father's closest advisers."
"What happened?"
"He betrayed him."
The file confirmed it.
Vane had been trying to access the archive for years.
He couldn't.
Because the journal responded only to my family.
The ten-million-dollar offer had been designed to bring me into the open.
They had known the girl behind the serving tray might be William Hart's daughter.
Vane had been watching the restaurant.
He had been waiting.
The hidden room contained another message:
The true archive cannot be opened by blood alone.
I read the next line.
The heir must choose whom to trust.
Dominic looked at me.
"Your father made this personal."
"No."
"He made it impossible to manipulate you."
I looked toward the corridor.
Something moved.
A man attacked.
Dominic pulled me behind him.
The fight lasted seconds.
We found a badge on the attacker.
One of Vane's researchers.
He had come for the map.
I asked:
"Did my father know Vane was after him?"
Dominic nodded.
"Yes."
"Then why did he leave me?"
"Because he believed hiding you was the only way to keep you alive."
I stared at the hidden message.
Maybe my father hadn't abandoned me.
Maybe he had been trying to protect me.
May you like
Then the lights went out.
Someone took the journal.
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