Chapter 4 - The Man I Trusted With My LifeI did not accuse Vincent.
Not because I trusted him.
Because I had learned something far more important.
A photograph could lie.
A witness could lie.
A dead woman could leave a clue designed to send you in the wrong direction.
So I tested him.
I told Vincent nothing about the archive.
Nothing about Daniel.
Nothing about Grace.
Instead I gave him a false location.
A warehouse in Queens.
I told him the master archive was hidden there.
Then I waited.
Within forty minutes, armed men attacked the warehouse.
Vincent had not gone.
Neither had I.
But someone had believed him.
Someone inside my organization had leaked the location.
I confronted Vincent in the library.
“You passed the test.”
He looked exhausted.
“Was that why?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me.
“I never betrayed you.”
“Did you know my wife was investigating Orpheus?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
My heart sank.
“When?”
“Six months before she died.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because she begged me.”
“Why?”
“She said you would kill Daniel.”
I looked away.
Perhaps that was the worst part.
Everyone believed I was capable of killing my brother.
Including my wife.
Including Vincent.
Maybe especially me.
“She thought Daniel wanted to destroy me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“She thought your father wanted to use you.”
I turned.
Vincent stepped closer.
“Your father left a structure behind. Daniel discovered it. Isabelle discovered it. They were trying to dismantle it.”
“Then why am I still alive?”
“Because the structure changed.”
“How?”
“After your father died, someone took control.”
“Who?”
Vincent looked at the portrait over the fireplace.
“Arthur Bell.”
The name felt wrong in my mouth.
Bell had been my father's accountant.
Now he was the chairman of a multinational investment group.
Worth three billion dollars.
Respected.
Charitable.
Untouchable.
“Why hasn't he come after me?”
Vincent looked at me.
“He has.”
The doors opened.
Grace entered.
She held an envelope.
“This came an hour ago.”
I took it.
Inside was a legal document.
Transfer of ownership.
A shell company had purchased a controlling interest in several Romano businesses.
The signature was mine.
Forged.
But there was another problem.
The transaction had been approved using Isabelle's private authorization code.
A code only she knew.
I stared at it.
“She was working with them.”
“No,” Grace said.
I looked at her.
“She was pretending to.”
Grace pointed at the date.
“The transaction happened two days after her death.”
My chest tightened.
Someone had used her credentials after she was dead.
Someone who knew her system.
Someone inside the house.
“Peter,” I said.
“The gardener?”
“Yes.”
“He disappeared.”
“Exactly.”
We searched the estate.
The old greenhouse yielded another secret.
Beneath the stone floor was a trapdoor.
Below it was a room.
Not a cellar.
An archive.
Isabelle had built it without telling me.
There were dozens of boxes.
Medical records.
Financial ledgers.
Voice recordings.
Photographs.
Copies of passports.
And letters.
One box held our children's birth certificates.
I opened it.
Underneath them was a cassette tape.
No label.
I found an old player.
Pressed play.
Isabelle's voice filled the room.
“Dominic, if you are hearing this, I am probably dead.”
I stopped breathing.
“I want you to know one thing first.”
Her voice trembled.
“I never betrayed you.”
I closed my eyes.
“I lied to you because I knew the truth about your father would destroy the life you had built.”
A pause.
“I also need you to know Daniel never hated you. He protected you.”
I looked at Grace.
She was crying.
Isabelle continued.
“After Daniel disappeared, I stayed in contact with him. We built a plan. We were going to expose Bell and the men around him. Then someone found out.”
A long silence.
“They came after the girls.”
The recording crackled.
“I had one final choice.”
Her voice broke.
“I chose them.”
Then another voice entered.
A man's voice.
My father's.
Impossible.
Dead for twelve years.
The recording captured a conversation from years earlier.
“Dominic is useful,” my father said.
“He is your son,” Isabelle replied.
“He is an heir.”
“He's a person.”
“He will become what I need.”
“You don't get to decide that.”
“I already did.”
Then my father's voice changed.
“If you ever tell Dominic about Orpheus, I will make sure Daniel dies again.”
The tape ended.
I sat in silence.
My father's threat had been made years before his supposed death.
Daniel had survived.
Isabelle had kept the secret.
And somehow Bell had continued the work.
I stood.
“We're going to find Peter.”
Grace nodded.
Vincent moved toward the door.
Before we reached it, every phone in the room rang simultaneously.
Mine.
Vincent's.
Grace's.
Three devices.
One message.
A photograph of Nora sleeping.
Under it:
You found the archive. Now find the witness.
Then a second line.
Or your daughters will disappear one by one.
My blood turned to ice.
Three hours later, our safe house in Brooklyn was attacked.
The girls were there.
So was Grace.
I arrived to gunfire.
Vincent pulled Olivia behind a wall.
Grace carried Sophie.
Nora screamed.
I fired until the attackers fled.
When silence finally returned, one of the men lay wounded outside.
I grabbed him.
“Who sent you?”
He smiled through bloody teeth.
“Your wife.”
I froze.
“What?”
“She told us where the archive was.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She knew.”
“Who are you?”
The man's smile widened.
“Ask the brother you buried.”
Then he swallowed something.
His body went limp.
Vincent stared at me.
Grace stared at me.
And from the doorway came a quiet child's voice.
Olivia.
“Daddy.”
I turned.
She was holding a photograph.
It showed Isabelle standing beside Daniel.
But Daniel wasn't the part that made my heart stop.
Behind them stood another child.
A little boy.
Maybe eight years old.
And beneath the photograph was a date.
Two years after Daniel's funeral.
I looked at Olivia.
“Where did you get this?”
She pointed toward Grace.
“She gave it to Mommy.”
Grace shook her head.
“I didn't.”
Olivia looked confused.
Then she whispered.
“Mommy said his name was Michael.”
I stared at the photograph.
My father had only one surviving son.
Me.
Daniel was supposed to be dead.
But there was a third child.
A child I had never heard of.
My father's secret heir.
And suddenly the mystery of Orpheus became personal in a way I had never imagined.
Because if Michael Romano existed…
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Then the war had not started with my father's death.
It had started long before I was born.
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