Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
Victor had spent twenty-two years believing his younger brother was dead.
Now Nora's kidnapped father appeared to hold the truth.
“His name was Adrian,” Victor said quietly.
The SUV crossed the Chicago River.
Rain blurred the skyline beyond the tinted windows.
Nora sat beside him, clutching the old photograph on her phone.
“What happened to him?”
“He was eleven. Someone took him outside a school fundraiser.”
Victor paused.
“My father paid the ransom. The kidnappers sent back his jacket. There was blood on it.”
“Was there ever a body?”
“No.”
Nora looked at him.
“You never stopped looking, did you?”
Victor gave a humorless smile.
“Not until my father convinced me there was nothing left to find.”
He reached for his phone.
“Leo, check every record connected to Adrian Romano. Start with the old hospital files.”
Leo answered from the front passenger seat.
“Already moving, boss.”
Nora's phone rang.
Unknown number.
Victor nodded for her to answer.
She put it on speaker.
A distorted male voice filled the car.
“Miss Hastings. You have something that belongs to us.”
“My father is sick,” Nora said. “If you hurt him—”
“Then bring the key.”
Victor leaned closer.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then the stranger laughed.
“Hello, big brother.”
Victor went completely still.
The voice continued.
“You always did arrive late.”
“Adrian?”
“I'm surprised you remember.”
Victor grabbed the phone.
“Where are you?”
“Where Father taught us that loyalty was everything.”
The line disconnected.
Victor stared at the screen.
Leo twisted in his seat.
“Boss?”
Victor looked toward the dark city.
“The old Romano estate.”
Nora had heard stories about the abandoned mansion outside Chicago.
A fire.
An investigation.
A property left untouched for more than a decade.
“That's where he's keeping my father?”
“Maybe.”
Victor turned to Leo.
“Send surveillance first. Nobody approaches the house without authorization.”
Nora's voice broke.
“I can't just wait while he suffers.”
Victor looked at her.
“You won't.”
He reached into his coat and produced a folded paper.
“My father left instructions in his private safe. I found them after his funeral, but the final page was missing.”
He unfolded the document.
At the bottom was a handwritten reference to Evelyn Hastings.
Beside her name stood a sequence of numbers.
Nora recognized them immediately.
The numbers matched an old savings account her mother had opened in her name.
Victor read the final sentence.
IF ADRIAN EVER RETURNS, THE GIRL WITH EVELYN'S KEY MUST DECIDE WHO INHERITS THE EMPIRE.
Nora felt the world tilt.
“The girl?”
Victor looked at her.
May you like
“You.”
And for the first time, she understood that her employment at Romano Enterprises might never have been an accident.
