Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO OWNED HER FEAR
Vincent Caruso had spent thirty years making people disappear.
Now Roman Bellandi intended to discover whether his future father-in-law had made his sister disappear twice.
Vincent sat in Roman's private office, looking considerably less comfortable than he had during dinner.
“You're making a terrible mistake,” he said.
Roman placed the photograph on the desk.
“Explain this.”
Vincent barely glanced at it.
“I've never seen it.”
“It's from your wallet.”
“Then someone planted it.”
Roman pulled out the chair opposite him.
“Thirteen years ago, a young woman named Norah Bennett survived an apartment fire. A girl named Lily Miller vanished that same night.”
Vincent's expression remained controlled.
“Tragic.”
“That girl may have been my sister.”
“Your sister died twenty-three years ago.”
“Then why were you carrying her photograph?”
Vincent's mouth twitched.
For the first time, he looked toward the door.
Roman noticed.
“Waiting for someone?”
Before Vincent could answer, a security alarm sounded.
Marco's voice came through Roman's earpiece.
“Boss. Someone entered the west garage using an old access credential.”
Roman stood immediately.
“Lock the property down.”
Vincent smiled.
“You always were your mother's son. Emotional when it matters.”
Roman leaned across the desk.
“And you always were a coward when your lies stopped working.”
He left two guards outside the office and hurried downstairs.
In the drawing room, Norah was helping Teresa search through old family photographs.
Every picture felt like another piece of a childhood Norah had only glimpsed.
Then she saw a familiar face.
A handsome man in his late thirties, standing beside a much younger Vincent Caruso.
Norah dropped the photograph.
Teresa looked up.
“What is it?”
“That man.”
“Which man?”
Norah pointed.
“The one standing beside Vincent.”
Teresa frowned.
“That's my late husband's former attorney. Adrian Vale.”
Norah went cold.
“No. His name was Daniel Miller.”
Roman entered just as she spoke.
He took the photograph.
Adrian Vale had supposedly died in a boating accident fifteen years earlier.
But Norah knew the truth.
She had worked inside his house thirteen years ago.
And the man she remembered had not been hiding a child for money alone.
He had kept a locked basement room filled with photographs of Teresa Bellandi.
Then Norah remembered something else.
A conversation she'd overheard on the night of the fire.
Daniel speaking into a telephone.
“The Bellandi girl is still valuable.”
A pause.
Then the words that had haunted Norah for thirteen years.
“Tell her mother the next payment is due.”
Roman stared at Teresa.
May you like
Because his mother had never mentioned paying anyone.
And Teresa's silence told him she had been keeping a secret of her own.
