Chapter 11 - THE SECRET VINCENT KEPT
Vincent didn’t run.
That was the first reason I believed him.
The second was stranger.
He laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because he looked exhausted.
“Twenty-two years,” he muttered. “And this is how it comes out.”
Roman grabbed his coat.
“Start talking.”
Vincent looked at me.
“V.D. isn’t Vincent DeLuca.”
“Then who?”
“Valentina Duca.”
Roman went completely still.
“My sister is dead.”
Vincent shook his head.
“No, Roman.”
I looked between them.
Roman had never mentioned a sister.
Vincent explained.
Valentina Duca was eight years older than Roman.
After the Ravenwood fire, she became convinced Sebastian Vale had help inside the family.
She disappeared while investigating him.
Everyone assumed she had been killed.
But she had survived.
For more than twenty years, she had been quietly gathering evidence against the Vale network.
“Why didn’t she contact me?” Roman demanded.
“Because she believed somebody close to your father was still feeding information to Vale.”
“And you knew?”
“Yes.”
Roman’s fist slammed into the table.
“You let me think my sister was dead.”
“I kept her alive.”
The pain in Roman’s face silenced everyone.
Then Vincent pointed to the transactions.
“These aren’t payments to Adrian. They’re transfers Valentina traced.”
I stared at him.
“So where is she?”
Vincent looked at the church doors.
“Closer than you think.”
A woman stepped inside.
Mid-forties.
Dark hair streaked with silver.
Sharp eyes that looked almost exactly like Roman’s.
Roman forgot how to breathe.
“Val?”
She smiled through tears.
“Hello, little brother.”
Roman crossed the room in two steps.
He hugged her so fiercely she nearly lost her balance.
I turned away.
Some reunions deserve privacy.
But Valentina had not returned only for her brother.
She carried one final file.
Inside was a photograph of Adrian Vale meeting a man outside Ravenwood three weeks earlier.
The man was one of Roman’s thirty.
A man who had eaten my food every morning.
A man who had joked with me.
A man who had known every lock, every hallway, every security change.
Marcus Bell.
May you like
And according to Valentina, Marcus wasn’t just helping Adrian.
He was waiting for us back at Ravenwood.
