Chapter 10 - Someone Inside the House
The missing key changed everything.
Salvatore claimed his men had been stationed outside the library.
The blackout had come from inside the security system.
Marco locked down the property.
Then his face changed while reviewing the access logs.
"My credentials disabled the lights."
Adrian stared at him.
"Were you at the panel?"
"No."
Someone had cloned Marco's badge.
Then Mom remembered something.
"The woman in the hall."
"What woman?" I asked.
"Before the lights went out. Red coat. She walked past twice."
Salvatore frowned.
"Nobody in red was invited."
Security footage from the outer gate showed a familiar face.
Bianca Serrano.
The casino heiress.
One of the five women.
Adrian called her.
She answered laughing.
"Took you long enough."
"Where are you?"
"Not in your uncle's house anymore."
"You took the key."
"Borrowed."
"Why?"
"Because your father gave my father the other half of what it opens."
Everyone went silent.
Bianca told us to meet her at a private club downtown.
Salvatore demanded to come.
Adrian said no.
"This is my family."
"Exactly."
We left him furious.
Bianca waited in a private dining room with an old metal box on the table.
"My father never opened it," Bianca said. "He was afraid of what it would start."
I looked at her.
"And you're not?"
She smiled without humor.
"I'm tired of men calling fear inheritance."
She inserted her key.
I inserted Carlo's.
The box clicked open.
Inside was a small recorder and one photograph.
The photograph showed Carlo standing beside Salvatore.
May you like
Between them was a third man.
Marco Bell's father.
