Chapter 3 - The Secret Their Father Buried
Victor Carbone had attended Adrian’s father’s funeral.
He had stood in the front row wearing a perfectly tailored charcoal suit, his gray hair combed neatly back, his expression appropriately solemn.
After the burial, Victor had put one hand on Adrian’s shoulder.
“Your father loved you.”
Adrian remembered almost laughing.
Instead, he had nodded.
Victor had been beside the Vale family for decades.
Business partner.
Advisor.
Godfather in everything but name.
When Adrian inherited his father’s empire at twenty-four, Victor had offered guidance.
Adrian had rejected most of it.
Within three years their relationship had become polite, distant, and occasionally hostile.
Yet Adrian had never considered Victor responsible for the crash.
Until now.
“Why would your father’s closest friend care about me?” Bianca asked.
They had moved from the kitchen to a secure office inside the penthouse.
Luca stood near the door while two laptops displayed surveillance footage and financial records.
Adrian leaned against the desk.
“Because if Victor sent those men, this isn’t about you.”
Bianca touched the key around her neck.
“It’s about this.”
“Probably.”
“You sound very calm about people breaking into my home.”
“I’m not calm.”
“You look calm.”
Luca spoke without looking up from the computer.
“You’ll learn that’s usually when he’s most dangerous.”
Adrian ignored him.
“Samuel Rourke handled private accounts for my father. Not legitimate businesses.”
Bianca raised an eyebrow.
“There were legitimate businesses?”
“Some.”
“That sounded almost convincing.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You really are my sister.”
She looked away to hide the tiny smile.
The moment faded quickly.
“What happened to Rourke?”
“No one knows.”
Luca turned one laptop toward them.
“He disappeared the same night as the crash. His house was empty by morning. Bank accounts untouched. Passport never used.”
Bianca frowned.
“Maybe he was killed.”
“Possible,” Adrian said.
“Comforting.”
“We need to find what the key opens.”
“My mother mentioned Rourke’s name.”
“Which means she probably knew him.”
“She never said that.”
“Parents omit things.”
Bianca looked pointedly at him.
“Apparently.”
Adrian accepted the hit.
Luca clicked through another file.
“There is something else.”
He enlarged an old corporate registry.
“Rourke rented a safe-deposit box under a shell company.”
“When?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“Still active?”
“Closed fourteen years ago.”
Adrian frowned.
“By whom?”
Luca zoomed in.
“Sarah Bennett.”
Bianca stood.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“She had access?”
“Apparently.”
“Where?”
“A private bank downtown.”
Bianca grabbed her coat.
Adrian blocked her path.
“Where are you going?”
“To the bank.”
“At one in the morning?”
She stopped.
“Right.”
“Also, people are trying to abduct you.”
“I noticed.”
“You have a gift for understatement.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Adrian looked at the key.
“We go tomorrow.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“I can go alone.”
“No.”
“I survived fourteen years without you.”
His expression changed.
Bianca regretted the words immediately.
But she didn’t take them back.
Adrian stepped aside.
“I know.”
She walked toward the guest room.
At the doorway she stopped.
“Adrian.”
He looked over.
“When you found me the first time, you didn’t treat me like something broken.”
He waited.
“You didn’t act guilty about what our father had done. You just told me you wanted to know me.”
Bianca swallowed.
“I’m angry that you forgot.”
“I know.”
“But I’m more angry that they took the choice away from both of us.”
Adrian looked at the old photograph still lying on the desk.
“So am I.”
Bianca nodded.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
After the door closed, Luca said, “She likes you.”
Adrian gave him a look.
“She threatened to leave three times.”
“Exactly like you.”
Adrian sat.
“Find Victor.”
“We know where he lives.”
“No. Find where he goes when he doesn’t want people knowing.”
Luca studied him.
“You think he knows we have Bianca?”
“I think he knew she was back before I did.”
“Why?”
“Those men arrived too quickly.”
Luca nodded.
Adrian picked up the photograph.
“And get me everything on the crash.”
“Police report?”
“Everything. Tow truck. Hospital staff. Weather records. Highway cameras if archives exist.”
“That was fourteen years ago.”
“I know.”
Luca headed for the door.
“Adrian?”
“What?”
“What if remembering everything isn’t what you think it’ll be?”
Adrian stared at the photograph.
“I already know the worst part.”
“What’s that?”
“I left her alone for fourteen years.”
“You didn’t choose that.”
Adrian looked up.
“Tell me something, Luca.”
“What?”
“If someone steals a decade from you, does knowing you didn’t give it willingly make it feel less stolen?”
Luca had no answer.
---
The private bank opened at nine.
At nine-oh-three, Adrian and Bianca entered.
Luca accompanied them.
The manager recognized Adrian immediately and became nervous enough to mispronounce his own assistant’s name.
Adrian disliked recognition when he wanted discretion.
But today it helped.
Twenty minutes later they sat inside a private viewing room.
The bank’s archival records showed that Samuel Rourke’s safe-deposit agreement had technically expired but the box itself remained in storage due to an unresolved ownership dispute.
The manager placed it on the table.
“Mr. Vale, legally—”
Adrian looked at him.
The manager cleared his throat.
“I’ll give you privacy.”
He left.
Bianca removed the key from her necklace.
Her hand trembled.
Adrian noticed.
“You don’t have to do it.”
“Yes, I do.”
She inserted the key.
It fit.
The lock clicked.
For several seconds Bianca didn’t lift the lid.
Then she opened it.
Inside were three things.
A flash drive.
A sealed envelope.
And a photograph.
Bianca picked up the photograph first.
It showed Samuel Rourke standing beside Sarah Bennett.
They looked younger.
Close.
Too close to be strangers.
On the back was written:
Sarah—if anything happens, protect both children. S.R.
Bianca’s face went pale.
“Both children.”
Adrian took the photo.
“What did your mother tell you about Rourke?”
“Nothing.”
“She knew him.”
“Clearly.”
Luca opened the envelope.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Bianca unfolded it.
Sarah,
If you are reading this, then Thomas has discovered what I found.
His accounts are not merely hiding illegal profits. Victor has been taking money from the organization for years, moving it through foreign companies and using Thomas’s name to authorize transactions Thomas never approved.
I confronted Thomas. He refused to believe me.
Victor knows Bianca exists.
This is worse than I feared.
He believes Adrian will eventually inherit control, and he knows that if Adrian discovers Bianca, Adrian may separate himself from Thomas entirely. Victor needs Adrian dependent on the organization.
Do not trust the police.
Do not trust Thomas.
And if anything happens to Adrian or Bianca, Victor Carbone is responsible.
The evidence is on the enclosed drive.
Samuel.
Bianca stopped reading.
The room became silent.
Luca looked at Adrian.
Adrian’s expression was completely still.
Bianca whispered, “Victor caused the crash.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I want proof.”
“The letter says—”
“Letters can lie.”
“Why would he?”
“I don’t know.”
Adrian took the flash drive.
“But this might tell us.”
Luca plugged it into an isolated laptop.
Password protected.
“Of course,” Bianca muttered.
Luca examined the files.
“Encrypted.”
“Can you open it?”
“Eventually.”
“How long?”
“Few hours if we’re lucky.”
Adrian nodded.
“Take it.”
Bianca picked up the photograph of her mother and Rourke.
Something bothered her.
“Why would my mother never tell me?”
“Fear,” Adrian said.
“She was dying.”
“Fear survives logic.”
Bianca looked at him.
“You sound experienced.”
“I am.”
They left the bank through a private exit.
Rain had begun falling.
Bianca stopped beneath the awning.
Adrian looked at her.
“What?”
She stared across the street.
A black sedan sat at the curb.
Its windows were tinted.
“Adrian.”
He followed her gaze.
The sedan pulled away immediately.
Luca touched his earpiece.
“Carbone’s people?”
“Could be,” Adrian said.
Bianca folded her arms.
“You say that like this is normal.”
“For me, unfortunately.”
“That’s disturbing.”
“I’m aware.”
They entered Adrian’s SUV.
Bianca sat beside him.
Five minutes into the drive, her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She stared at it.
Adrian said, “Answer.”
She hesitated.
Then tapped the screen.
“Hello?”
A familiar male voice replied.
“Bianca.”
She stiffened.
Adrian saw it.
“Who is this?”
The man chuckled.
“You’ve grown up.”
Bianca’s blood went cold.
She knew that voice.
Not from adulthood.
From nightmares.
Rain.
Twisted metal.
A man standing above the wreckage before running toward a black SUV.
She had told herself for years she imagined him.
“You.”
Adrian leaned closer.
Bianca whispered, “You were there.”
Silence.
Then:
“Yes.”
Adrian held out his hand.
Bianca gave him the phone and switched to speaker.
Adrian spoke.
“Victor.”
The voice paused.
Then laughed softly.
“So Evelyn finally told you.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“Stay away from Bianca.”
“She shouldn’t have come back.”
“You shouldn’t have touched her apartment.”
“She has something that belongs to me.”
Adrian looked at the flash drive in Luca’s hand.
“No.”
Victor’s voice lowered.
“Your father made the same mistake you’re making.”
“What mistake?”
“Choosing sentiment over survival.”
Adrian’s eyes turned cold.
“My father tried to kill his own children because you manipulated him.”
“I saved your father’s empire.”
“You stole from it.”
A pause.
So small most people wouldn’t notice.
Adrian did.
Victor knew about the files.
“Give me what Rourke left behind,” Victor said, “and Bianca walks away.”
Bianca leaned toward the phone.
“You tried to kill us fourteen years ago.”
“I tried to stop Adrian.”
“You drove us off a mountain.”
Victor sighed.
“You were never supposed to be in that car.”
Bianca froze.
Adrian’s hand tightened around the phone.
“What did you say?”
“Ask your sister.”
The line went dead.
Adrian turned slowly toward Bianca.
“What does that mean?”
She stared at the phone.
“I don’t know.”
But her face said otherwise.
Adrian saw it.
“Bianca.”
She looked at him.
“There’s something I never told anyone.”
“What?”
Her voice broke.
“That night, before we left…”
She swallowed.
“I heard your father arguing with Victor.”
“And?”
“Victor said he would stop you.”
Adrian waited.
Bianca whispered:
“Your father told him not to hurt you.”
Everything changed.
Adrian had spent fourteen years believing Thomas Vale responsible for the darkest night of his life.
Now the truth looked different.
His father had been cruel.
Controlling.
Dangerous.
But perhaps he had not ordered the crash.
Perhaps someone else had used the chaos to seize an empire.
Luca’s laptop chimed.
He looked down.
“What?”
“I got into the first encrypted folder.”
Adrian turned.
“What’s inside?”
Luca’s face hardened.
“A ledger.”
“Of what?”
“Payments.”
“To whom?”
Luca scrolled.
Then stopped.
His expression changed completely.
Adrian leaned closer.
One entry was dated fourteen years earlier.
The night of the crash.
Payment: $250,000.
Recipient: Daniel Mercer.
Adrian recognized the name.
So did Luca.
Bianca looked between them.
“Who is Daniel Mercer?”
May you like
Adrian stared at the screen.
“He was the detective who investigated our accident.”
