Chapter 9 - THE WOMAN IN WHITE ROSES
Calder lost consciousness thirty seconds later.
Tessa worked on him using supplies from an emergency cabinet.
Vincent remained facing the corridor.
No attacker reappeared.
The silence felt deliberate.
Someone had fired one shot.
Then vanished.
Not an assault.
A message.
Vincent turned toward Calder.
“Keep him alive.”
Tessa looked up.
“I’m trying.”
“What did he mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent’s mind returned to Lauren.
The hidden camera.
Her father.
The ledger.
Black Crown.
Her insistence that she had been searching for it.
Had she already found it?
The speaker came alive.
“Vincent.”
Matteo.
“You all right?”
“Calder says Lauren controls Black Crown.”
Silence.
“Matteo.”
“I heard you.”
“Is it true?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“You’re becoming repetitive.”
Matteo’s voice hardened.
“The attack cut our internal network.”
“Can you reach Maya?”
“Yes.”
“Bring her here.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“The medical suite is in another section.”
Vincent looked toward Calder.
“We need extraction.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You have two minutes before I start opening every cabinet and burning whatever’s inside.”
Matteo went silent.
Tessa glanced at Vincent.
“You wouldn’t.”
He looked at her.
She reconsidered.
“Actually, you might.”
Ninety seconds later the steel door opened.
Two of Matteo’s men appeared.
Weapons lowered.
They brought a stretcher for Calder.
Vincent refused to leave until Maya was with them.
Matteo finally relented.
Twenty minutes later Maya arrived in a wheelchair.
Pale.
Frightened.
But conscious.
Tessa ran to her.
The sisters embraced.
Vincent looked away.
Something in the intimacy hurt.
Not because he resented it.
Because he envied it.
Uncomplicated love.
No ledgers.
No inheritances.
No hidden cameras.
Just one person terrified of losing another.
Matteo appeared in person for the first time.
He was taller than Vincent expected.
The resemblance to Salvatore became stronger at close range.
Same eyes.
Different mouth.
Vincent hated him almost immediately for having their father’s face without earning the memories attached to it.
Matteo stopped several feet away.
“You shouldn’t return to the mansion.”
Vincent stared.
“You kidnapped her.”
Matteo looked at Maya.
“I arranged treatment.”
Tessa stood.
“You had men drag her out of a clinic.”
“I needed Vincent.”
“You could have asked.”
“He wouldn’t have come.”
Tessa stepped forward.
Vincent said, “Tessa.”
She stopped.
Matteo looked almost amused.
Vincent hated that too.
“Calder stays alive.”
Vincent said.
“He knows something.”
Matteo nodded.
“We have a doctor.”
“Not one of yours.”
Tessa said.
Matteo looked at her.
“You don’t trust me?”
“No.”
He smiled faintly.
“Smart.”
Vincent wheeled closer.
“Why would Calder say Lauren controls Black Crown?”
“Maybe she does.”
“You told me you’ve been trying to find who controls it.”
“I have.”
“Then you’ve considered her.”
“Of course.”
“What did you find?”
Matteo glanced toward Maya.
“Not here.”
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“She is already here because of you.”
Matteo’s expression hardened.
Then he nodded toward a side room.
Inside was an old office.
No cameras.
No windows.
Matteo closed the door.
“Lauren’s father, Thomas Hayes, was the last known custodian of the master ledger.”
“Lauren told me.”
“She told you a version.”
“What version is yours?”
“Hayes didn’t steal the ledger from Salvatore.”
“He built it.”
Vincent frowned.
Matteo continued.
“Black Crown was Hayes’s design.”
“Financial compartmentalization.”
“Dead-man triggers.”
“Aliases.”
“Legal shields.”
“Access codes divided between several people.”
“Salvatore funded it.”
“Hayes engineered it.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Enforced it.”
Vincent thought.
Three men.
Money.
Structure.
Muscle.
“What happened?”
“Salvatore decided the system was too powerful to share.”
Vincent almost laughed.
“That sounds like him.”
“He attempted to consolidate control.”
“Hayes refused.”
“Gabriel sided with Hayes.”
“So my father tried to kill them.”
“Yes.”
Matteo looked at Vincent.
“Your father did many things to protect you that you would not want to know.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Don’t confuse protecting me with protecting himself.”
For the first time Matteo looked impressed.
“Good.”
“What?”
“You’re less like him than I expected.”
Vincent ignored it.
“Lauren.”
Matteo nodded.
“When Hayes disappeared, he left partial access with his daughter.”
“Partial?”
“She could view transactions.”
“Not control them.”
Vincent remembered her paying fifty thousand dollars.
“Could she authorize payments?”
“Some.”
“Could she hire a shooter?”
Matteo hesitated.
“Potentially.”
Vincent’s gaze hardened.
“You said she didn’t.”
“I don’t believe she did.”
“Belief isn’t evidence.”
“No.”
Matteo pulled a small drive from his pocket.
“This is.”
He connected it to an offline laptop.
A transaction history appeared.
Three days before Vincent’s shooting, Lauren transferred fifty thousand dollars into an intermediary account.
Two days later, a separate payment of two hundred thousand moved from Black Crown into another account.
“Shooter?”
Vincent asked.
“Likely.”
“Authorized by?”
Matteo enlarged the field.
S.C.
Vincent stared.
“Salvatore Corvino.”
“Yes.”
“But he was dead.”
“Which means someone retained his credentials.”
Vincent thought of the man with Salvatore’s face.
“Could Matteo Vescari be S.C.?”
he asked.
Matteo gave a humorless smile.
“If I had the key, I wouldn’t need you.”
“What do you need from me?”
Matteo turned the laptop.
Another entry.
Six months after the shooting.
Two days ago.
A dormant account had activated.
Beneficiary field: VINCENT CORVINO.
Amount: $1.
Tessa frowned.
“One dollar?”
Matteo nodded.
“It’s not money.”
“It’s a handshake.”
Vincent understood.
“A system test.”
“Yes.”
“Someone triggered my identity.”
Matteo leaned closer.
“Black Crown believes you are active.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody gave the network your biometric authorization.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
Matteo asked.
“Who has access to your medical information?”
Tessa stiffened.
“Keller.”
Vincent looked at her.
His physical therapist.
The man Marco had suspected.
“Biometrics.”
Matteo said.
“Fingerprints.”
“Retinal scan.”
“Voice prints.”
“Blood markers.”
“Medical imaging.”
Tessa whispered, “He had all of it.”
Vincent remembered every therapy session.
Every scan.
Every adaptation.
Every time Keller brought specialized equipment into the mansion.
“What happens if Black Crown authenticates me?”
Matteo’s expression grew grim.
“You become one of the possible successors.”
“One?”
“There are three.”
Vincent knew without asking.
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
“And you.”
“Yes.”
Vincent leaned back.
Three sons.
One dead father’s secret empire.
No wonder someone wanted them suspicious.
“What happens if two successors die?”
Matteo looked at him.
“The third receives full control.”
Silence.
Vincent understood everything differently.
The shooting.
The fake footage.
The attacks.
The warnings.
Someone was not trying to reveal the truth.
Someone was creating a succession war.
“Who knows this?”
Vincent asked.
“Very few.”
“Calder?”
“Apparently.”
“Lauren?”
Matteo paused.
“Yes.”
Vincent’s face darkened.
“And she didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
His phone vibrated.
Dominic.
Vincent answered.
“Where are you?”
he asked immediately.
Dominic sounded confused.
“At the mansion.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
“Who’s there?”
“Marco.”
“Rosa.”
“Half the security team.”
“Why?”
“Because Lauren came back.”
Vincent’s chest tightened.
“What did she say?”
“That you were in danger.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
“Dom, listen carefully.”
“What?”
“Do not let Lauren leave.”
A pause.
“Why?”
Vincent looked at Matteo.
“Because she knows how Black Crown chooses its successor.”
Dominic whispered a curse.
Then another voice came through the line.
Lauren.
“Vincent.”
His grip tightened.
“How long have you known?”
Dominic must have put the phone on speaker.
Lauren answered.
“Known what?”
“That Black Crown transfers to the last surviving son.”
Silence.
Then Lauren said quietly.
“Since before I met you.”
Vincent felt something inside him finally break.
Not his trust.
That had been cracking for hours.
Something deeper.
The belief that the relationship he remembered had ever existed in the way he believed it had.
“You knew I was a target.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed silent.”
“I was trying to stop it.”
“You knew Dominic was a target.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Matteo was alive.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Matteo looked sharply at the phone.
Even he had not expected that.
Vincent’s voice became almost calm.
“Then there is only one thing I want to know.”
Lauren breathed softly.
“What?”
“When you accepted my ring, were you protecting me?”
He looked toward the tunnel.
“Or waiting to see which brother survived?”
Lauren began to answer.
Then a gunshot exploded through the phone.
Dominic shouted.
The call dropped.
Vincent stared at the dead screen.
Then Matteo’s security alarm began screaming again.
This time the warning flashed across every monitor.
SUCCESSOR NODE TWO: TERMINATED.
Vincent looked at Matteo.
“Node two?”
Matteo’s face had gone white.
May you like
“Dominic.”
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