Chapter 9 - The Lake HouseThe chapel became thunder.
People screamed. Guards fired. Victor shoved me behind the altar with one arm and reached for Leo with the other, but Leo had frozen exactly as he had in the sunroom.
Not again.
The thought ripped through me.
I moved before pain could stop me.
I grabbed Leo’s jacket and pulled him down behind the marble altar just as another bullet tore through the wooden pew where his head had been.
Victor fired twice.
The fake priest fell backward into the aisle.
Marco was on him in seconds, kicking the gun away and pressing a boot to his chest.
“Alive!” Victor shouted.
The shooter laughed.
Blood bubbled at his mouth.
Not enough to kill him.
Enough to make him terrifying.
His eyes found mine.
Not Victor.
Mine.
“Wrong door, Mrs. Romano,” he rasped.
Then his gaze slid to Leo.
“The boy opens the last one.”
His jaw clenched.
Marco cursed and forced his mouth open, but too late.
Poison capsule.
Again.
The shooter convulsed once and went still.
Victor pulled Leo into his arms so tightly the child squeaked.
I sat on the cold chapel floor, shaking with pain and adrenaline, my black wedding dress torn at the hem, my new ring slick with someone else’s blood.
Outside, sirens wailed.
Not police.
Victor’s private security.
No one called 911 in houses like this unless the emergency could be explained to ordinary people.
But ordinary had left my life the moment I threw myself over Leo.
By dawn, Victor moved us to the lake house.
It was not really a lake house.
It was a fortress pretending to be one.
Three hours north of Chicago, hidden behind pine trees and stone walls, the property sat on black water beneath a sky the color of steel. There were cameras in the trees, guards at the dock, motion sensors under the gravel, and bulletproof shutters behind charming white curtains.
Leo slept through most of the drive with his head in my lap.
Victor sat across from us in the armored SUV, watching the road through the windshield, one hand resting near his gun.
We had been married less than twelve hours.
We already had blood on the ceremony floor.
I looked down at Leo’s hair.
“He said Leo opens the last door,” I said.
Victor’s eyes moved to me.
“I heard.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Victor.”
“I don’t know,” he repeated, sharper.
Leo stirred, and Victor immediately lowered his voice.
“I have people searching Camila’s files. The red door was the first hidden room. There may be another.”
“And Leo is the key?”
The words made both of us look at the sleeping child.
Victor’s expression hardened into something almost unbearable.
“No one uses my son.”
I believed he meant it.
I also knew people already had.
At the lake house, I was given a downstairs bedroom because stairs were now my mortal enemy. Leo refused his own room and slept on a cot near mine. Victor did not argue. He simply stationed himself in the chair beside the window after Leo fell asleep.
“You have a bedroom,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Use it.”
“No.”
“Victor.”
He looked at me from the shadows. “Sleep, Clara.”
“You’re not my guard dog.”
“No. Guard dogs are less expensive.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
The darkness made honesty easier.
“Did you mean it?” I asked.
His head turned slightly.
“At the altar,” I said. “Your vows.”
A long silence.
“Yes.”
The answer unsettled me.
“This was supposed to be temporary.”
“It still can be.”
“Can be?”
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. In the dim light, he looked carved out of grief.
“I will honor the contract,” he said. “One year. If you want freedom, you’ll have it.”
“And if I don’t?”
The question escaped before I could stop it.
Victor went still.
My face heated.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
His voice was quiet.
Leo shifted in his sleep.
Victor lowered his gaze to the child. “I don’t know how to be anyone’s husband anymore.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No,” he said. “It was the answer I could give without lying.”
I looked at him.
Something moved between us then, fragile and dangerous. Not love. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But recognition.
Two people trapped in the same burning house, realizing the other one was not holding the match.
The next morning, Nathan called.
His face appeared on Victor’s secure tablet, too thin, too pale, but smiling like he had not terrified me every day for three years.
“So,” he said. “You married a mafia boss while I was asleep?”
“Technically you watched through video.”
“I was on pain medication. I thought it was a weird hospital dream.”
Victor stood just outside the frame, expression unreadable.
Nathan noticed anyway. “Is he there?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Put me on speaker.”
I did.
Nathan looked straight into the camera. “Mr. Romano.”
Victor stepped closer. “Nathan.”
“You hurt my sister, I don’t care how many men you have. I’ll haunt you.”
Victor blinked.
I closed my eyes. “Nathan.”
“What? I’m kidney-failing, not spineless.”
Victor said, completely serious, “Understood.”
Nathan looked satisfied. “Good. Also, thank you for the doctor. Clara says I’m not supposed to thank you because you’re emotionally complicated, but I’m alive enough to be grateful.”
Victor’s mouth moved again, almost smiling.
“You’re welcome.”
Then Nathan’s face changed.
“Clara,” he said slowly, “there’s something I didn’t tell you.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“A woman came to see me before they moved me. Older. Gray hair. Said she worked for your husband.”
Agnes.
Victor stepped fully into frame.
“When?” he asked.
“The day before the hospital note.”
“What did she want?”
Nathan swallowed. “She asked about Mom.”
My breath caught.
Our mother had died when I was seventeen. Cancer. Cheap funeral. No mystery, no mafia connection, nothing.
Or so I thought.
“What about Mom?” I whispered.
Nathan looked miserable. “She asked if Mom ever gave Clara anything before she died. Jewelry. Keys. Documents.”
Victor’s eyes sharpened.
I shook my head. “Mom didn’t have anything.”
“Clara,” Nathan said. “She did.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What?”
Nathan looked down.
“Before she died, she made me promise not to tell you unless someone came asking. I thought it was fever talk. She gave me an envelope.”
Victor’s voice was low. “Where is it?”
“In our old apartment.”
My hands went cold.
The old apartment with the bad radiator.
The loud neighbors.
The excellent taco truck downstairs.
Also the apartment I had not returned to since marrying Victor Romano.
Nathan continued, “She said it belonged to your father.”
I stared at him.
“My father died before I was born.”
Nathan’s face crumpled.
“No,” he whispered. “Clara, he didn’t.”
Behind me, Victor’s phone rang.
Marco’s name flashed on the screen.
Victor answered.
I could hear shouting on the other end.
May you like
Then Marco said five words that changed everything again.
“Agnes found the apartment first.”
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