Chapter 3 - FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
Roman stared at Miriam as if she had spoken the wrong name.
“Victor?”
“Yes.”
“He saved Julian?”
Miriam looked toward the window.
“For forty-eight hours, I believed he did.”
Serafina sat beside her mother.
“Start at the beginning.”
Miriam gave her a tired look.
“You always hated when I said that.”
“Tonight I mean it.”
Roman remained standing now.
He looked too restless to sit.
Miriam had been a cardiac nurse twelve years earlier at St. Anne’s, a private hospital that quietly treated people whose names did not always belong in ordinary admissions systems.
Shortly after two in the morning, Victor Cade had arrived through the ambulance entrance.
Julian Valenti was unconscious in the back seat of his car.
Burns.
Smoke inhalation.
A broken rib.
Internal bleeding.
“Victor said there were men looking for him,” Miriam continued.
“Whose men?” Roman asked.
“He didn’t say.”
“And you accepted that?”
“I worked nights in a hospital where cash arrived before ambulances. We learned not to ask the first question out loud.”
Serafina had never heard her mother sound so hard.
Not even during the worst weeks of her illness.
“Why you?” Serafina asked.
“Julian knew me.”
“How?”
“I volunteered at the Aurelia Relief Clinic.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“My brother’s foundation.”
“Yes.”
Serafina looked between them.
“What foundation?”
Roman answered.
“A medical and emergency fund for employees. Julian started it with my mother’s money.”
“Your mother?”
“She died when I was young. Julian used part of the inheritance to create Aurelia.”
Miriam smiled sadly.
“He believed emergency help should be given before desperation became leverage.”
The sentence sat heavily in the room.
Serafina thought about twelve thousand becoming twenty-five.
About Saint Violet.
About Victor.
Roman thought it too.
She saw it.
“What happened during those forty-eight hours?” he asked.
“Julian woke twice.”
“And?”
“He kept asking whether you were safe.”
Roman looked away.
“He said Victor had gotten him out.”
“From the warehouse?”
“Yes.”
“So Victor did save him.”
Miriam hesitated.
“He also kept asking for a red accounting book.”
Roman turned back.
“What red book?”
“I never saw it.”
“Did Victor?”
“I don’t know.”
On the second night, Julian had removed the silver pendant from his neck.
He pressed it into Miriam’s palm.
“He told me if he died, I was not to give it to Victor.”
Serafina touched the chain.
“Why?”
“He said Victor would know what it opened.”
Roman stepped closer.
“It opens something?”
Miriam nodded.
“The back edge. There’s a pin-sized latch.”
Serafina had worn the pendant for ten years.
She had never noticed.
Roman did not reach for it.
“May I?”
She hesitated.
Then removed the chain herself and placed the pendant on the nightstand.
Roman used the tip of a safety pin.
A tiny compartment opened.
Inside lay a thin flat key.
Serafina stared.
“You knew?”
Miriam shook her head.
“Julian only said there was something inside.”
“Why give it to me?”
“Because after ten years of hiding it, I became afraid I would die before deciding what to do.”
Serafina’s anger rose.
“So you put me in danger instead?”
Miriam flinched.
“No.”
“That is exactly what happened.”
“I thought no one knew.”
“Victor knew the second his man saw it.”
“I didn’t know he owned Saint Violet then.”
Roman looked sharply at Serafina.
“He doesn’t own it directly.”
“Does that matter?”
“Tonight? No.”
Miriam reached toward her daughter.
Serafina didn’t pull away.
But she didn’t take the hand either.
Not yet.
Roman’s voice softened.
“What happened to Julian?”
Miriam looked at him.
“His injuries were too severe.”
“You said he survived forty-eight hours.”
“He died shortly before dawn.”
“Was Victor there?”
“No.”
“Who was?”
“Me.”
Roman closed his eyes.
Serafina watched grief move through him twelve years late.
“Did he say anything?”
“Yes.”
Miriam struggled to stand.
Serafina immediately helped her.
Her mother crossed slowly to the closet.
From the highest shelf, she pulled down an old garment bag.
Inside hung a man’s black wool coat.
One sleeve had been cut.
Smoke had permanently browned the fabric near the shoulder.
Roman touched it as though it might disappear.
“Julian’s.”
“Yes.”
“I thought everything from the fire was destroyed.”
“This wasn’t found there.”
Miriam reached into the inner pocket.
She removed a gold watch.
The glass was cracked.
Roman’s breath caught.
“My father gave him that.”
“Julian told me you would recognize it.”
The tiny key from the pendant fit a slot beneath the winding crown.
Roman turned it.
A section of the watch’s back clicked open.
Inside was a folded strip of paper.
Roman unfolded it carefully.
A property transfer.
SAINT VIOLET HOLDINGS.
Serafina recognized the address immediately.
Her club.
Roman scanned the page.
His jaw tightened.
“Date?”
Miriam asked.
“Three days after Julian died.”
The transfer granted control of Saint Violet and several connected properties to Victor Cade.
Serafina looked at Roman.
“From whom?”
He didn’t answer.
“Roman.”
His eyes lifted.
“My father.”
Miriam inhaled.
Roman read the signature again.
ENZO VALENTI.
His face turned cold.
“My father gave Victor the club.”
Serafina thought of the owner taking Roman’s fifty thousand.
Of Victor’s collectors.
Of the debt that grew every time she paid it.
“Why?”
Roman flipped the paper.
There was handwriting on the back.
Julian’s handwriting.
Roman recognized it instantly.
Only six words.
May you like
THE DEBT IS THE WEAPON.
SAINT VIOLET IS THE PROOF.
