Chapter 7 - THE SACRIFICE
Meredith stepped forward, raising the heavy brass poker above her head. The metal gleamed in the warm light of the bedroom lamps.
I took a step back, my thumb hovering over the ‘Send’ button to upload the video to Gabriel, but I knew I wouldn't have time to dodge a full-force swing.
“Meredith, stop!” Eleanor screamed from the floor, scrambling to her feet.
But Meredith was completely unhinged. The prospect of losing the billion-dollar empire had shattered her carefully maintained facade. She swung the poker down toward my head.
Before the brass could connect, a figure stepped out from the hallway shadows and wedged herself directly between me and Meredith.
It was Vera.
The seventy-year-old former nanny didn't flinch. She raised her wooden walking cane and caught the descending brass poker mid-air. The impact cracked the wood of the cane, sending a shockwave through Vera’s arms, but she held strong.
“Don't you dare touch her,” Vera growled, a fierce, maternal wrath burning in her eyes.
Meredith stumbled back, shocked by the older woman’s strength. “You stupid old hag! I’ll kill you both!”
Seeing Vera—the woman she had paid to lie fifteen years ago, the woman she had treated like dirt—risking her life to defend a maid against the monster she had helped create, finally broke something deep inside Eleanor Romano.
Thirty years of vanity, cowardice, and greed collapsed in a single instant.
Eleanor let out a primal scream. She threw herself forward and tackled Meredith from behind.
The two wealthy women crashed into the heavy oak vanity. The brass poker clattered to the hardwood floor, spinning out of reach.
As they fell, Meredith’s hand opened. The pearl bracelet flew across the room, bouncing on the thick Persian rug.
“Elise! Get it!” Vera shouted, shoving Meredith’s shoulder back as the younger woman scrambled on her hands and knees toward the jewelry.
I dove across the rug, my fingers scraping the silk fibers. I snatched the pearl bracelet just a fraction of a second before Meredith’s clawing nails reached it.
I scrambled to my feet, clutching the heavy pearls to my chest.
Meredith shrieked in fury. She backhanded Eleanor across the face, a vicious crack that sent the older woman tumbling backward against the bedpost with a stunned cry.
“Run!” Eleanor shouted, holding a hand to her bleeding lip. “Elise, get it to Gabriel! Go!”
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed Vera’s hand, and we sprinted out of the master suite, diving into the narrow servant’s corridor just as the estate’s private security guards began pounding up the main marble staircase, alerted by the shouting.
We navigated the pitch-black service stairs entirely by memory. My heart was in my throat, expecting a flashlight beam to catch us at every turn. But Vera guided us through the labyrinth of the old house flawlessly, pushing through a hidden laundry exit that led directly out into the pouring rain behind the garage.
We piled into my beat-up Honda, and I peeled out of the service driveway, speeding away into the wet, neon-lit night of the city.
When we burst back through the door of Thomas’s boarding house room, Gabriel rushed forward, his face pale with worry.
“You’re bleeding,” Gabriel said, gently touching a scratch on my cheek that I hadn't even noticed.
“We got it,” I gasped, pressing the pearl bracelet into his hand.
Thomas took the bracelet. He didn't waste a second. He carried it over to the small desk lamp and inspected the large, luminous center pearl.
With a pair of heavy pliers from his toolbox, Thomas carefully squeezed the sides of the pearl.
With a sharp crack, the ceramic shell shattered.
Inside, exactly as he had promised, rested a tiny, micro-engraved copper cylinder, no bigger than a thimble.
Thomas retrieved a small ink pad from his bag. He rolled the copper cylinder across the black ink, then carefully pressed it down onto a clean sheet of white drafting paper.
We all leaned in as the black ink transferred to the page.
It wasn't a map. It was a set of bold, block letters and numbers.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF CHICAGO.SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX #409.ACCOUNT NAME: VERA MILLER.
Vera gasped, her hand flying to her chest. “My name? Thomas... you put the master patents in a safety deposit box under my name?”
Thomas looked at the older woman with deep, unwavering respect.
“You were the only person in that house who truly loved my son, Vera,” Thomas said softly. “I knew that if Arthur Vance came after me, he would tear apart my office, freeze my wife’s accounts, and search my friends. But I knew Arthur Vance’s arrogance. He would never, ever think to look at the nanny.”
Gabriel stared at the paper, a massive grin breaking across his face. We had the location. We had the key.
But my smile faded as I read the name of the bank again.
May you like
“Gabriel,” I whispered, pointing to the paper. “First National Bank of Chicago. Arthur Vance is the majority shareholder of that bank. If we walk in there tomorrow morning, his security cameras will flag us immediately.”
“Then we don't walk in quietly,” Gabriel said, his jaw setting with a fierce, dangerous resolve. “We walk through the front door and dare him to stop us.”
