THE STOLEN DIAMONDS AND THE SLEEPING SHADOWS

The silence that followed Isabella’s scream was absolute. It pressed against my eardrums like deep water.

“We have to get to the security room,” Roman said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “The master key is a physical drive. If Victor plugs it into the mainframe, he can lock the blast doors on every floor. We’ll be buried alive.”

“What about Isabella?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I didn’t like the woman—she treated me like furniture—but the sheer terror in her voice had chilled me to the bone.

“Isabella is bait,” Roman replied coldly. He checked the magazine of his weapon, the metallic click echoing in my tiny room. “Victor knows I won’t leave her to die. He’s using her to draw me out.”

“Then we shouldn’t go.” I clutched Sophie. “We should find another way out.”

“There is no other way out. The perimeter is already sealed.” Roman turned to me, his dark eyes locking onto mine. “I won’t let them hurt you. Or Sophie. Do you trust me?”

I looked at the man who commanded empires and controlled the underworld. I looked at the mud-stained coat on my bed, left by a sister I thought I had buried five years ago.

“Yes,” I said. And to my shock, I meant it.

We moved back into the red-lit service corridor. Roman moved with lethal grace, his body a shield between the darkness and my daughter. Sophie was unnervingly quiet, her small face buried in my shoulder. She was too young to understand the danger, but she felt the terror radiating from me.

The security room was on the ground floor, hidden behind a false bookcase in the library. As we crept up the secondary stairwell, the smell of burnt electrical wire hit my nose.

Roman held up a hand. We stopped.

He peeked around the corner into the massive, two-story library.

The false bookcase was swung wide open. The heavy steel door to the security room was ajar, spilling harsh white light onto the antique Persian rugs.

In the center of the library, tied to a heavy leather armchair, was Isabella.

Her immaculate updo was ruined. Her mascara ran down her cheeks in thick black rivers. Her wrists were bound with zip ties, and a piece of silver duct tape covered her mouth.

She wasn’t wearing her three-million-dollar necklace. But dangling from her neck on a cheap leather cord was something else.

A charred, half-melted object.

“Stay here,” Roman whispered.

He stepped out of the stairwell, his gun raised, scanning the shadows of the upper balconies. “Victor! I’m here. Let her go.”

Nothing but silence.

Roman moved quickly, sweeping the room before approaching Isabella. He ripped the tape from her mouth.

Isabella gasped, choking on sobs. “Roman! Behind you!”

Roman spun, raising his weapon, but the balconies were empty.

I crept forward, unable to stay back. I stepped into the library, keeping Sophie pressed against my chest.

When Isabella saw me, her eyes widened in pure hatred.

“You,” she spat, her voice raw. “This is your fault.”

“Isabella, shut up,” Roman snapped, cutting her zip ties with a pocket knife. “Where is Victor?”

“He left!” Isabella cried, rubbing her bruised wrists. “He tied me up and left her here to watch me. That freak who looks like her!” She pointed a trembling finger at me.

“Where is Elena?” I demanded, stepping closer.

“She went down to the garage,” Isabella sobbed. “Victor told her to prep the cars. But before she left… she put this on me.”

Isabella reached up with shaking hands and pulled the heavy object from around her neck. She threw it on the floor in disgust.

It hit the hardwood with a dull clatter.

I stepped forward. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t look away.

It was a charred, half-melted wooden picture frame. Inside, perfectly preserved beneath soot-stained glass, was a photograph.

It was a picture of Elena and me, taken on our eighteenth birthday. We were smiling, our arms wrapped around each other.

But someone had taken a knife and violently gouged out my eyes in the photo.

“She told me to give you a message,” Isabella said, her voice dripping with venom as she glared at me. “She said, ‘Tell my sister the fire was meant for her.’”

My knees buckled. I hit the floor hard, clutching the photograph.

The fire. Five years ago. The fire that killed our parents. The fire I thought Elena died in because she ran back inside to save our mother.

She didn’t run back in to save them.

She started it. To kill me.

“Why?” I whispered, tears spilling hot and fast down my cheeks. “Why would she want me dead?”

Isabella let out a cruel, bitter laugh. Even in her terror, her arrogance remained.

“Oh, please,” Isabella sneered, looking between me and Roman. “Don’t act so innocent. Victor told me everything. He told me why Roman hired you in the first place.”

I froze. I looked up at Roman.

Roman’s face was pale. The gun in his hand was lowered, and for the first time, he looked entirely exposed.

“Isabella, enough,” Roman warned, his voice dangerous.

“Tell her, Roman!” Isabella shrieked, standing up. “Tell the little maid why she really works here! Tell her who actually fathered her precious little girl!”

I felt the air leave the room.

I looked at Roman. My boss. The man who had given me a job when I was pregnant, homeless, and grieving.

“Roman?” I whispered.

Before he could answer, the heavy steel door of the security room slammed shut with a deafening boom. The electronic lock beeped three times.

Red lights flashed across the library. A mechanized voice echoed from the ceiling.

“Lockdown initiated. Purge system activated in T-minus three minutes.”

Roman’s eyes widened in sheer panic. “The fire suppression system. It sucks all the oxygen out of the room.”

He ran to the heavy oak doors of the library and pulled. Locked.

We were trapped.