Chapter 2 - The Sound Behind the Oak
The silence in the study didn't just fall; it solidified. It took on weight, pressing against the heavy velvet draperies, the leather-bound volumes on the shelves, and the cold glass of the tall windows facing Mount Vernon Street.
Roman Duca did not move. His hands remained resting on his knees, his broad shoulders framed against the shadow of his dropped overcoat. For twenty years, he had survived in a world where a sudden movement or a misplaced breath could draw a bullet. But nothing in his twenty years of street wars, blood debts, and syndicate negotiations had prepared him for the raw, unpolished truth coming from the mouth of a six-year-old girl.
"Mia," Roman said softly. His voice was a gravelly rasp, low enough that it didn't disturb the infant sleeping against her back. "Look at me."
The girl's hazel eyes snapped back to his face. She was trembling now, a fine, uncontrollable shudder running through her small arms, but she held his gaze. She had been taught by the staff that the master of the house was not to be spoken to, not to be looked at, and under no circumstances to be crossed.
"Say that again," Roman instructed.
"I... I'm sorry, Mr. Duca," Mia whispered, her knuckles turning white where she gripped the wet rag. Tears welled in her lower lids, threatening to spill onto her flushed cheeks. "I didn't mean to pry. I just hear her when I mop late at night. When the radiators stop clanking. She cries, and then she taps three times. Like this."
Mia lifted her small hand and tapped her knuckles against the leg of his mahogany desk.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Roman's heart slammed against his ribs like an iron pendulum.
Eleven years.
Eleven years ago, his younger sister, Elena Duca, had vanished from this very estate during the bloodiest week of the Boston syndicate wars. The official story—the one Roman's father, old Anthony Duca, had told the family, the press, and the police—was that Elena had been intercepted by the Moretti family on her way home from college, murdered, and dumped into the dark waters of Massachusetts Bay. A weighted casket had been buried in the family plot at Saint Joseph’s. Roman himself had carried the front handle of that casket, his shoulders numb, his heart turned to ash.
Roman stood up slowly. He seemed to fill the entire room, his tall, broad-shouldered frame blocking out the warm light of the desk lamp.
He didn't look at Mia. He walked past her, his heavy leather soles making no sound on the Oriental rug, until he stood six inches from the west wall.
The bookcase was eight feet tall, crafted from solid Brazilian mahogany in 1924 when his grandfather built the estate. It held four hundred leather-bound law books, historical texts, and family ledgers.
Roman pressed his palm flat against the wood. It was cold.
"Mia," Roman called without turning around. "How long have you heard this?"
"Since the summer, sir," Mia answered, her voice shaking. "When Mama started taking the late shift. I thought... I thought it was a ghost. Mama told me ghosts don't exist, that it was just the wind in the chimney. But wind doesn't tap back when you knock on the baseboard."
Roman felt a cold drop of sweat trickle down the back of his neck. He raised his hand and pressed his knuckles into the hollow space behind the third shelf, right where the decorative molding met the plaster.
He knew every inch of this house. Or he had believed he did. His father, Anthony Duca, had been a paranoid, secretive man who trusted no one—not his capos, not his wife, and certainly not his eldest son.
Roman applied pressure to the molding. Nothing moved. He shifted his weight, pushing sideways toward the fireplace.
A faint, metallic click echoed behind the plaster.
It was a sound so faint that the vacuum or a passing car on the street would have drowned it out entirely. But in the dead of midnight, it sounded like a pistol slide locking back.
A seam in the wood—invisible to the naked eye—opened a fraction of an inch.
Roman froze. He looked back at Mia. The little girl was watching him, her eyes wide, holding her breath.
Before Roman could pull the bookcase open, a faint, muffled sound echoed from the dark hallway outside the study. It wasn't the wall. It was the sound of leather shoes dragging across the oak floor near the service stairs.
Roman pulled a suppressed 9mm pistol from his shoulder holster in one continuous, fluid motion that Mia didn't even see happen. He stepped between the child and the doorway, his body instantly shifting into a shield.
"Stay behind the desk," Roman commanded in a voice made of frozen iron. "Do not make a sound."
Mia scrambled behind the heavy mahogany desk, crouching down, hugging her knees while her baby sister let out a soft, restless sigh in her sleep.
Roman moved to the threshold of the study and looked down the long, dim corridor toward the infirmary. The door he had seen standing half-open earlier was now swinging wide.
On the carpet lay Grace Harper.
Grace—Mia's mother—was crumpled on her side, her housekeeper's apron stained with spilled tea and medicine. Her face was pale, her breathing shallow and wet. Standing over her in the shadows was a man wearing a dark trench coat and leather gloves, holding a small glass syringe.
"Drop it," Roman said.
The man in the shadows spun around. The dim light from the hallway sconce caught the profile of his face.
It was Dr. Victor Vance—the Duca family’s private physician, a man who had been on Roman’s payroll for fifteen years.
"Roman!" Dr. Vance gasped, his voice cracking with panic. He backed away toward the rear service elevator. "I... I was just checking on Grace! She collapsed in the kitchen—"
"You're holding a lethal dose of potassium chloride, Victor," Roman said, stepping into the corridor. The red laser dot from his firearm settled precisely over the doctor's left eye. "You poisoned my housekeeper because she saw something she wasn't supposed to see tonight."
"Roman, listen to me!" Vance stammered, his knees shaking against the floorboards. "You don't know what's down there! Your father... your father made me swear! If anyone ever found out, the whole family falls! The Commission will wipe the Ducas out!"
"Where is my sister?" Roman asked. The coldness in his tone was absolute, horrifying in its simplicity.
Vance opened his mouth to scream, but Roman didn't wait. He didn't ask twice.
Roman pulled the trigger once. The suppressed shot made a quiet thwip sound.
Dr. Vance collapsed backward into the service elevator, his body going limp before he hit the floor.
Roman stepped over the doctor's body, pressed the elevator button to send it down to the basement, and then dropped to one knee beside Grace Harper. He checked her neck. Her pulse was weak, thready, but she was still breathing. Vance hadn't finished the injection.
Roman reached into his pocket, pulled out his encrypted satellite phone, and speed-dialed his most trusted underboss.
"Dominic," Roman said the second the line connected.
"Boss? What's wrong?" Dominic's gravelly voice came through the speaker, awake instantly.
"Lock down the estate. Bring two medical kits and four loyal men to my private quarters. Nobody leaves the grounds. If anyone tries to cross Mount Vernon Street, shoot them."
"On my way."
Roman hung up. He picked up Grace Harper in his arms, her body dangerously light, and carried her into his study. He laid her down gently on the long leather sofa near the window.
Mia popped her head out from behind the desk, her face white as chalk. She saw her mother on the sofa and let out a tiny, choked gasp.
"Mama?"
"She's alive, Mia," Roman said, turning to face the little girl. He put his gun back into his holster, hiding the steel from her eyes. "She's going to be okay. I give you my word."
Mia looked at him, then at her mother, and finally at the seam in the mahogany bookcase that was now standing three inches open, revealing a dark, vertical abyss behind the wall.
"Is the lady coming out now?" Mia asked softly.
May you like
Roman looked at the opening. His hand reached for the edge of the heavy shelf.
"No," Roman murmured, his throat tight with a pain he hadn't felt in eleven years. "I'm going in."
