Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO NEVER ASKED WHY
At 12:16 a.m., Evelyn Hart stood outside the Grand Aurelia beneath a cold November sky, wondering whether she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.
A black sedan idled at the curb.
Two men stood beside it.
Adrien Belandi emerged from the restaurant behind her, carrying the napkin with the children's drawing folded inside his jacket.
“I'm having someone drive you home.”
“That's unnecessary.”
“Someone has been watching you.”
Evelyn stopped.
“What?”
Adrien's expression remained unreadable.
“I don't know who yet. But I intend to find out.”
She looked back through the restaurant windows. The triplets stood behind the glass with their nanny. The little girl pressed both palms against the window.
Evelyn raised her hand.
The child copied her.
Then one of the boys did the same.
The third followed a second later.
For the first time in two years, all three children were reaching toward someone instead of hiding from the world.
Evelyn felt something ache behind her ribs.
“Will I see them again?”
“If you want to.”
She studied Adrien's face.
“That's not what I asked.”
He understood.
“You will.”
It was a promise spoken by a man whose promises usually carried consequences.
Evelyn should have refused the car. She should have gone home, locked her door, and forgotten the entire evening.
Instead, she glanced at the triplets one last time and got into the sedan.
The drive to her apartment took twenty minutes.
Her building stood between a laundromat and a closed pharmacy on a street where the streetlights flickered whenever it rained. The paint peeled from the stairwell walls. Someone had left a broken stroller beside the mailboxes.
It was not the sort of place a Belandi would ordinarily visit.
Adrien followed her inside anyway.
He took in the cracked ceiling, the narrow hallway, the heater that rattled like a dying engine.
“You live here alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Evelyn frowned.
“Because I can't afford to live somewhere else.”
He looked at her as if the answer had exposed something ugly about the world.
Then he noticed the envelope taped to her apartment door.
FINAL NOTICE. PAYMENT REQUIRED WITHIN SIX DAYS.
Evelyn pulled it down quickly.
“Don't.”
Adrien's eyes narrowed.
“Don't what?”
“Don't look at me like I'm another problem you can solve by throwing money at it.”
He said nothing.
She unlocked her apartment.
It consisted of one bedroom, a kitchen barely large enough for two people, and a living room with a secondhand sofa. A stack of library books sat beside the window. On the refrigerator, a photograph showed Evelyn at seventeen, standing beside a smiling woman with tired eyes.
“My mother,” she explained when she caught him looking.
“Is she alive?”
“No.”
Something in her voice discouraged further questions.
Adrien removed a card from his pocket.
“My private number. If anything unusual happens, call me.”
Evelyn accepted it reluctantly.
“Do you always give your number to waitresses?”
“No.”
“Then why me?”
He considered the question.
“Because my daughter trusted you.”
He left before she could answer.
Evelyn locked the door behind him and leaned against it.
Only then did she notice the second envelope on her kitchen counter.
She had not left it there.
Her heart began to pound.
Inside was a photograph of the Grand Aurelia dining room, taken through the glass.
The picture showed Evelyn crouching beside the triplets.
Someone had circled her face in red ink.
On the back, five words had been written in black marker.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED SILENT.
She called the number on Adrien's card.
He answered immediately.
“Evelyn?”
“Someone came into my apartment.”
The line went quiet.
Then she heard him say something to someone beside him.
“Lock down the building. Nobody enters or leaves.”
His voice returned to her ear.
“Listen carefully. Do not touch anything else. Go into your bathroom, lock the door, and stay on the line.”
She obeyed.
“Who did this?” she whispered.
“I don't know yet.”
“Is it because of the children?”
“Yes.”
The honesty frightened her more than a comforting lie would have.
“Why would anyone care whether three children speak?”
Adrien didn't answer.
Because he was beginning to suspect that the silence of his children had never been a medical mystery.
It had been a business arrangement.
For two years, his brother Lucian had managed the family's legitimate holdings while Adrien buried himself in the dangerous work of keeping their criminal empire from collapsing.
Lucian had insisted that Celeste was gone forever.
He had insisted the children needed time.
He had insisted the cellar was empty.
And last week, an anonymous account had transferred a large sum into a dormant company linked to the old Belandi estate.
Adrien had assumed it was an accounting error.
Now he was no longer certain.
“Evelyn,” he said, “I need you to tell me exactly what my daughter said.”
“Sellar.”
“And nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
He closed his eyes.
Then he remembered something his daughter had done the previous Christmas.
She had taken a toy key from beneath the tree and hidden it inside the pocket of his coat.
He had found it days later and assumed it was one of her games.
The key was still in his bedroom drawer.
“Adrien?” Evelyn said.
He opened his eyes.
“I want you to understand something. Whoever entered your apartment was trying to frighten you away from my children.”
“Congratulations. It worked.”
“No, it didn't.”
She hated that he knew her so quickly.
“I'll be there in ten minutes,” he said.
“You don't have to—”
“I'm coming.”
The call ended.
Evelyn stepped out of the bathroom when she heard a knock.
She expected Adrien.
Instead, a woman stood in the hallway.
She was in her late sixties, dressed in a dark wool coat, with silver hair tucked beneath a knitted hat. She held a small paper bag in one hand.
“Evelyn Hart?”
“Yes?”
The woman looked over her shoulder before stepping closer.
“My name is Margaret Bell. I used to work at the Belandi estate.”
Evelyn's stomach tightened.
“Why are you here?”
Margaret pushed the paper bag into her hands.
“Because I heard the little girl speak.”
Inside the bag was a brass key.
Beneath it lay a photograph of Celeste Belandi holding the triplets as newborns.
On the back, in handwriting that matched the warning on Evelyn's envelope, were six words:
THE CELLAR ISN'T WHERE THEY BURIED HER.
Margaret's fingers closed around Evelyn's wrist.
“Listen to me. If Adrien asks you to trust his family, don't.”
“Why?”
The older woman's eyes filled with tears.
“Because his brother didn't make those children stop speaking.”
May you like
She leaned closer.
“His father did.”
