Chapter 2 - The Erased Night
Elena sprinted toward the service stairs leading down to the ground-floor exit. Her hands were shaking violently as she pulled her old flip phone from her pocket, her thumbs flying across the worn keypad to dial Daniel’s private line.
Ring... ring...
"Come on, Daniel, answer... please answer..." she prayed under her breath, bursting through the heavy swinging door into the secondary kitchen.
On the third ring, the line connected.
"Daniel!" Elena gasped, leaning against the cold stainless-steel counter for support, her lungs burning. "Daniel, you need to listen to me right now! Do not sign anything! Victoria is in your mother's study with Julian Vance! They are taking photos of the original 1998 founder shares—"
The line sizzled with static. A strange, metallic click vibrated through the receiver, followed by a low, mechanical buzz.
"Elena?" Daniel’s voice sounded muffled, distant, as if he were calling from inside a tunnel. "Elena, I can barely hear you. The signal is dropping out. I'm on the highway heading to the airport for the late meeting with the terminal directors—"
"Daniel, listen to me!" she screamed into the phone. "She's trying to ruin you! She's working with Vance! They want the shipping terminals—"
A strong, gloved hand suddenly clamped over Elena’s mouth from behind.
Her phone was ripped from her grip and slammed onto the hard tile floor, the screen shattering into a spiderweb of black glass. Elena fought wildly, kicking back, her elbows striking the hard chest of a heavy set man in dark tactical gear.
A second man stepped out from the shadows of the pantry, holding a small syringe filled with a clear, heavy liquid.
"Hold her still!" Victoria’s voice commanded softly from the archway.
Victoria stepped into the service kitchen, her expression calm, her posture completely unruffled. She picked up the broken phone from the floor, pulled out the SIM card, and snapped it cleanly in half between her manicured thumb and forefinger.
Elena thrashed against the grip of the large man, her muffled cries echoing uselessly against the cold steel appliances. "Daniel... Daniel..."
"He can't hear you, Elena," Victoria whispered, walking over to stand directly in front of her. "And even if he heard a few scattered words, he’ll hear my story five minutes from now. He will hear that you attacked me in the study, that you stole a set of historic family heirlooms, and that you fled into the night because you couldn't bear to see him marry another woman."
The second man plunged the needle into the side of Elena’s neck.
A sharp, burning coldness spread instantly down her spine. Her vision swam; the bright fluorescent lights of the kitchen began to stretch into long, distorted smears of white. Her knees buckled, and her body went completely limp in the guard’s arms.
"Where are we taking her?" the man holding the syringe asked.
"The old dairy farm near Kankakee," Victoria said, leaning down so her face was inches from Elena’s fading eyes. "The one my family bought through a shell company three years ago. Keep her down in the root cellar beneath the floorboards. No phone, no light, no visitors. She gets water twice a week and basic rations. If she dies, bury her behind the silo."
"And if Daniel sends investigators?"
"Daniel won't send investigators," Victoria smiled, stepping back as the darkness finally pulled Elena under. "By tomorrow morning, Daniel will believe she took three million dollars from the family discretionary account and abandoned him without a second thought."
Forty minutes later, Daniel Castellan’s black limousine pulled up to the front entrance of the North Shore manor.
Rain had begun to fall in heavy, violent sheets. Daniel stepped out of the car, his tie loosened, his face pale with fatigue. He jogged up the marble steps and pushed open the heavy front doors.
"Elena?" he called out, his voice echoing in the empty, silent foyer. "Elena, are you here? My phone cut out on the expressway—"
He stopped dead in his tracks.
Standing at the base of the grand staircase was Victoria. Her hair was wildly disheveled, her expensive silk dress was torn at the shoulder, and a dark red bruise was bloomingly rapidly along her left cheekbone. She was shaking hysterically, clutching a hand towel to her chest.
"Daniel!" she sobbed, throwing herself into his arms. "Oh God, Daniel! Thank God you're home!"
Daniel caught her, his blood instantly running cold. "Victoria! What happened?! Who did this to you?!"
"It was... it was Elena!" Victoria wailed, burying her face into his wet lapel. "I came down to check on the security locks... and I found her in your mother's private study! She had opened the main safe!"
Daniel stared at her, feeling as though the room were spinning out of control. "What? That's impossible. Elena doesn't even know the code to the main safe—"
"She had the master key, Daniel!" Victoria cried, pulling back and looking into his eyes with wild, tear-filled desperation. "She had a crowbar! She was shoving your mother's historic jewelry and the original stock ledgers into a canvas bag! When I tried to stop her, she... she hit me! She shoved me against the marble desk!"
"No..." Daniel whispered, shaking his head in total disbelief. "No, Elena wouldn't do that. She would never hurt anyone. She would never steal from my mother!"
"Look at the study, Daniel!" Victoria shouted, pointing a trembling finger down the dark corridor. "Look at what she left behind!"
Daniel sprinted down the hallway to his mother's study.
The room was in absolute ruin. The oil painting of Rosalind had been ripped from the wall and slashed down the middle. The safe door swung wide open, completely empty. Books were thrown across the floor, antique vases lay shattered in the hearth, and on the central desk sat a heavy, blood-stained brass paperweight.
Beside the paperweight lay Elena’s master key ring and a single, printed letter bearing Elena’s signature.
Daniel’s hands shook uncontrollably as he picked up the paper.
Daniel,I have served this family for thirty years, and I have watched you give away everything your father built to a woman who doesn't care about your legacy. I took what I am owed for three decades of underpaid labor. Do not come looking for me. If you send the police, I will tell the press every dark secret your mother buried during the 1998 reorganization.- Elena
Daniel dropped the letter onto the desk as if it were made of burning coal.
"She took the bearer bonds from the secondary vault too," Victoria whispered, coming up behind him and placing her arms around his waist. "Over three million dollars in negotiable instruments. I called security, but her car is already gone from the garage."
Daniel stood frozen in the middle of the ruined room. The air felt thick, heavy, like wet concrete settling in his lungs. He looked at the slashed portrait of his mother, then down at the master keys lying on the desk.
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"She abandoned me," Daniel whispered, his voice cracking into a hollow, broken echo. "After thirty years... she took the money and left."
"I'm here, Daniel," Victoria murmured, pressing her bruised cheek against his back, her eyes shining with cold, triumphant victory in the dark room. "I will never leave you."
