Chapter 6 - The Room Behind the WallThe forty-seventh floor of Moretti Tower did not exist.
At least, that was what every elevator panel, architectural directory, public construction permit, and employee handbook claimed.
The building jumped from forty-six to forty-eight.
Superstition, Dante had always assumed.
Many skyscrapers skipped certain numbers.
He had never questioned it.
Now he stood in the executive elevator with Sienna, Nero, Luca, and a demolition specialist staring at a section of polished steel wall that had been part of his family’s headquarters since his childhood.
“My father used this elevator every day,” Dante said.
Sienna watched the floor indicator.
Then 48.
No hesitation.
No hidden stop.
Nero opened a maintenance panel.
“Blueprint says the emergency shaft is twelve feet deeper here than it should be.”
“How do we access it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Dante looked impatient.
“We have explosives.”
Sienna stared at him.
“What?”
“You solve a surprising number of architectural problems with explosives.”
“And create new ones.”
The demolition specialist wisely kept silent.
Nero traced a bundle of wiring.
“Wait.”
He pressed a recessed switch.
Nothing happened.
Then he entered Antonio Moretti’s birth date on a service keypad.
The elevator lights flickered.
A mechanical click echoed behind them.
The wall panel slid sideways.
Cold air flowed from the darkness.
Everyone stared.
A narrow corridor existed where solid structure should have been.
Dante stepped forward first.
Sienna caught his arm.
“Could be trapped.”
“In my own building?”
“Especially in your own building.”
She pulled a compact flashlight from her pocket and swept the floor.
No wires.
No pressure plates.
No obvious sensors.
They advanced.
Twenty feet down, the corridor ended at an old steel door.
No digital lock.
Just a keyhole.
Dante stared.
“I know that lock.”
Sienna glanced at him.
“From where?”
“My father’s study.”
He reached beneath his shirt and removed a chain.
A small brass key hung from it.
“My father gave me this the week before he died.”
Sienna’s eyebrows lifted.
“And you never knew what it opened?”
“He told me I’d know when I needed it.”
Dante inserted the key.
It turned.
The door opened.
The room beyond had been preserved like a tomb.
Dust covered a wooden desk.
Shelves held paper files.
Old surveillance equipment occupied one wall.
A server rack hummed quietly in the corner, powered by a hidden electrical line.
Seventeen years.
Still running.
Nero whispered.
“This is impossible.”
“No,” Sienna said.
She looked at the redundant power units.
“Government engineering.”
Dante walked toward the desk.
A framed photograph sat face down.
He picked it up.
His entire body stiffened.
Sienna moved beside him.
The photograph showed a younger Antonio Moretti.
Beside him stood a dark-haired woman Sienna recognized from Dante’s family portraits.
His mother.
Isabella.
And beside Isabella stood Elias Kane.
But there was another person.
A teenage girl.
Perhaps fifteen.
She had Dante’s eyes.
Dante’s jaw.
Sienna looked at him.
“Elena?”
Dante did not answer.
His fingers tightened around the frame.
“My sister was six when the car crashed.”
Sienna looked closer.
The girl could not be six.
The photo had a printed date.
The accident had occurred in 2009.
“This was taken after?”
“The date could be wrong.”
Nero found another photograph.
Then another.
Elena at sixteen.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
Alive.
Years after she had supposedly died.
Dante lowered himself into the desk chair.
“No.”
Sienna had never seen him retreat from reality before.
“This is wrong.”
She remained quiet.
“My father identified their bodies.”
“Did you see them?”
He looked at her sharply.
“I was nine.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Dante looked away.
“No.”
Sienna crouched beside him.
“You were told they were dead.”
“Yes.”
“By your father.”
His eyes returned to the photographs.
For the first time, anger entered his expression.
Not loud anger.
Something deeper.
“My entire life.”
Nero approached carefully.
“There’s a VHS recorder.”
Dante looked at him.
“Play it.”
A cassette was already inside.
Nero connected the machine to an old monitor.
Static appeared.
Then Antonio Moretti filled the screen.
Dante stopped breathing.
His father looked tired.
Older than in the photographs.
“If you are watching this, Dante, then I failed.”
Dante stood slowly.
Antonio continued.
“There are things I should have told you when you were a boy. I told myself silence protected you. Perhaps that was cowardice.”
Sienna watched Dante’s face.
“Project Orpheus began as an intelligence alliance between organized crime and elements of the United States government.”
Nero muttered.
“Oh, this is bad.”
Antonio looked directly into the camera.
“During the Cold War, governments needed access to places governments could not officially enter. Ports. Unions. Smuggling networks. Financial channels. Families like ours supplied those routes.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“In return, law enforcement pressure was selectively redirected. Protection was exchanged for access.”
Sienna understood.
“Mafia and intelligence.”
Nero whispered.
“Working together.”
Antonio continued.
“But Orpheus evolved.”
The image flickered.
“By the time Elias Kane assumed operational control, it was no longer an alliance. It was a marketplace.”
Sienna felt vindicated and horrified simultaneously.
“Kane sold missions.”
Antonio confirmed it seconds later.
“Governments, corporations, criminal organizations. Anyone with enough money could place a target into the system.”
Sienna looked at Dante.
The recording continued.
“I attempted to withdraw the Moretti family.”
Dante whispered.
“That’s why.”
“My decision made us liabilities.”
Antonio’s voice broke slightly.
“Isabella discovered what Kane planned.”
Dante stepped closer to the screen.
“She took Elena and tried to leave Chicago.”
His fists clenched.
“The car crash was staged.”
Dante’s face went white.
Sienna stood beside him.
Antonio looked broken.
“I was told both had died.”
Dante whispered.
“You lied.”
“Six months later, I received proof Elena was alive.”
Dante’s head lifted.
“I found her. But Kane had already taken her into Orpheus.”
Sienna closed her eyes.
She knew where this was going.
“No.”
Antonio continued.
“She was trained.”
Dante looked at Sienna.
“My sister?”
“Your sister became one of Kane’s operatives.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Antonio lowered his voice.
“Dante, if Elena is still alive when you find this, do not underestimate her.”
A photograph filled the screen.
Adult Elena.
Thirty years old.
Dark hair.
Moretti eyes.
A thin scar along her throat.
Sienna recognized her.
She had seen that face before.
Not personally.
In Unit 77 files.
Codename: VESPER.
“Oh God.”
Dante looked at her.
“You know her.”
Sienna nodded slowly.
“Vesper.”
“Who is Vesper?”
“One of the best deep-cover operatives Unit 77 ever produced.”
“Ever?”
“She vanished three years before I joined.”
Dante stared at the image.
“What happened to her?”
“No one knew.”
Antonio’s recording continued.
“Elias believes Elena belongs to him.”
Dante’s expression turned murderous.
“He took my sister.”
“He took her mind,” Antonio said from seventeen years in the past.
That sentence silenced everyone.
“I tried to get her back.”
The video shook.
Antonio looked over his shoulder, frightened.
“I failed.”
He leaned toward the camera.
“If Kane contacts you, he already knows this room has been opened.”
Nero looked at the server.
As if summoned, a red light activated.
Beep.
Sienna spun.
“Move!”
A small device beneath the server rack began flashing.
Not an explosive.
A transmitter.
Nero ripped cables free.
Too late.
The monitor changed.
A live video feed replaced Antonio’s recording.
Elias Kane appeared.
Older.
Silver-haired.
Calm.
Sienna raised her pistol instinctively at the screen.
Kane smiled.
“There you are.”
Dante stepped forward.
“Where is my sister?”
Kane studied him.
“Antonio’s son.”
“Answer me.”
“You sound like him.”
Dante slammed his fist into the desk.
“Where is Elena?”
Kane smiled faintly.
“Closer than you think.”
Sienna stepped between Dante and the monitor.
“You lost control of Unit 77.”
Kane looked pleased to see her.
“Sienna.”
“The cleanup team attacked Marcus.”
“A regrettable misunderstanding.”
“Bullshit.”
Kane’s expression cooled.
“Marcus disobeyed orders.”
“So you sent people to kill him?”
“I sent people to protect Orpheus.”
“You always did enjoy changing words.”
Dante leaned toward the camera.
“You have twenty seconds to tell me where my sister is before I start dismantling every asset you have in Chicago.”
Kane laughed softly.
“Still thinking like a gangster.”
“Fifteen.”
“You cannot threaten what you cannot see.”
“Ten.”
Kane’s eyes shifted.
“Very well.”
The screen split.
A second camera feed appeared.
A woman sat in a dim room.
Dark hair.
Hands free.
No restraints.
She looked directly at the camera.
Dante stopped counting.
“Elena.”
The woman slowly stood.
She resembled him so strongly it was almost unsettling.
Same eyes.
Same stillness before violence.
“Hello, little brother.”
Dante made a sound Sienna had never heard from him.
Not anger.
Pain.
“Elena?”
She smiled.
“You got tall.”
Dante walked closer until his hand touched the monitor.
“You’re alive.”
“So are you.”
“Where are you?”
Elena’s smile disappeared.
“With family.”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
“Kane isn’t family.”
“He raised me.”
“He stole you.”
Elena’s expression flashed.
Danger.
“You don’t know what happened.”
“Our mother—”
“Do not talk about Mother.”
Dante went silent.
Elena stepped closer to her camera.
“You think Father was a victim? He built Orpheus. He profited from it for years.”
“He tried to leave.”
“After he became afraid.”
Dante’s face twisted.
“He searched for you.”
“He found me.”
“And?”
“I told him I didn’t want to be found.”
The words devastated him.
Sienna saw it.
Elena continued.
“Father wanted me to come back to Chicago. Become the grieving little girl again. Pretend none of it happened.”
Her gaze shifted toward Sienna.
“But Sienna understands.”
Sienna felt uneasy.
“Don’t use me.”
“You understand what training does.”
“That doesn’t mean Kane saved you.”
“He gave me purpose.”
“He gave you orders.”
“Same thing, sometimes.”
Sienna shook her head.
“No.”
Elena smiled faintly.
“You’ve changed.”
“So can you.”
Kane reappeared on the main feed.
“This reunion is touching, but time is limited.”
The countdown appeared.
18:06:13.
“You will bring me the drive at the federal courthouse.”
Dante stared at Elena.
“You’re there?”
She said nothing.
Kane answered.
“Come and find out.”
Sienna stepped closer.
“Why do you need the drive if Orpheus exists elsewhere?”
“Because there is one file I cannot access.”
“What file?”
Kane smiled.
“You.”
Sienna frowned.
“The drive contains a biometric authorization key encoded to your operational identity. When you stole the archive, you unknowingly locked Project Orpheus.”
Nero understood first.
“She’s the final encryption factor.”
Kane nodded.
“Sienna opens Orpheus.”
Sienna stared at the screen.
“And if I refuse?”
Kane looked toward Dante.
“Then Dante loses his sister again.”
Elena did not react.
That was worse.
Dante moved toward the monitor.
“If you touch her—”
Elena interrupted.
“He doesn’t have to.”
She looked directly at her brother.
“I’ll kill Sienna myself if you interfere.”
Silence.
Dante slowly turned toward Sienna.
Sienna saw the conflict in his eyes.
Sister.
Woman beside him.
Blood.
Loyalty.
Past.
Present.
Kane smiled.
“There it is.”
The screen went black.
Sienna exhaled.
Dante stared at his own reflection.
“You don’t have to choose,” she said.
He looked at her.
“Yes, I do.”
“No.”
“She threatened you.”
“She’s conditioned.”
“She knew exactly what she was saying.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Dante walked away.
Sienna followed.
“You’ve wanted her back for seventeen years without knowing it.”
“And now she wants you dead.”
“She doesn’t know me.”
“That usually doesn’t stop people.”
Sienna grabbed his arm.
He turned.
“I am not asking you to kill your sister.”
“What are you asking?”
“Trust me.”
Dante stared at her.
It was almost funny.
The first night they met, he had accused her of being an assassin.
Hours later he had imprisoned her.
Now she was asking him to trust her with the only surviving piece of his childhood.
Finally he spoke.
“If she points a gun at you—”
“I disarm her.”
“If you can’t?”
“I will.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
Dante moved closer.
His forehead almost touched hers.
“If she kills you, Sienna, being my sister will not save her.”
Sienna believed him.
That frightened her more than the threat itself.
She touched his face.
“Then make sure I don’t die.”
His hand covered hers.
“Always.”
Behind them, Nero cleared his throat.
“We have another issue.”
They separated reluctantly.
“What?”
Nero looked at the old server.
“When Kane activated the connection, I traced the transmission.”
“Where?”
Nero zoomed into a map.
Sienna stared.
It was not the courthouse.
The signal had originated beneath the Chicago River.
An abandoned freight tunnel.
Directly beneath the Gilded Cage.
Dante laughed once.
Coldly.
“He’s been under my club.”
Sienna looked at him.
“The whole time.”
The place where they had first met.
The spilled whiskey.
The broken wrist.
The beginning of everything.
Dante reached for his gun.
“Then before we go to the courthouse…”
May you like
His eyes became black.
“…we visit the basement.”
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