Chapter 2 - The Second Set of Keys
By eight o’clock that morning, Matteo Draven was standing in the center of an impeccably tidy bedroom that smelled faintly of gardenias and expensive soap.
The wedding ring sat on his pillow like a small, deliberate insult.
"She didn't use the gates," Viktor Romanov said, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his massive chest. Viktor had managed Matteo’s security detail for a decade; he knew every camera angle, every sensor wire, and every flaw in the perimeter. "We checked the license plate readers on the north and south access roads. No vehicle registered to you, her, or any household staff crossed the perimeter between midnight and six."
"Then she walked," Matteo said quietly. He wasn't yelling. His voice had dropped into that low, flat register that always made his capos check the safety catches on their sidearms.
"In seven-inch heels, boss? In this weather?" Viktor frowned, stepping further into the room. "The ground's frozen solid. She wouldn't make it to the highway before patrol car three picked her up."
Matteo walked to the closet, his fingers trailing over the empty hanger space where a navy wool coat and a pair of flat leather boots should have been hanging. He slid his hand along the cedar paneling at the back, feeling for the slight give in the joinery. The secret latch was depressed—not broken, but deliberately clicked open from the inside.
A muscle ticked beneath Matteo's left eye. "She didn't find this on her own," he murmured.
"Nobody knew about that passage except you and the old man," Viktor said, his face hardening. "Not even Camille."
Matteo turned his head sharply. "Where is Camille?"
"Downstairs. In the breakfast room."
When Matteo entered the kitchen wing, Camille was sitting at the marble island with a cup of black coffee, her fingers trembling slightly as she stirred sugar into a cup she wasn't drinking. She looked up as he strode in, her usual defensive smirk replaced by a tight, hunted look.
"I didn't tell her anything about the walls, Matteo," Camille said before he could speak. "I swear to God. I didn't even know where that exit led."
"Someone gave her the idea that she could just walk out of here and keep breathing," Matteo said, stopping inches from her stool. He reached out, his fingers catching her chin just as he had twelve hours earlier in the billiard room—only this time, there was no heat in the touch, only a cold, clinical assessment. "She took thirty-four thousand in emergency cash from the floorboard. My cash. And she took the customs ledger from the top drawer of the study."
Camille’s breath caught. "The ledger? How would she even—she doesn't care about business, Matteo. She spends her afternoons picking out nursery wallpaper."
"She cared enough to look," Matteo said, releasing her chin with a sharp shove that made her stumble backward off the stool. "And now she's out there with an unborn Draven heir in her belly, carrying documents that could unseat half the board by spring."
"She won't go to the feds," Camille argued, clutching the edge of the counter. "Vivian's too proud. She'd rather die than admit she married a monster who was sleeping with her sister."
"Vivian isn't proud anymore," Matteo said, walking toward the heavy oak exit. "She's cornered. And a cornered animal doesn't care who she bites." He paused at the door and glanced back at Viktor. "Get every vehicle on the interstate loop. Call the terminals in Richmond and Norfolk. She’s got no money for flights without a paper trail, which means she’s on a bus or a train. Find her before she reaches state lines."
"And if she resists?" Viktor asked.
May you like
Matteo’s expression didn't flicker. "Bring her home. But if she’s handed that ledger to anyone with a badge, make sure she understands the cost of breaking a family promise."
---
