“New York.”
Arthur immediately frowned.
“What?”
Caleb continued.
“Manhattan.”
I stared at him.
“But the photo—”
“Real.”
“So she was in Connecticut yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
Caleb’s fingers moved rapidly across the screen.
“The call bounced through several systems, but the originating signal came from Midtown.”
Leo asked, “How close?”
Caleb looked up.
“Less than twenty miles from here.”
The entire room changed.
My mother wasn’t hundreds of miles away.
She was nearby.
Victor had wanted us looking in the wrong direction.
Noah reached for his phone.
“We move now.”
Caleb shook his head.
“No.”
Noah stared at him.
“She’s here.”
“And that means Victor wants us moving emotionally.”
“He threatened to kill her.”
“Exactly.”
Caleb looked at me.
“We do this intelligently.”
I hated that he was right.
I hated every second we wasted.
“Can you narrow the location?”
“I’m trying.”
Arthur suddenly spoke.
“Midtown.”
We turned.
He looked pale.
“There’s one place Victor would use.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
Arthur hesitated.
Noah snapped.
“Arthur.”
“The Mercer Building.”
Marcus frowned.
“That office tower on Lexington?”
Arthur nodded.
“I owned thirty percent years ago.”
“Years ago?”
“I sold my stake.”
“To who?”
Arthur looked at me.
“Victor.”
Caleb was already searching.
He stopped.
“Victor doesn’t appear anywhere in the ownership records.”
Arthur gave a humorless smile.
“He never does.”
Marcus moved beside him.
“Who owns it on paper?”
Caleb read the screen.
“North Vale Properties.”
Marcus froze.
I noticed.
“What?”
He looked toward me.
“That name was in the transfer records.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“The shell company?”
Marcus nodded.
“The same one that received almost nine million dollars from Vance Construction.”
I stared at Arthur.
“So your company has been sending money to a building Victor secretly controls?”
Arthur looked genuinely stunned.
“I didn’t authorize that.”
Marcus looked toward Wendy.
She went pale.
“Don’t look at me.”
Then everyone looked at Isaac’s empty place near the table.
The answer arrived without anyone speaking.
Marcus slowly said, “The transfers were approved under Isaac’s credentials.”
My stomach twisted.
Maybe Isaac had known far more than we thought.
Maybe his cruelty tonight had not been random.
Maybe my birthday party had been staged for another reason entirely.
I looked at Caleb.
“The man recording me.”
He nodded.
“Victor’s observer.”
“Why?”
Noah turned.
“To confirm something.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
Noah studied me.
“That Flora would call us.”
The room went quiet.
Julian understood next.
“So the entire humiliation could have been bait.”
My skin went cold.
Isaac tying me up.
Clover smiling.
Wendy laughing.
Fifty witnesses.
My phone waiting on the table.
Then five SUVs arriving.
Victor had been watching.
Testing.
Arthur whispered, “Oh God.”
I turned on him.
“What?”
He looked sick.
“Victor wasn’t trying to punish you.”
Noah said it first.
“He was flushing the Sterlings into one place.”
Silence.
Then every light in the ballroom went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Someone screamed.
Glass shattered.
Noah grabbed me.
“Down!”
We dropped behind the heavy dining table.
Caleb shouted, “Nobody move!”
Then the emergency lights flickered on.
Dim red illumination washed across the ballroom.
The front gates began opening.
Slowly.
By themselves.
Caleb checked his phone.
“No signal.”
Marcus looked toward the security panel.
“System breach.”
Leo moved toward the windows.
“Vehicles?”
“No.”
Then a single black sedan appeared at the end of the driveway.
It rolled toward the estate.
Slow.
Deliberate.
It stopped directly in front of the doors.
No one got out.
For ten seconds, nothing happened.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Victor.
“You always were predictable, Flora.”
My fingers tightened.
“Where is my mother?”
“Close.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“No.”
Noah leaned toward the phone.
“You wanted us together. We’re together. What now?”
Victor laughed softly.
“Exactly what I needed.”
Then the ballroom television turned on by itself.
Static.
Then an image.
A live video.
My mother was sitting in a chair.
Hands tied.
Bruise along her cheek.
But alive.
I stepped toward the screen.
“Mom.”
She lifted her head.
“Flora.”
My throat closed.
Victor’s voice came through the phone.
“Now we can finally finish what Eleanor started twenty-seven years ago.”
I looked at the screen.
“What do you want?”
A second camera angle appeared.
Behind my mother stood a steel door.
Painted across it in white numbers:
417.
I froze.
My mother looked directly into the camera.
Then she shouted,
“FLORA, DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!”
The feed cut black.
At the same moment, something clicked behind us.
The ballroom wall beside the fireplace began moving.
Slowly.
A hidden panel opened.
Behind it was a narrow steel passage that none of us had ever known existed.
And at the end of that passage was another door.
White numbers painted across it.
417.

PART 7 — BEHIND DOOR 417