Chapter 11 - THE WOMAN WHO REFUSED TO DIE|
The shot had struck Isabella in the shoulder.
Marco carried her behind a stone pillar while Victor's men moved the crowd away from the courthouse entrance. Police officers rushed toward the street, where a black motorcycle disappeared into traffic.
"Stay with me," Marco said.
Isabella pressed a hand against the wound.
"I'm not dying."
"Don't you dare joke about that."
She managed a weak smile.
"You always did hate it when I was right."
An ambulance arrived. Marco rode beside her, refusing to let the paramedics separate him from her.
At the hospital, the surgeon confirmed that the bullet had missed a major artery. Isabella would recover, but the attack had been carefully planned.
The shooter had known exactly where she would stand.
Victor entered the private room.
"We found the motorcycle abandoned near the river. The weapon was registered to a security contractor who worked for Sophia."
Marco's expression hardened.
"Bring her in."
"She's gone."
"Where?"
"We don't know. Her apartment is empty."
Marco looked at Isabella.
"Did you know she was going to attack you?"
"No."
"Then why did Lily draw it?"
Isabella looked toward the doorway.
Lily stood there with Elena, holding a notebook against her chest.
She approached the bed and handed it to Marco.
Inside were drawings of people, rooms, and objects. Some depicted events that had already happened. Others showed places Marco recognized but had never visited with Lily.
One drawing showed Sophia handing a folder to a man outside a hotel.
Another showed a black motorcycle.
A third showed a woman standing beside a window, holding a silver cane.
Eleanor.
Marco studied the pictures.
"How long has Lily been drawing these?"
Isabella answered softly.
"Since she was little. Sometimes she draws things before they happen. Sometimes she draws things people have hidden from her."
"You're telling me she can see the future?"
"No. I'm telling you she notices things adults refuse to see."
Isabella explained that Lily had an extraordinary memory for faces, sounds, and patterns. After the trauma of losing her home, she had begun communicating through drawings rather than speech.
The drawings were not magic.
They were her way of processing a world in which every adult seemed to lie.
Marco turned another page.
A small figure stood beside a locked door.
Beneath it was a date.
Tomorrow's date.
"What's behind this door?" he asked.
Isabella shook her head.
"I don't know."
Lily pointed to the drawing, then to Marco's coat pocket.
He reached inside and found the flash drive Daniel had given him.
On its label was a single word.
VAULT.
Marco remembered his father's private archive beneath the old family bank.
The vault had been sealed after Richard's supposed death. Only Marco possessed the original key, and he had never opened it.
"Whatever Eleanor wants," he said, "it's in that vault."
Isabella sat up despite the pain.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because your father told me what was inside. He said it was the reason Eleanor could never let any of us go."
Marco took her hand.
"Then it's time we found out."
She looked at him with desperate urgency.
"Marco, the vault doesn't just contain financial records. It contains evidence of a murder."
"Whose murder?"
Isabella closed her eyes.
"Your father's first murder."
Marco stared at her.
Richard had always told him that his rise to power began with business, not blood.
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If Isabella was telling the truth, the empire Marco had inherited had been built on a crime committed before he was old enough to understand what the word meant.
And Eleanor had spent decades making sure nobody discovered it.
