Chapter 7 - My Brother Saved Me
Nathan stared at the photograph for a long time.
“I don’t remember that room.”
Claire turned the photo over.
A date was written on the back.
Three weeks after Nicholas’s funeral.
“You said you woke up in a basement in Queens.”
“I did.”
“Then Marcus knew you were alive before you did.”
Nathan’s face tightened.
The laptop on the desk required a password.
Claire tried Marcus’s birthday.
Wrong.
Their father’s birthday.
Wrong.
Then she typed one word.
VINCENT.
The laptop unlocked.
Nathan looked at her.
“Why Vincent?”
“Your father’s name. Marcus worshiped him.”
Folders filled the screen.
PROJECT ORPHEUS.
ASSET TRANSFERS.
C. MORETTI OBSERVATION.
Claire clicked the last folder.
Audio recordings began playing.
Her own voice filled the room.
Therapy sessions.
Private phone calls.
Conversations in her bedroom.
Claire covered her mouth.
“They bugged my home.”
Nathan’s eyes were hard with rage.
“Since the funeral.”
Another file contained a video.
Marcus appeared on screen beside a hospital bed.
Nathan—thin, bruised, barely conscious—lay strapped down.
Marcus leaned toward him.
“You should have stayed out of the accounts, Nick.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Onscreen, Nicholas tried to speak.
Marcus continued.
“You always needed to be the good son.”
Nathan whispered, “I remember this.”
In the video, Marcus injected something into an IV line.
“You’re going to disappear,” he said. “And Claire is going to grieve exactly the way I need her to.”
Claire paused the video.
“The way he needs me to?”
Nathan turned toward the financial files.
“Your shares.”
Claire owned twenty-two percent of Moretti Holdings after Nicholas’s death.
Under the trust agreement, if Claire were declared mentally incompetent, Marcus would control her voting rights.
Her grief suddenly looked less private.
It had been observed. Recorded. Managed.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Nathan killed the screen.
Someone was outside Room 1814.
A key card beeped.
May you like
The lock turned green.
And Marcus Moretti walked in.
