Chapter 2 - SHADOWS OF BLACKRIDGE
Roman led Claire up the stone stairs and back into the main living quarters. The silence of the mansion was now suffocating. What had felt like a luxurious estate twenty minutes ago now felt like a gilded cage waiting for a siege.
He marched her directly to his personal office—a fortress-like room equipped with reinforced steel doors, bulletproof glass, and an independent power grid.
“Sit,” Roman instructed, pointing toward the leather sofa.
Claire sank into the leather, pulling her knees toward her chest. She looked small, bruised, and utterly exhausted, yet her posture lacked the helpless despair Roman had seen in so many victims before. She was a survivor.
Roman walked over to his massive mahogany desk and opened a hidden compartment beneath the top drawer. Inside lay a satellite phone, a high-frequency radio jammer, and a secondary master pad for the estate’s mechanical deadbolts. He pressed a sequence of six digits, then turned a heavy iron key.
Deep within the walls of Vale House, loud mechanical thuds echoed as thick steel locking bars engaged across every exterior door, window shutter, and underground access tunnel. The house was now airtight.
“What was he trying to do?” Claire asked, her eyes following Roman as he activated the radio jammer. A soft blue light pulsed on the desk, cutting off all cell signals and radio frequencies within a two-mile radius.
“He wasn’t here to rob me,” Roman said, pulling two glasses and a bottle of scotch from the sideboard. He poured two fingers of liquid into each glass, walked over, and handed one to her. “Drink it. It will stop the shaking.”
Claire took the glass with trembling fingers and took a small sip. The liquor burned her throat, but warmth slowly spread through her chest. “If he wasn’t here to rob you, then why was he hacking the security panel?”
“Because he was setting up a dark zone,” Roman explained, taking a seat across from her. “A dark zone disables the silent alarms and video feeds without alerting the main security firm in town. It means a hit team was supposed to follow him in fifteen minutes later.”
Claire’s eyes widened in horror. “A hit team? To kill you?”
“Or to take something,” Roman replied, his voice chillingly calm. “Tell me again, Claire. Did he say anything to you before he grabbed you?”
Claire lowered her glass, her gaze dropping to her lap as she searched her memory. “He... he laughed when I startled him. He called me a stupid maid. But then, right before he grabbed my throat, he muttered a name. He said, ‘The Bishop is going to pay extra for this clean up.’”
Roman froze.
The air in the room seemed to drop five degrees. Roman’s hand tightened around his glass so hard the crystal groaned under the pressure.
“The Bishop,” Roman whispered.
“Do you know who that is?” Claire asked, sensing the sudden, terrifying shift in Roman’s posture.
“The Bishop isn’t a person, Claire,” Roman said, his voice dropping to a low growl. “It’s a moniker for Victor Vance. He was my father’s former business partner—a man who vanished ten years ago after stealing forty million dollars and slaughtering six members of the Blackridge Syndicate.”
Claire gasped. “He’s back?”
“He never left,” Roman said, standing up and pacing toward the heavy window overlooking the iron gates of the estate. “Victor Vance doesn’t make moves unless he has an inside edge. He knew my security schedule. He knew about the old line in the basement beneath the wine cellar—a line that isn't even on the official blueprints of this house.”
Roman turned back to face her. “Which means someone in my inner circle sold me out. Or someone gave Victor access.”
Claire felt a cold knot form in her stomach. “You... you don’t think I—”
“If I thought you were involved, Claire, you wouldn’t be sitting on my couch drinking my scotch,” Roman interrupted firmly. “You killed his lead scout with a candlestick and a jar of tomatoes. You’re the only person in this building I know for a fact isn’t working for him.”
Claire let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
Roman walked over to his desk and pulled out a heavy 9mm handgun. He checked the magazine, chambered a round, and engaged the safety. He didn’t offer the gun to Claire; instead, he slipped it into his waistband and retrieved a smaller, lightweight revolver from the safe, handing it to her.
“Do you know how to use this?” he asked.
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“My father was a deputy in Upstate,” she said, her grip settling naturally around the handle. “I know how to pull a trigger.”
“Good,” Roman said, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. “Because before the sun comes up, Victor’s real team is going to realize their scout failed to drop the main fence. They are going to breach this perimeter. And when they do, they’re going to find out why I’ve kept Blackridge under my thumb for twenty years.”
