Chapter 6 - Saint Orison
Snow began falling as they crossed into Wisconsin.
Adrien drove the first car with Julian beside him. Marcus and Noah remained nearly a mile behind, using a private frequency to communicate.
Neither brother spoke for almost an hour.
Finally, Julian broke the silence.
“What if the girl is telling the truth?”
“What girl?”
“Our sister.”
Adrien tightened his hands on the steering wheel.
“A dying assassin mentioned a sister. That does not make her real.”
“Our father said the Cardinal carried Romano blood.”
“He also said not our name.”
“An illegitimate child.”
“Or a cousin. An uncle. Anyone.”
Julian stared through the windshield.
“Mother was pregnant once before me.”
Adrien looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“I found medical records in Father’s safe. She gave birth at nineteen, years before she married him.”
“What happened to the baby?”
“The records ended after delivery.”
Adrien remembered Lydia Voss. She and Elena had met at university. Lydia often joked that they had shared every secret except their taste in men.
Perhaps they had shared something far darker.
Saint Orison stood beyond iron gates in the middle of a frozen forest. The main building resembled an old monastery—stone walls, narrow windows, and a central tower rising above the trees.
Adrien stopped half a mile away.
No security vehicles were visible.
No exterior lights.
Julian checked the downloaded blueprints.
“The east wing was abandoned after a fire fourteen years ago. Patient records are stored below the chapel.”
“Where would they keep someone hidden?”
“Underground.”
The kidnappers had demanded Adrien come alone, but he had no intention of obeying literally. Marcus and Noah entered through the maintenance road while the brothers approached the main gate.
The gate opened before they reached it.
A woman’s voice came through the speaker.
“Leave your weapons in the car, Adrien.”
He recognized the voice.
Lydia Voss.
Julian looked at him.
Adrien placed his handgun beneath the seat but kept a ceramic blade hidden inside his boot.
They entered.
The lobby was empty except for Lydia.
She wore a cream wool coat and black gloves. At sixty-two, she remained elegant, composed, and publicly untouchable.
“Where are Maria and Lucia?” Adrien asked.
“Safe for the moment.”
“And my mother?”
Lydia’s expression softened.
“Alive.”
Julian stepped forward.
“You knew.”
“I saved her.”
“You imprisoned her,” Adrien said.
Lydia’s eyes flashed.
“You think the world is divided into prisons and palaces because you have never lived without power. Elena would have died within hours of the crash if I hadn’t removed her from the hospital.”
“Why hide her from us?”
“Because the men who attacked her controlled your father’s organization. They controlled police reports, hospital records, even the divers sent to search the lake.”
“Samuel?”
“Samuel was one of them.”
“Bell?”
“A servant who believed himself a king.”
“And the Cardinal?”
Lydia smiled sadly.
“You still think the Cardinal is one person.”
The lights went out.
Emergency lamps glowed red along the floor.
A burst of gunfire sounded from the east wing.
Marcus’s voice crackled through Adrien’s concealed earpiece.
“Ambush. They knew our route.”
Lydia heard it.
“You brought men.”
“You kidnapped a child.”
“I did not order that.”
Footsteps thundered in the corridor.
Lydia drew a pistol from her coat and aimed—not at Adrien, but toward the approaching sound.
Three armed guards turned the corner.
She shot the first.
Adrien seized the second guard’s wrist, broke it, and drove him into the wall. Julian tackled the third.
Within seconds, all three were down.
Lydia looked shaken.
“They’ve taken control sooner than I expected.”
“Who?”
“Your sister.”
Adrien grabbed Lydia by the arm.
“Take us to my mother.”
They descended through a locked stairwell beneath the chapel. The lower level contained private treatment rooms with no windows and no names on the doors.
Room E-17 stood at the end.
Lydia entered a code.
Inside, a woman sat beside a small lamp, reading a worn children’s book.
Her hair, once black, was streaked with silver. A thin scar crossed her forehead. She looked older, smaller, and painfully fragile.
But Adrien knew her immediately.
Elena Romano lifted her head.
The book slipped from her hands.
“Adrien?”
The sound of his name in her voice broke through seven years of certainty.
He had imagined this moment in dreams he never admitted having. He had imagined anger, questions, and demands.
Instead, he crossed the room and fell to his knees before her.
Elena touched his face with trembling fingers.
“My boy.”
Julian stood in the doorway, silent tears running down his cheeks.
Their mother reached for him too.
For one brief moment, the hidden hospital, the gunfire, and the years stolen from them disappeared.
Then Elena looked past her sons.
“Where is the little girl?”
Adrien rose.
“You know about Lucia?”
“They brought her to me. She was crying for her mother.”
“Who brought her?”
Elena’s face filled with fear.
“My daughter.”
Julian stepped closer.
“Who is she?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Her name is Celeste.”
The emergency lights flickered.
A woman appeared behind Lydia in the doorway.
She was in her late thirties, tall, dark-haired, and dressed in a physician’s white coat. She held a gun against Lydia’s spine.
Her features were unmistakably Elena’s.
And Adrien’s.
Celeste smiled.
“Welcome home, brothers.”
Behind her, two guards dragged Maria into the hall.
Lucia stood beside them, gripping her teddy bear.
May you like
Celeste pointed the gun at the child.
“Now,” she said, “we can finally discuss which of us deserves the Romano empire.”
