Chapter 3
Room 17 did not contain money.
That would have been simpler.
My father stored private family history there.
Not legal documents.
Not ledgers for prosecutors.
Names.
Promises.
Which branch had been rescued during which internal feud.
Which capo received money after a son died.
Which family surrendered territory in exchange for protection.
Old Mafia memory.
The kind that can stabilize a family if handled carefully.
Or destroy one if weaponized.
I had sealed it five years earlier because too many older men treated history like ammunition.
Sabine had asked about the lower floor twice during our engagement.
I told her it was storage.
Apparently she stopped believing me.
Rafe inspected the red door.
No forced entry.
The lock showed recent use.
Only three keys existed.
Mine.
One sealed inside the hotel security box.
One carried years ago by my late father’s adviser, Leonard Holt.
Sabine’s father.
Dead six years.
I looked at Rafe.
He understood.
“The Holt key.”
Exactly.
Apparently Leonard never returned it.
Or copied it before his death.
I brought Sabine in.
Placed the brass Room 17 tag on the desk.
“Theo had this.”
Her expression changed.
“Where?”
“Wrong question.”
She sat.
“You and Julian opened Room 17.”
“No.”
I placed a photograph from the corridor camera in front of her.
Not security footage from outside systems.
Hotel internal.
Sabine at 12:41 a.m.
Julian beside her.
Red door open behind them.
She stopped.
“What were you looking for?”
Silence.
I waited.
Eventually:
“My father’s letter.”
That surprised me.
“What letter?”
Leonard Holt had apparently written something before dying.
Sabine believed my father stored it in Room 17.
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why risk my son over it?”
Her face hardened.
“Because my father died believing Rourke owed him.”
There it was.
Old debt.
Family grievance.
Exactly the kind of thing Room 17 preserved.
Sabine and Julian were not looking for random leverage.
May you like
They believed the archive contained proof that the Holt family had been denied something after Leonard died.
And Theo had seen them searching for it.
