PART 13 — The Master of the Rose
The tapping of the walking stick echoed through the immensely high hall. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Out of the darkness behind the double doors stepped a figure. The man was elderly, gaunt as a skeleton, yet he walked upright. He wore a custom-tailored three-piece suit. His silver hair was combed neatly back.
In his right hand, he held a wooden walking stick topped with a silver knob shaped like a rosebud. And on his left pinky gleamed the gold signet ring.
Charles Clair. My father. The man I had buried thirty years ago.
"Hello, Claire," the old man said. His voice sounded surprisingly powerful, a deep bass that did not match his frail appearance. "You turned out just like your mother. Quiet, obedient... but with that annoying habit of digging in places you don't belong."
My throat felt locked shut. I couldn't utter a word. My own father... the man whose portrait had hung above the mantle in our childhood home, the man I had mourned for months as a young woman.
"You..." stammered Lucas, stepping in front of me. "You're dead! We buried you!"
Charles laughed softly, a dry, rasping sound. "An empty grave, my boy. A handy trick when the tax authorities and federal police get too close. Daniel was kind enough to arrange a coffin full of bricks. He was always so compliant... at least in the beginning."
Julian took a step forward, aiming his gun directly at the old man's heart. "Shut your mouth. You tormented my father his entire life. You forced him to live a lie!"
Charles didn't even flinch at the weapon. He shifted his gaze to Julian with an expression of mild contempt. "Ah, the bastard. Daniel thought he was clever hiding you. He thought he could save a piece of himself from the Society's grip. But do you know what the funny thing is, Julian? Your mother worked for me. Every message, every transfer, every meeting... it all happened with my permission."
Julian looked at his mother in shock. Monique turned her face away, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry, Julian..." she whispered. "I had no choice... he held me in his grip..."
"Enough!" I screamed. The shock suddenly yielded to a fury so intense my whole body began to shake. I stepped past Lucas and looked my father straight in the eyes. "Thirty years! For thirty years you used my life like a chessboard! You made me marry a man who wasn't allowed to love me the way he wanted to! You turned my brother into a murderer! Why?!"
Charles leant on his cane and looked at me coldly. "Because money disappears, Claire. Companies go bankrupt. But a network... a family bound by secrets and guilt... that endures. Vance Enterprises was merely a front. The Society's billions are distributed across hundreds of accounts. And to manage those accounts, I needed loyal people. Daniel was perfect. He had a weak character. He cared about you, he cared about his children. And that love... was his greatest vulnerability."
"You had him killed," I said firmly.
"Daniel wanted to break open the Society's vault," Charles answered unmoved. "He wanted to make all our members' names public. Arthur did what was necessary to protect the organization. Unfortunate that Arthur was foolish enough to get himself killed in the process."
He raised his hand and clapped twice.
From the shadows of the upper balcony and side hallways, four armed men emerged. All dressed sharply in suits, all with automatic weapons aimed at us.
"Playtime is over," Charles said. "The transfer papers for the Clair capital are in the study. You are going to sign them, Claire. And afterwards... you and your children will suffer a tragic car accident, just like your dear husband. They'll say the Vance family crumbled from grief."
"I won't let that happen!" Julian shouted, pulling the trigger.
CLICK.
No shot sounded. Only the dry click of an empty firing pin.
Julian looked at his weapon in shock.
Monique looked down at the floor. In her hand, she held the cartridges she had silently slipped from the magazine while standing with us in the hall.
"I'm sorry, Julian..." Monique wept. "He promised he would spare you if I rendered the magazine useless..."
Charles laughed loudly. "A mother betraying her child to save his life... Poetic, don't you think?"
Charles pointed his walking stick at me. "Seize her."
The two armed men stepped toward me. Lucas tried to throw himself in front of me, but one of the men struck him hard across the temple with the butt of a rifle. Lucas collapsed onto the marble.
"Lucas!" I screamed.
At that exact moment, a dull thud echoed from above. The large glass skylight in the center of the hall shattered into thousands of pieces.
A black smoke grenade dropped directly between us and the armed men. Within a second, the hall was engulfed in an impenetrable, acrid white smoke.
