Chapter 34 - The Ticking Box
"Stay here," Victor ordered, already drawing his customized Kimber 1911 from the holster beneath his arm. "Under no circumstances do you leave this room."
"Victor, no! It's addressed to me!" Lily protested, grabbing his sleeve.
"Which is exactly why you aren't going near it!" he barked, pulling his arm free with deliberate firmness. "Marco has bomb disposal gear. If it's an explosive, my presence won't change the physics, but your presence will guarantee I lose my mind trying to shield you. Stay with Ethan. Lock the door behind me."
Before she could argue, Victor strode out, the heavy reinforced door of the study swinging shut with a magnetic lock that engaged with an authoritative *thunk*.
Lily stood alone in the center of the vast, dim room, her chest heaving. The faint, sweet smell of gardenias seemed to linger in the air—or perhaps it was just the phantom terror playing tricks on her mind. Gardenias had been Serena Vance’s signature scent. Expensive, suffocating, and masking the scent of bitter almond.
Downstairs, Victor descended into the underground utility tunnel that connected the main house to the gatehouse courtyard. Emerging near the shattered marble fountain, the night air hit him like a freezing slap. Heavy floodlights bathed the circular driveway in blinding, clinical white. Rain had begun to fall, a cold, stinging drizzle that hissed against the hot engine block of the crashed delivery van.
Five private security operators in full tactical plate armor stood in a wide perimeter, carbines raised, weapons trained on the smoking vehicle.
Marco was on his knees twenty feet away, wearing a heavy Kevlar blast apron, manipulating a remote bomb-disposal crawler equipped with a robotic arm and camera.
"Talk to me," Victor demanded, stepping up beside him.
"The thermal imaging shows no high-explosive compounds, Boss," Marco said, staring at the portable monitor screen. "No fertilizer base, no C4 density, no blasting caps. But there is a mechanical clockwork device inside. It’s ticking down."
"How much time?"
"Three minutes."
"Open the damn crate," Victor said grimly.
Marco manipulated the crawler’s joysticks. The robotic claw clamped onto the brass latch of the ornamental wooden box resting on the hood of the van, amidst a bed of crushed, white gardenia blossoms. With a sharp snap, the claw pulled back the lid.
The camera zoomed in.
Inside the velvet-lined box lay no dynamite, no chemical payload.
It held an old, antique wind-up metronome, its silver needle ticking rhythmically back and forth, clicking away the seconds with mechanical indifference. And pinned beneath the metronome’s brass weight was an audio cassette tape labeled with handwritten silver marker:
*FAMILY REUNION: TAPE 1.*
"It’s psychological warfare," Marco muttered, lowering his controller slightly. "She’s playing with us."
"Or she's distracting us," Victor said, his eyes suddenly widening in pure terror.
His head snapped back toward the main house. The limestone mansion stood massive, dark, and silent against the stormy night sky. But high on the third floor, where the private master suites and nurseries lay, a single window fluttered.
The steel blast shutter on Ethan’s nursery balcony had been opened.
"Lily," Victor whispered, the name tearing from his throat in a roar of absolute dread. "LILY!"
He didn't wait for Marco. He didn't wait for his men. Victor turned and sprinted back toward the estate, his boots skidding on the wet stone, his lungs burning as he slammed his shoulder into the heavy oak access door.
Inside the mansion, the silence was unnatural. The hum of the air scrubbers had stopped. The soft emergency floodlights in the grand foyer had been cut, plunging the marble hall into pitch-black shadow.
Victor drew his weapon, flicking on the tactical light mounted beneath the barrel. The beam of brilliant white light cut through the gloom, reflecting off floating particles of dust.
"Lily! Ethan!" he shouted, taking the stairs three at a time, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
As he reached the second-floor landing, he slipped, his boot sliding on something warm and wet. He angled his flashlight down.
A dark pool of crimson was spreading across the marble floor. Lying face down in the pool was Jackson, one of Victor’s most trusted personal bodyguards. His throat had been cut with surgical precision from behind. No signs of struggle. No alarm sounded. A professional execution.
Victor stepped over the body, his senses heightened to an agonizing pitch. The door to the private nursery stood wide open.
A cold draft swept down the hallway, carrying with it the unmistakable, cloying fragrance of gardenias.
Victor rounded the corner, his weapon raised, finger resting lightly on the trigger. "Clear!" he whispered out of habit, but the room was empty.
The wooden castle Ethan had built that morning lay scattered across the rug, kicked apart.
And on the small rocking chair in the center of the room, sitting quietly in the shadows with her hands resting calmly in her lap, was a woman wearing a black trench coat, her blonde hair dripping with rain.
It wasn't Serena.
It was an older woman, whose cold, brilliant green eyes mirrored Victor’s own with terrifying accuracy.
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"You always were too loud on your feet, little brother," she spoke, her voice smooth like aged whiskey.
Victor lowered his gun a fraction of an inch, his voice catching in his throat. "Victoria?"
