Chapter 5 - Whispers of the Past
With the Valentis actively hunting them, Adrian made the executive decision to move Catherine to his family’s private estate in Bedford, New York—a secluded, heavily guarded compound surrounded by hundreds of acres of dense woodland.
Here, far from the suffocating noise and smells of the city, Catherine began to breathe.
Two weeks passed. Her physical health improved drastically under Adrian's watchful eye. Her cheeks regained their natural rosiness, and she no longer flinched when a door closed too loudly. She spent her days in the estate's massive, two-story library, surrounded by old leather books that reminded her of her childhood.
Adrian joined her every evening after handling his operations in the city. He didn't press her for information. Instead, they played chess by the roaring fireplace, talking about everything and nothing.
"You're different from your father," Catherine said one evening, moving her knight to block his bishop. She was wearing a soft, cream-colored knit sweater, looking every bit the elegant woman she was born to be.
"How so?" Adrian asked, studying the board.
"Your father handled the shadows so that people like my father could pretend they lived in the light," she said softly, her blue eyes reflecting the flames. "But you... you live in both worlds. You're comfortable in the dark, but you don't let it swallow you."
"The dark only swallows you if you have nothing to look forward to," Adrian replied, his eyes lifting from the chessboard to meet hers. There was a sudden, heavy intensity in the air—a quiet warmth that had been building between them over the past fortnight.
Catherine looked down, a faint blush creeping up her neck. "I remembered something today, Adrian. A memory that didn't hurt."
"Tell me."
"The vault," she said clearly. "My father had a private safety deposit box beneath the old Federal Bank on Wall Street. He told me once, when I was fifteen, that if anything ever happened to him, the key was hidden inside the back of my mother’s portrait. The one that hung in the grand foyer."
Adrian’s eyebrows drew together. "The portrait at Sterling Manor? Catherine, that house burned to ashes ten years ago. Anything inside it is gone."
"No," Catherine said, a sharp, lucent spark returning to her eyes. "The portrait wasn't at the manor when it burned. My mother had sent it to a restoration gallery in Soho three days prior because of a water stain. Dominic Valenti didn't know about it. He thought he destroyed everything."
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Adrian stood up, his heart pounding with a sudden rush of adrenaline. "Do you know which gallery?"
"The Lafayette Fine Arts Archive," she said. "If it hasn't been sold or destroyed, it's still there under a dead storage account."
