Chapter 7 - The Night Emma Pretended to Sleep
They could have canceled the council dinner.
Emma argued against it.
“If Adrian realizes we know, he disappears.”
Lucian stared at her.
“Good.”
“No.”
“Why is that not good?”
“Because he has spent twenty-two years planning this.”
“He can spend another twenty-two somewhere else.”
“He won’t.”
Emma understood obsession now.
Adrian would return.
Maybe not tomorrow.
Maybe in five years.
Lucian’s family would never be safe.
Neither would she.
“We finish it.”
Lucian hated the phrase.
Because it sounded like him.
The final night began at midnight.
Emma slept in her usual room.
Clean lotion.
No drugs.
The hidden speaker remained active.
Everyone waited.
At 1:58 a.m., nothing.
2:10.
Nothing.
2:17.
The speaker clicked.
Adrian’s voice.
For the first time, not disguised as a woman.
“Emma.”
She kept breathing slowly.
“Fourteen sleeps.”
Pause.
“You are safe.”
Another pause.
“Daniel is waiting.”
Her chest hurt hearing her brother’s name used this way.
“Take the white key.”
Emma sat up.
Eyes open.
Pretending blankness.
She crossed the hall.
A white key lay beneath a vase.
She picked it up.
“Go downstairs.”
The route led away from Lucian’s room.
Past kitchen.
Through wine cellar.
Into the hidden basement.
Marco’s team watched remotely.
Lucian followed from a distance.
Emma reached a steel cabinet.
White key opened it.
Inside—
A pistol.
Her blood went cold.
Adrian’s voice whispered through hidden speakers:
“Take it.”
Emma did.
Unloaded?
She could not tell.
“Go to the dining room.”
The council dinner would begin in ten hours.
Empty now.
Emma entered.
At Lucian’s chair sat a photograph.
His face.
Red circle over chest.
Emma almost stopped.
The voice:
“Point.”
She raised the gun.
“Fire.”
Emma did nothing.
Again:
“Fire.”
Nothing.
Her hands began shaking.
Adrian was testing conditioning.
Maybe the gun was empty.
Maybe not.
“Fire, Emma.”
She squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Empty.
Emma wanted to collapse.
Then Adrian spoke:
“Good girl.”
Lucian’s face in the surveillance room changed.
Emma continued.
“Tomorrow night, the gun will be ready.”
There it was.
Final task.
Adrian intended Emma to assassinate Lucian during the council dinner.
A sleepwalking maid.
Drugged.
Manipulated.
Then what?
She would be blamed.
Possibly killed by security immediately.
Perfect disposable assassin.
Lucian shut off the system.
“No dinner.”
Emma returned to the surveillance room.
“You said we finish it.”
“I changed my mind.”
“He’ll disappear.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
Lucian turned.
“Why?”
“Because he turned my dead brother into a command word.”
Her voice broke.
“He used my grief. My body. My sleep.”
She stepped closer.
“I want him stopped while I’m awake.”
Lucian looked at her for a long time.
Then nodded.
The next evening, council dinner proceeded.
Twenty men.
Four women.
Security everywhere.
Emma wore her maid uniform.
Her choice.
Teresa had been suspended from duties and was cooperating with police.
Another housekeeper served the table.
Emma remained upstairs until 9:47.
Then the speaker activated.
“Emma.”
Adrian believed she was asleep.
She walked into the corridor in her nightgown.
Hidden beneath it:
A protective vest.
The white key waited.
Gun inside cabinet.
This time loaded.
Marco had replaced ammunition with blanks.
Emma walked toward dining room.
Lucian sat at the head of the table.
He looked at her.
Every captain turned.
Some laughed nervously.
A barefoot maid with a gun was difficult to interpret.
Emma raised it.
Pointed at Lucian.
His security moved.
Lucian raised one hand.
Nobody fired.
Emma’s heart pounded.
Adrian’s voice whispered through an earpiece hidden in the room:
“Shoot him.”
Emma pulled the trigger.
Explosion.
Blank.
Lucian jerked backward deliberately.
Blood packet beneath his shirt burst.
He collapsed.
Chaos erupted.
Several captains stood.
One man shouted:
“Lucian!”
Another reached for weapon.
Then one person smiled.
Only one.
An older captain named Carlo Benedetti.
Adrian’s closest external ally.
Marco saw it.
Police entered.
Carlo ran.
And behind the dining room wall—
Something moved.
Adrian had come to witness the execution himself.
He emerged through the hidden passage.
Gray hair.
Black suit.
Lucian’s brother.
Alive.
Adrian looked at Lucian’s apparently dead body.
Then at Emma.
“Well done.”
Emma lowered the gun.
Her eyes became fully alert.
“No.”
Adrian froze.
Lucian sat up.
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“Hello, brother.”
For the first time in twenty-two years, Adrian Moretti looked afraid.
