Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE WITH NO WINDOWS
The explosion never came.
Instead, a speaker hidden inside the device activated.
Victor Salazar’s laughter filled the church.
“Did you really believe I would let Kell choose when he dies?”
Kell ripped the speaker free and crushed it beneath his boot.
The timer had been theater.
A message.
Salazar wanted fear to spread faster than bullets.
Rafael ordered the church evacuated.
Families from the surrounding apartments were moved to hotels under false reports of a gas leak.
Kell was taken to the original De Santos estate outside the city.
The house had no street-facing windows and three underground levels.
Arturo De Santos had built it during a time when prosecutors, rivals, and allies all wanted him dead for different reasons.
Kell was locked in a reinforced room on the lowest level.
Sofia objected.
“He saved my life.”
“He also put it in danger,” Rafael said.
“He warned you about the club.”
“After helping create the attack.”
“He disarmed the device.”
“There was no device.”
“He did not know that.”
Rafael faced her.
“I cannot run an organization based on the last good thing a guilty man did.”
“And you cannot erase the last bad thing an innocent man was accused of doing.”
Owen’s name entered the space between them.
Rafael looked away.
That night, Mara treated Diego’s gunshot wound.
The bullet had passed through the muscle without striking bone.
“You need a hospital,” she said.
“Too many questions.”
“You could lose function in the arm.”
“I have another.”
“That is the stupidest thing anyone has said to me this week.”
Diego smiled faintly.
“You should spend more time around our men.”
Nate sat at a nearby table, arranging photographs of Salazar’s known properties.
Mara glanced at him.
“He should be asleep.”
“He refuses,” Diego said.
“He’s seven.”
“He also identified the ring that led us to Sofia.”
“That does not make this his responsibility.”
“No,” Rafael said from the doorway. “It makes it ours.”
Mara approached him.
“Then send us away.”
“I can’t.”
“Won’t.”
“Both.”
“Because Nate saw Kell?”
“Because Salazar knows Nate can identify one of his men.”
Mara lowered her voice.
“My son came to you for help. Now armed men are guarding him while buildings burn.”
Rafael accepted each word.
“What would you like me to say?”
“That you can fix it.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Then promise you will try.”
Rafael looked at Nate.
“I already have.”
In the basement, Kell sat alone.
A meal remained untouched near the door.
Sofia entered using a keycard she had taken from a guard.
Kell looked up.
“Your brother will be angry.”
“He survives it often.”
She sat across from him.
“Tell me everything.”
“I already did.”
“No. You told Rafael enough to remain alive.”
Kell leaned back.
“You think you know him better than I do.”
“I know when he is afraid.”
“Rafael isn’t afraid.”
“He is terrified.”
“Of Salazar?”
“Of being wrong about you twice.”
Kell looked at the floor.
Sofia continued.
“If Owen was innocent, why didn’t Salazar expose the evidence publicly?”
“Because he needed me.”
“Exactly.”
“What is your point?”
“He may have manufactured the proof of Owen’s innocence too.”
Kell stared at her.
“No.”
“You believed the first set of evidence because it came from Rafael. Then you believed the second because it came from the man who hated Rafael.”
“I verified the bank records.”
“Did you verify the source?”
Kell stood.
“Get out.”
“Did you?”
“Get out.”
Sofia approached the door.
Before leaving, she placed a flash drive on the table.
“What is that?” Kell asked.
“The original surveillance file from Owen’s garage.”
“There was no original.”
“There is now.”
She left.
Kell stared at the drive.
Several minutes passed before he inserted it into the room’s computer.
The footage showed Owen entering the garage.
He appeared nervous.
A second man followed him.
The face was partially hidden, but the crowned-serpent ring was visible.
Salazar.
The audio was faint.
Kell increased the volume.
Owen’s voice emerged.
“You said Rafael would only scare him.”
Salazar answered.
“Rafael kills traitors.”
“I’m not a traitor.”
“You are whatever the evidence says you are.”
Owen moved toward the door.
Salazar’s men blocked him.
The recording ended.
Kell sat motionless.
Everything he had built his hatred upon cracked at once.
The door opened.
Rafael entered alone.
Kell did not look up.
“You had this footage,” Kell said.
“No.”
“Sofia found it.”
“Diego recovered it from a retired detective this afternoon.”
Kell’s hands curled into fists.
“Salazar framed Owen.”
“Yes.”
“And you killed him.”
“Yes.”
The answer was quiet.
Unprotected.
Kell finally looked at Rafael.
“Why are you here?”
“To tell you I was wrong.”
“That won’t raise him.”
“No.”
“It won’t erase six years.”
“No.”
“It won’t bring back the people Falcon Shield hurt.”
“No.”
Kell stood.
“I wanted you to suffer.”
“I know.”
“I wanted Sofia dead until I saw her tied to that chair.”
Rafael’s gaze hardened.
“Be careful.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Truth does not make you brave.”
“No. Sometimes it only makes you late.”
An alarm sounded upstairs.
Rafael reached for his weapon.
The basement lights shut off.
Gunfire came through the ventilation system.
Kell moved toward the door.
Rafael aimed at him.
“Stay.”
“You have men inside.”
“You are still a prisoner.”
A voice came over the intercom.
It belonged to one of Rafael’s guards.
“Boss, the east entrance is breached.”
Then a scream.
Then static.
The emergency lights turned red.
Rafael unlocked the door.
Kell looked surprised.
“You trust me?”
“No.”
Rafael handed him a pistol.
“But I’m running out of men.”
They climbed the stairs together.
On the second level, smoke filled the hallway.
Bodies lay near the security room.
Salazar’s attackers had entered through an old drainage tunnel only three people knew existed.
Rafael.
Diego.
And Kell.
Rafael turned toward him.
Kell’s face went pale.
“I never told him about the tunnel.”
“Then who did?”
From upstairs came Mara’s scream.
Rafael and Kell ran toward it.
They reached the bedroom corridor.
Mara lay unconscious beside an open door.
The guards were dead.
Nate was gone.
May you like
On the wall, written in blood, were five words.
THE BOY REMEMBERS TOO MUCH.
