Chapter 8: The Key Number Seventeen
The silver key felt heavier than it looked.
Vincent Moretti turned it over beneath the light in his study, watching the engraved number catch the glow.
17.
No manufacturer.
No company logo.
Only the strange crest from the ledger.
Marco laid several photographs beside the key.
"We searched every file recovered from the tunnel."
"Anything?"
"The symbol appears seventeen times."
Vincent looked up.
"And every file connected to it is missing."
The three rescued children had finally eaten.
They slept upstairs beneath warm blankets, each refusing to be separated from the others.
Buddy curled beside them like a tiny guardian.
Dr. Elaine smiled as she left the room.
"They're exhausted."
"Will they recover?"
"Physically?"
She nodded.
"Emotionally..."
She hesitated.
"That depends on whether they ever believe they're truly safe."
Vincent glanced through the doorway.
"I'll make sure they are."
Across the city...
Richard Calloway sat alone inside a candlelit office.
A massive grandfather clock ticked behind him.
Every fifteen minutes its bell echoed softly through the room.
A younger associate entered.
"The tunnel collapsed."
"I know."
"They rescued three children."
"I know."
"We lost valuable records."
Richard calmly sipped tea.
"They recovered exactly what I wanted them to recover."
The associate frowned.
"The silver key?"
Richard smiled.
"Everything is happening on schedule."
Back at Bellarosa Manor...
Emma couldn't sleep.
She quietly entered Vincent's study.
"You still have the key."
He nodded.
"I keep thinking I've seen it before."
Emma stepped closer.
"I have."
Vincent immediately looked at her.
"Where?"
She closed her eyes.
"There was a room."
"Only certain children went inside."
"Did you ever enter it?"
She shook her head.
"No."
"But I remember the door."
"What about it?"
"It had seventeen locks."
The room fell silent.
Marco whispered,
"Seventeen..."
The next morning...
Vincent ordered every abandoned property connected to Richard Calloway investigated.
Factories.
Storage yards.
Office buildings.
Private docks.
Nothing.
Every location had already been emptied.
It was as if Richard always stayed one step ahead.
Then Marco's phone rang.
"Boss."
"What is it?"
"One of our accountants found something strange."
Inside Moretti Shipping headquarters...
The accountant spread old financial records across a conference table.
"For twenty years someone has been making identical monthly payments."
"To whom?"
"A charity."
Vincent frowned.
"What charity?"
"The Saint Gabriel Children's Foundation."
Marco froze.
"Saint Gabriel."
The same church district Ava had described.
The same bells.
The same neighborhood.
Vincent asked quietly,
"Does the foundation still exist?"
The accountant nodded.
"On paper."
"But no one has visited the building in years."
An hour later...
Five black SUVs stopped outside an old brick orphanage.
The faded sign still read:
Saint Gabriel Children's Foundation
The windows were boarded.
The gardens overgrown.
The front doors chained shut.
Buddy immediately began barking.
Vincent smiled slightly.
"I trust him more than maps."
Marco cut the chain.
The doors creaked open.
Dust filled the air.
The orphanage looked abandoned.
Yet something felt wrong.
Fresh footprints crossed the entrance hall.
Someone had been there recently.
The first floor contained empty classrooms.
Broken desks.
Rotting books.
Nothing unusual.
The second floor held abandoned bedrooms.
Tiny metal beds.
Children's drawings still hanging on faded walls.
Lucy quietly picked one up.
"It's beautiful."
On the back...
A date.
Eighteen years earlier.
Emma suddenly stopped walking.
"I know this place."
Vincent turned.
"You've been here?"
She nodded slowly.
"Not upstairs."
"Downstairs."
They searched for nearly an hour before Buddy disappeared again.
The puppy squeezed through a broken laundry room door.
His barking echoed beneath the floor.
Marco knelt.
"Hollow."
Vincent struck the concrete with a crowbar.
The sound confirmed it.
There was a hidden chamber.
After several minutes they lifted an old steel hatch concealed beneath cracked tiles.
Cold air rushed upward.
Stone steps disappeared into darkness.
Flashlights illuminated a vast underground archive.
Shelf after shelf.
Cabinets.
Locked safes.
Boxes labeled with years.
Thousands of files.
Richard hadn't hidden evidence.
He had preserved it.
Marco opened one cabinet.
Every folder belonged to a missing child.
Family photographs.
Medical histories.
School records.
Some folders ended with a red stamp.
CLOSED.
Others...
Had no ending at all.
Then Vincent noticed something.
One cabinet stood alone.
Unlike the others...
It required a key.
Marco looked toward him.
"The silver key."
Vincent inserted it slowly.
It fit perfectly.
The lock clicked.
Inside lay only one file.
No name.
Just a photograph.
Vincent stared at it.
His blood ran cold.
The picture showed a young Richard Calloway.
Beside him stood another man.
The second man looked almost identical.
Twins.
Written beneath the photograph:
Richard Holloway
Robert Holloway
Not Calloway.
Holloway.
Marco whispered,
"They changed their names."
Vincent continued reading.
The brothers had grown up inside Saint Gabriel Orphanage.
Both disappeared after a mysterious fire.
Official records claimed they died.
They hadn't.
Emma looked over Vincent's shoulder.
"That's him."
She pointed at Richard's younger face.
"The man with the cane."
Vincent nodded.
"But who's Robert?"
No one answered.
Because the second page explained everything.
Robert Holloway had been declared mentally unstable after reporting that children inside the orphanage were being sold by its director.
No one believed him.
Weeks later...
The orphanage burned.
Robert disappeared.
Richard inherited everything.
Marco slowly lowered the file.
"So Richard wasn't the one who started this."
"No."
Vincent's voice hardened.
"He inherited it."
Suddenly...
Every light in the underground archive shut off.
Complete darkness.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Buddy began growling.
Then footsteps echoed through the tunnels.
Slow.
Measured.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
A cane striking concrete.
Richard's voice drifted through the darkness.
"You finally opened Cabinet Seventeen."
Vincent raised his pistol.
"Show yourself."
"I've been waiting a long time for this meeting."
The red emergency lights flickered again.
For one brief second...
A tall man in a charcoal coat appeared at the far end of the corridor.
Silver cane in hand.
Then the lights failed again.
Gunfire erupted.
Marco returned fire.
The bullets struck only stone.
When the lights came back...
Richard was gone.
But one thing remained.
His silver cane.
Lying alone on the floor.
Vincent picked it up carefully.
It felt unusually heavy.
Too heavy for an ordinary cane.
Marco twisted the handle.
A hidden compartment slid open.
Inside...
Was a flash drive.
And attached to it...
A handwritten note.
If you're holding this, Vincent...
May you like
You're finally ready to learn who the real monster is.
— Richard
