Suddenly, a floorboard creaked loudly behind Adrian.
He spun around in an instant, his right hand slipping instinctively beneath his tailored coat toward the holster strapped to his shoulder. Years of surviving ambushes made his movements fluid and deadly. But it wasn't an assassin standing in the dark stairwell.
It was Charles Bennett, his face drawn and pale in the flickering gloom.
"Sir," Charles whispered, holding his hands out slightly. "I saw your car parked outside. I knew you followed them."
Adrian slowly eased his hand off his weapon, his breath ragged. "Why didn't you tell me, Charles?"
"Tell you what, sir?" Charles asked gently, stepping up to the landing. "That her husband was Marco Romano? The mechanic who died in the explosion at the docks three years ago?"
Adrian’s eyes widened, his heart stopping in his chest. "What did you say?"
"Marco Romano was working on your armored car that Sunday morning," Charles said softly, his voice trembling with years of buried sadness. "He was in the garage when the bomb was planted. He tried to disarm it, sir. He couldn't stop it... but he died trying to buy time for the guards. Sofia was six months pregnant with Emma when it happened. She lost her husband, her home, and her savings paying off his medical bills."
The air turned to ice in Adrian's lungs. The child whose father had died trying to save his family was now eating water-logged milk in a slum because he had banished her to the kitchen wing.