CHAPTER 7 #4
"She told me where it was. Behind the fifth stone to the right.
And then she told me something else." I took the diary back from him, pressing it against my chest like a shield.
"She said there's more. More than the chamber.
More than the diary. Something deeper. A subbasement. She said Marcus knows about it."
"Marcus?"
"She said I should ask him about the blueprints. About why he really came back to your bar."
Cole's jaw tightened. "Marcus came back because his wife left him and his bookie was threatening to break his legs. He told me that himself."
"Maybe he told you a version of the truth. Maybe he told you what you needed to hear to let him stay."
"You think he's been lying?"
"I think—" I looked toward the back office, toward the hidden door and the spiral stairs and the chamber that held a hundred years of my family's secrets. "I think this building has a lot of layers. And I think Marcus might know about one of them that even you don't."
Cole was quiet for a stretch—the same calculating silence I'd seen in him last night, when he'd weighed the risks of the chamber before strapping me into the swing. Finally, he nodded. A single, decisive dip of his chin.
"Then we ask him. Together. But first—" He cupped my face in both hands, his palms rough and warm. "First I need you to tell me you're okay. This is a lot. The diary, the name, the—whatever the hell is going on with the woman who looks like you. I need to know where your head is."
Where was my head? Spinning, certainly. Crowded with century-old confessions and whispered promises and the revelation that my name wasn't just a name but an inheritance.
But underneath the chaos, something was settling.
Something that felt like a bone clicking into a socket. Something that felt like home.
"I'm not okay," I said. "But I will be. This is mine, Cole. The bar, the chamber, the history—it's been mine for a hundred years. I just didn't know it." I pressed the diary tighter against my chest. "Now I do."
He kissed my forehead. "Then let's go wake up my brother and find out what else you don't know."
The studio above the locksmith's shop was two blocks from the bar, a narrow walk-up with a single window overlooking the alley.
Cole took the stairs two at a time while I followed, the diary tucked under my arm like a sacred text.
The sun was fully up now, painting the brick facades in shades of rust and amber.
A dog barked somewhere. A car engine turned over and caught.
Cole pounded on the studio door. "Marcus. Wake up."
No answer. He pounded again.
"Marcus, I swear to God, if you're passed out in there—"
The door swung open. Marcus stood in the frame, barefoot, wearing boxers and a rumpled t-shirt that had seen better days.
His dark hair—same shade as Cole's—stuck up in a dozen directions.
The bruise on his cheekbone from a week ago had faded to a sickly yellow.
His eyes, still heavy with sleep, moved from Cole's face to mine to the diary in my hands.
"What time is it?" He squinted at the sunlight. "Did someone die?"
"Nobody died." Cole pushed past him into the studio.
The space was sparse—futon against the wall, hot plate on a milk crate, duffel bag in the corner.
No bottles. No signs of a relapse. Just the weary chaos of a man who'd been living out of his car for weeks before his brother took him in.
"We need to ask you something about the bar. "
"The bar? I've been doing the drywall like you asked—"
"It's not about the drywall." I stepped inside, and the diary seemed to grow heavier in my hands. The purple ribbon trailed across my wrist, a reminder of everything I'd learned in the hours before dawn. "It's about what's underneath the bar. Below the panic room."
Marcus's expression flickered. A tightening around the eyes. A pause just slightly too long. Then he was moving toward the hot plate, filling a kettle from the sink, his back to both of us. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You do." Cole's voice was quiet, measured—the same voice he used when he was talking someone down from a ledge. "Mara found something last night. A chamber. A hidden room I didn't even know existed. And when she found it, she also found someone. A woman who looks exactly like her."
"Creepy." Marcus lit the stove, the blue flame hissing to life. "What does that have to do with me?"
"The woman told me to ask you about the blueprints," I said. "About the subbasement. About why you really came back to your brother's bar."
Marcus's shoulders went rigid. For a long moment, the only sound was the kettle beginning to heat, the metal creaking as the water inside approached a boil.
"Marcus." Cole stepped forward, his hand resting on his brother's shoulder. "Whatever you know, whatever you've been hiding—you need to tell us. Now."