Chapter 9 - MATTEO’S LIE
Matteo had lied.
He knew Emma existed.
Not from Salvatore.
He discovered her accidentally eight months earlier.
A Bellini company payment ledger contained recurring transfers to an attorney-managed account.
He investigated.
Found Rachel.
Then Emma.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought you wanted it secret.”
“You said your father never told you.”
“He didn’t.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Matteo looked ashamed.
The preschool photograph had been taken because he followed Salvatore.
Not Emma.
“My father started disappearing for hours.”
“So you followed him.”
“Yes.”
“And watched him watch my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
Matteo’s face tightened.
“Because I wanted to know why.”
Luca almost struck him.
Marco stepped closer.
Luca controlled himself.
“You let a man watch my three-year-old because you wanted more information?”
“I had men nearby.”
“Your father’s men?”
“Mine.”
“And I’m supposed to find that comforting?”
“No.”
Matteo admitted something else.
He had sent the anonymous warning that reached Marco about the black sedan after Mulberry.
He had been trying to expose Salvatore without openly betraying his father.
Luca stared.
“You tried to save both sides.”
“Yes.”
“That usually means failing both.”
Matteo looked down.
Then handed Luca a flash drive.
“I copied my father’s private ledger.”
Financial records.
Payments to The Shepherd intermediaries.
Surveillance.
Mulberry.
Hospital contacts.
And another payment from eight years earlier.
To a physician who had attended Alessandro Bellini’s death.
Luca’s blood ran cold.
“Who is this?”
Dr. Peter Voss.
The physician who signed Alessandro’s death certification.
He had retired to Florida.
Marco found him.
Voss initially denied everything.
Then lawyers appeared.
Eventually, he admitted Salvatore had pressured him to keep Alessandro’s cardiomyopathy private.
That was illegal in some aspects of documentation handling but did not prove murder.
Then Voss revealed something worse.
Alessandro had been scheduled for an emergency cardiac procedure the morning after he died.
Salvatore knew.
The night Alessandro collapsed, Salvatore delayed calling emergency services.
“How long?” Luca asked.
Voss looked broken.
“Approximately eleven minutes.”
Eleven minutes.
Could Alessandro have survived?
Nobody could know.
But Salvatore had chosen reputation over emergency treatment.
Again.
Protection.
Family image.
Weakness hidden.
Luca left the interview room and vomited.
Not rage.
Grief.
His father might have lived.
His uncle had watched the clock.
When he returned to Rachel, she found him sitting alone.
“What happened?”
He told her.
She sat beside him.
Not touching.
Then eventually took his hand.
The first voluntary touch between them in three years.
Luca looked at their fingers.
Rachel whispered:
“You are not your father.”
“No.”
“And you don’t have to die the same way.”
He looked at her.
“The device.”
“Yes.”
“The organization.”
“Yes.”
“The secrets.”
“Yes.”
Her hand tightened.
“Every generation thinks it inherited rules.”
She looked toward Emma asleep nearby.
“Somebody has to be the first one who doesn’t pass them down.”
Luca nodded.
Then Marco entered.
He looked destroyed.
Luca released Rachel’s hand.
“What?”
Marco held a tablet.
“There’s been a breach at the new safehouse.”
Luca stood.
“Emma?”
“Safe.”
“Rachel?”
“Here.”
“Then what breach?”
Marco turned the screen.
A camera feed.
A man entering Luca’s private office.
Taking files.
The man looked directly into the camera.
Marco.
Rachel stared at the real Marco beside them.
Luca understood instantly.
Someone had created evidence to frame the one person he trusted most.
Then the video timestamp appeared.
Two minutes ago.
May you like
At Luca’s Manhattan residence.
And whoever was inside was still there.
