Chapter 4
“Lock the doors!”
Giovanni's voice thundered through the funeral home.
One bodyguard ran toward the main entrance.
Another disappeared into the corridor where Marco had been standing.
Guests began shouting.
Someone knocked over a chair.
The priest hurried two elderly relatives toward a side room.
Emilio grabbed Clarissa.
“Stay with me.”
Sofia backed against the wall.
Her eyes searched every face.
“This is exactly what Elena warned me about.”
Giovanni spun toward her.
“What did she warn you about?”
“That once the box came back, people would panic.”
“Which people?”
“She didn't know.”
“You just said she discovered who tried to kill you.”
“She discovered part of it.”
“What part?”
Sofia hesitated.
Giovanni stepped closer.
“My wife is lying in a coffin ten feet away. My brother vanished during a blackout. Someone stole evidence from my family. Stop giving me half-answers.”
Sofia looked at him.
“Elena believed the person who ordered the attack on me was connected to Moretti Holdings.”
Giovanni went still.
His company.
The empire he had spent thirty years building.
Real estate.
Hotels.
Construction.
Private investment.
Thousands of employees.
Dozens of executives.
And several family members.
Including Marco.
Emilio stared toward the hallway.
“You think Uncle Marco took the box?”
“No,” Sofia said.
Everyone looked at her.
“I think whoever killed the lights wanted you to think he did.”
A bodyguard returned.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Where is my brother?”
“Found him.”
“Where?”
“Service corridor.”
“Bring him.”
“Sir, he's unconscious.”
Giovanni ran.
Emilio followed.
Clarissa and Sofia came behind them.
They found Marco near a metal service door.
Blood ran from the back of his head.
He was breathing.
Barely conscious.
The wooden box was not with him.
Giovanni dropped to his knees.
“Marco.”
Marco's eyes fluttered.
“Gio?”
“Who hit you?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you take the box?”
“What?”
“The box.”
Marco tried to sit.
Pain forced him back.
“Somebody grabbed me when the lights went out.”
“Who?”
“Couldn't see.”
“Man? Woman?”
“I don't know.”
Emilio crouched.
“Which direction?”
Marco pointed weakly toward the metal door.
The bodyguard opened it.
A narrow alley stretched behind the funeral home.
Rain covered the pavement.
A dark SUV was disappearing around the corner.
“Get the plate!”
Too late.
Giovanni stood.
“Call the police.”
Marco caught his sleeve.
“No.”
Giovanni looked down.
“What?”
“Don't.”
“You've lost your mind.”
“Gio, whoever did this planned it.”
“All the more reason.”
Marco forced himself upright.
“If someone inside your company is involved, police attention could make them destroy everything else.”
Sofia spoke behind them.
“He's right.”
Giovanni looked at her.
“You trust him?”
“No.”
Marco almost laughed.
“At least we're clear.”
Sofia continued.
“But Elena told me the evidence in the box wasn't the only copy.”
Giovanni stared.
“Where is the other one?”
“She never told me.”
“Of course she didn't.”
“She couldn't.”
“Why?”
“Because she thought her phone was being monitored.”
Clarissa's face changed.
“Mom thought someone was listening to her?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Emilio exhaled hard.
“Everyone keeps saying they don't know.”
Sofia looked at him.
“Because your mother trusted almost nobody.”
Giovanni flinched at those words.
Almost nobody.
His wife had shared more secrets with a daughter hidden from him for twenty-two years than with him.
He looked toward Marco.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“You're going to the house.”
Marco frowned.
“What?”
“All of us are.”
Giovanni looked at his children.
“We check the security system from the night Elena fell.”
Clarissa nodded.
Emilio did too.
Sofia said nothing.
Giovanni looked at her.
“You're coming.”
“I wasn't asking permission to leave.”
For the first time, Giovanni saw something of Elena in her.
Not physically.
The defiance.
The refusal to be intimidated.
It hurt more than he expected.
They left the funeral with Elena still waiting to be buried.
That fact haunted Giovanni as the cars pulled away.
He sat in the back seat with Emilio.
Neither spoke for several minutes.
Finally, Emilio touched his bruised cheek.
Giovanni saw it.
Regret appeared instantly.
“I shouldn't have hit you.”
Emilio stared out the window.
“No.”
“I was angry.”
“You're always angry.”
Giovanni absorbed the accusation.
“My mother died too.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Emilio turned.
“You think because I didn't cry in front of everyone, I didn't love her?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to.”
Giovanni looked down.
“I thought you and Clarissa abandoned her funeral for a vacation.”
“Mom made us promise.”
“You could have told me.”
“She specifically said not to.”
That hurt.
Again.
Giovanni stared through the windshield.
“What was she afraid I would do?”
“I don't know.”
“Did she think I hurt Sofia?”
Emilio's silence answered.
Giovanni looked at him.
“She did?”
“She didn't say that.”
“But?”
“She said she didn't know what you remembered.”
Giovanni frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“She said fifteen years ago, you were not yourself.”
A memory moved somewhere deep inside him.
Hospital lights.
A pounding headache.
Elena crying.
Marco telling him to rest.
Giovanni closed his eyes.
Fifteen years earlier.
There had been a period he barely remembered.
Two weeks after a car crash.
His car crash.
He had been driving from Connecticut to New York.
A truck forced him off the road.
He suffered a concussion.
Three broken ribs.
Medication.
Lost days.
Elena had been distant afterward.
He always assumed she was frightened.
Now he wondered.
“Dad?”
Giovanni opened his eyes.
“You okay?”
“Fifteen years ago, I had an accident.”
Emilio watched him.
“I know.”
“No. You know I crashed a car.”
“What's the difference?”
“I never remembered the crash.”
Emilio frowned.
“Doctors said that was normal.”
“Maybe.”
“You think it's connected?”
“I don't know.”
They arrived at the Moretti estate thirty minutes later.
Police tape still marked part of the grand staircase.
Giovanni had refused to remove it until after the funeral.
Now seeing it made his stomach turn.
Clarissa stopped in the foyer.
She stared at the bottom step.
That was where Elena had been found.
Sofia stood beside her.
Neither sister spoke.
Then Sofia reached out.
Clarissa looked down.
Sofia had taken her hand.
Clarissa let her.
Giovanni saw it.
Two daughters.
One he had raised.
One he had never known existed.
He had no idea whether to feel joy, grief, or rage.
So he felt all three.
Emilio moved toward the security room.
“Where are the recordings?”
“Basement.”
They went downstairs.
The Moretti estate had forty-two cameras.
Exterior.
Hallways.
Entrances.
No cameras inside bedrooms or bathrooms.
The system stored ninety days locally and backed up important security events to encrypted cloud storage.
Giovanni entered the administrator password.
ACCESS DENIED.
He frowned.
Tried again.
ACCESS DENIED.
“Someone changed it,” Emilio said.
“That isn't possible.”
“Clearly it is.”
Giovanni called the security director.
No answer.
He tried again.
Voicemail.
Clarissa crossed her arms.
“Who has access?”
“Me. Security director. Two senior technicians.”
“And Uncle Marco?”
“No.”
Marco stood behind them holding an ice pack to his head.
“Don't look at me.”
Sofia crouched beside the server cabinet.
“Can you remove the drive?”
Emilio looked at her.
“You know computers?”
“A little.”
“How little?”
“I've been working cybersecurity for a financial firm for three years.”
Emilio blinked.
“You're serious?”
“Unfortunately.”
Despite the situation, Clarissa smiled faintly.
Emilio opened the cabinet.
Sofia inspected the drives.
“The local recordings may still be here.”
“Can you access them?”
“If nobody wiped them.”
Giovanni stared.
“Do it.”
Sofia looked at him.
“That's not how this works.”
“What do you need?”
“Time.”
“You have whatever you need.”
“And everybody out.”
Giovanni frowned.
“No.”
She looked at him with the exact expression Elena used when he was being unreasonable.
“You want me concentrating while five people breathe down my neck?”
Emilio almost laughed.
Giovanni pointed toward the door.
“Everyone upstairs.”
Twenty minutes later, Sofia called them back.
Her face was pale.
“I found the footage.”
Clarissa gripped Emilio's arm.
“From that night?”
“Yes.”
Giovanni moved toward the monitor.
Sofia stopped him.
“There is a problem.”
“What?”
“Most of the interior cameras went offline at 11:42 p.m.”
Giovanni's heart dropped.
“What time did Elena fall?”
“The medical estimate was between midnight and 2:00.”
Sofia clicked.
A timeline appeared.
11:39 p.m.
Front gate camera.
Elena's car arrived.
She drove through.
11:41.
Garage camera.
Elena exited the car.
She carried a brown envelope.
11:42.
Interior system failure.
Every hallway camera went black.
Except one.
A small camera at the rear service entrance.
Sofia opened the recording.
12:07 a.m.
A person entered the house.
Dark coat.
Baseball cap.
Face partly hidden.
Clarissa leaned closer.
“Can you enhance it?”
“That's mostly television nonsense, but I can brighten it.”
She adjusted the image.
The person moved through the door.
For one second, the camera caught the side of the face.
Emilio stopped breathing.
Marco whispered, “Oh, God.”
Clarissa looked at Giovanni.
Giovanni couldn't speak.
The man in the video was Giovanni.
Same face.
Same build.
Same scar above the eyebrow.
Giovanni stared at the screen.
“No.”
Sofia replayed it.
Giovanni entered his own house at 12:07 a.m.
But Giovanni remembered that night.
He had been sleeping upstairs.
He remembered Elena leaving that morning while he was in the shower.
He remembered going to bed early.
He had never left.
“This is impossible.”
Clarissa stepped away from him.
“Dad?”
“It isn't me.”
“That's your face.”
“I know what my face looks like.”
Emilio stared.
“What were you wearing that night?”
“I don't remember.”
Marco studied the video.
“Freeze it.”
Sofia froze the frame.
Marco leaned in.
“There.”
“What?” Giovanni demanded.
“The hand.”
The person was opening the service door.
A ring showed on his right hand.
Large.
Gold.
Black stone.
Giovanni looked down at his own hand.
He wore the same Moretti family ring.
Marco had one too.
Emilio did not.
Giovanni whispered, “Zoom in.”
Sofia enlarged it.
The ring had initials carved beside the stone.
G.M.
Clarissa looked terrified.
Giovanni backed away.
“No.”
Sofia stared at him.
“Where were you at midnight?”
“Asleep.”
“Can anyone confirm?”
“My wife.”
The words nearly destroyed him.
Elena was dead.
Emilio rubbed his face.
“Could somebody have copied the ring?”
“Of course.”
“And your face?”
Giovanni looked at the screen.
“Maybe.”
Sofia narrowed her eyes.
“Deepfake?”
“In a live security recording?”
“No.”
Marco stepped closer.
“Gio.”
“What?”
“You said you had memory problems after the accident fifteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Anything recently?”
Giovanni stared.
“No.”
Then he stopped.
Three weeks ago.
He had awakened in the guest room.
Fully dressed.
Shoes on.
Mud on his pants.
He assumed he had fallen asleep after drinking.
Elena was already awake.
Sitting across the room.
Watching him.
She asked one strange question.
Do you remember where you were last night?
He had laughed.
He thought she was accusing him of drinking.
Now his blood turned cold.
“I lost one night.”
Clarissa whispered, “What?”
“Three weeks before your mother fell.”
He looked at Marco.
“I don't remember about six hours.”
Sofia's face changed.
“Did you drink?”
“I thought I did.”
“Medication?”
“Blood pressure pills. Nothing else.”
“Any history of blackouts?”
“No.”
Sofia opened another folder.
“I found something else.”
A hidden directory.
Manually deleted.
Recovered from the local drive.
Audio only.
Recorded by Elena's study microphone.
The date was three weeks before her fall.
The night Giovanni couldn't remember.
Sofia pressed play.
Elena's voice filled the room.
“Giovanni?”
Silence.
Then a man's voice.
Giovanni's voice.
“Where is she?”
Elena sounded frightened.
“Who?”
“Sofia.”
Clarissa covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
Elena whispered, “You don't know Sofia.”
Giovanni's voice answered.
“Yes, I do.”
“Gio, look at me.”
“Where is she?”
“Why are you asking?”
Then came words that made Giovanni grip the table to keep from falling.
His own voice said:
May you like
“Because I was supposed to kill her fifteen years ago.”
The recording ended.
