Chapter 5 - Twelve Days to Die
Learning that someone planned to murder you creates unusual clarity.
I wasn't angry anymore.
Anger was noisy.
I needed silence.
By sunrise, we had a plan.
Vivien could not know we'd discovered Gabriel.
Gabriel could not know we'd found the archive.
Most importantly, neither could learn that Elena and Mia were now under my protection.
So at breakfast, I did something Elena hated.
I fired her.
Vivien was sitting across from me when I summoned Elena.
"Your services are no longer required."
Elena stared at me.
We had rehearsed it.
She still looked wounded.
Maybe some of it wasn't acting.
"Mr. Duca—"
"I'll provide six months' salary."
Vivien's coffee cup stopped halfway to her mouth.
"Why are you firing her?"
I shrugged.
"You wanted her gone."
Vivien recovered quickly.
"I never said that."
"Didn't you?"
"No."
Interesting.
She didn't want to be associated with Elena's dismissal.
"I must have misunderstood."
Elena took Mia upstairs to pack.
Forty minutes later, one of my cars drove them through the front gates.
Vivien watched from the window.
What she didn't know was that the car changed routes inside a private garage in Manhattan.
Elena and Mia transferred to another vehicle and returned to a secure guesthouse hidden behind the northern section of my estate.
That afternoon, I gave Vivien better news.
"I reconsidered the wedding."
Her face brightened.
"We'll keep the date."
She kissed me.
I kissed her back.
It was one of the hardest things I'd ever done.
"You're sure?"
"Completely."
That night she disappeared into the chapel.
We listened from below.
"He changed his mind," she told Gabriel.
"Good."
"He fired Elena."
A pause.
"Where did she go?"
"I don't know."
"Find out."
"I thought you wanted her gone."
"I want to know where she is."
Gabriel was frightened of Elena.
That meant Daniel had left her something important.
The brass key had opened the archive, but maybe that wasn't its only purpose.
For three days, we searched Daniel's files.
Nothing.
Then Mia solved it.
Again.
She was coloring in my study when she noticed the brass key on the desk.
"Daddy key."
Elena froze.
"What did you say?"
Mia pointed.
"Daddy had two."
Elena crouched.
"Two keys?"
Mia nodded.
"Where's the other one?"
The child thought.
Then she hugged her stuffed rabbit.
Elena went white.
She took the toy.
"Mia has had this since she was born."
She felt along the stitching.
One seam had been repaired.
Elena cut it open.
A second brass key fell onto my desk.
Along with a folded strip of paper.
Elena's hands trembled as she opened it.
A number.
A bank deposit box.
Rocco located it.
The box belonged to Daniel.
Inside were financial records and a handwritten letter.
Elena read it first.
Then she handed it to me.
Daniel had uncovered Gabriel's entire operation.
For decades, Gabriel had used the Duca network to launder money for businessmen, politicians, and criminals who wanted their assets hidden.
My father discovered it shortly before his death.
Gabriel had killed him.
My father's supposed heart attack hadn't been natural.
My vision blurred.
I had spent eleven years believing my father died in his sleep.
Daniel discovered the truth years later.
Then Daniel died too.
But the letter contained one more revelation.
Vivien wasn't merely Gabriel's accomplice.
She was his daughter.
I looked at Elena.
"She came here for revenge?"
"Maybe inheritance."
Daniel's notes suggested Gabriel believed my father had cheated him out of ownership in several companies.
If Vivien married me and I died afterward, my newly revised estate plan could make her enormously wealthy.
Except I hadn't revised it yet.
Gabriel needed the marriage.
Then he needed my signature.
And then he needed my death.
That evening, I found Vivien on the terrace.
She looked beautiful.
For the first time, I wondered whether any part of what we'd had was real.
"You seem distant," she said.
"Wedding nerves."
She smiled.
"I didn't know Lorenzo Duca got nervous."
"Only about important things."
She touched my face.
"I love you."
I studied her eyes.
"Do you?"
Something flickered there.
Pain.
Real pain.
That surprised me.
"Of course."
"Then tell me something."
"What?"
"Who was your father?"
Her hand dropped.
"My father?"
"You never talk about him."
"He died when I was young."
Lie.
"Did you love him?"
She looked toward the garden.
"I was afraid of him."
That sounded true.
For one dangerous second, I saw someone other than the woman threatening Elena.
I saw a frightened daughter.
Then I remembered Mia hiding beside the door.
Fear explained cruelty.
It didn't excuse it.
My phone rang.
Rocco.
I answered.
His voice was urgent.
"We have a problem."
"What?"
"The guesthouse."
I turned away from Vivien.
"What about it?"
"The security alarm just triggered."
My blood froze.
"Mia?"
May you like
"We can't reach Elena."
I was already running.
