Chapter 6 - THE ROOM BENEATH THE MANSION
Luca gathered everyone he trusted in the old kitchen.
That list was short.
Thomas stood by the door. Sophie sat beside Eleanor, holding the old photograph. Vanessa remained under guard, her face pale and exhausted.
“Someone wants us to believe a woman in this house killed my father,” Luca said. “I want the truth, not another family legend.”
Vanessa's eyes flickered toward Eleanor.
Eleanor heard the movement in her voice when she answered.
“Stop looking at me as though I did something wrong, Vanessa.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“I never said that.”
“You didn't need to.”
Luca placed Dominic's note on the table.
“We're going to find the room beneath the mansion.”
Vanessa stood.
“You can't go down there.”
“Why not?”
“Because the passage was sealed for a reason.”
“Whose reason?”
She said nothing.
They searched the basement until Sophie noticed a section of brickwork behind an old wine rack. The mortar around one brick was newer than the rest.
She pressed it.
A mechanical click sounded inside the wall.
A narrow door opened.
Beyond it lay a stone staircase descending into darkness.
Luca took a flashlight and went first. Sophie followed, with Thomas behind her. Vanessa refused to move until Eleanor reached for her arm.
“You're coming with us,” Eleanor said.
Vanessa looked startled.
“Why?”
“Because I'm tired of being frightened in my own home.”
The staircase led to a small chamber lined with shelves. Old cassette tapes, film reels, and labeled envelopes covered the walls. At the center stood a desk with a reel-to-reel recorder.
Luca found a tape marked with his father's initials.
D.M.—OCTOBER 14.
He pressed play.
Static crackled.
Then Dominic's voice filled the room.
“If you're listening to this, then the plan has failed.”
A second voice answered.
Gabriel.
“You said nobody would get hurt.”
“I said the family would survive.”
“Claire is dead, Father!”
Luca felt Sophie stiffen beside him.
On the recording, Dominic's voice dropped.
“Claire was going to expose everything. She knew about the transfers, the weapons contracts, and the men funding them. She threatened to take the child to the authorities.”
“You could have let her leave.”
“And let her destroy everything we've built?”
“You murdered her.”
“No,” Dominic snapped. “I gave the order. Someone else carried it out.”
The tape clicked.
A third voice entered the conversation.
A woman's voice.
“Enough. The child is already gone. We need to deal with Gabriel.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
She had gone completely white.
He rewound the tape.
The woman's voice spoke again.
“Luca is easier to control. He wants to believe in family. Use that.”
Thomas reached for his weapon.
“Who is that?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I don't know.”
But Eleanor suddenly whispered, “I do.”
She stepped toward the recorder.
“It's Lydia.”
Luca frowned.
“Lydia who?”
“My sister.”
The room fell silent.
Eleanor's younger sister, Lydia Vale, had supposedly died in a car accident twenty-two years earlier. Luca remembered seeing her at family holidays when he was a child. She had been elegant, charming, and endlessly generous with gifts.
But she had disappeared from their lives long before Dominic's death.
“You told me she died,” Luca said.
Eleanor's face crumpled.
“That's what your father told me. He said her car went over a bridge. They never found her body.”
Sophie stared at the tape recorder.
“So Lydia was involved with Dominic?”
“They were close,” Eleanor whispered. “Closer than siblings should be.”
Luca stopped the recording.
He understood now why his mother had been frightened. Why Vanessa had panicked. Why Gabriel had wanted the letter.
The family secret wasn't only about a dead brother.
It was about a conspiracy that had survived two generations.
Thomas found a folder beneath the desk. Inside were photographs of Lydia, Dominic, and a third man standing beside a yacht.
The man wore a police uniform.
His badge identified him as Detective Samuel Cross.
Luca recognized the name.
Cross had led the investigation into Gabriel's supposed death. He'd also signed the report declaring Dominic's death a natural cardiac event.
The same detective had investigated both deaths.
Sophie opened the folder's last page.
It contained a handwritten list of names.
Some belonged to dead men.
Others belonged to living members of the Moretti organization.
At the bottom was Luca's name.
Beside it, someone had written:
Final transfer of authority upon marriage.
Luca read the line twice.
His wedding to Vanessa wasn't merely a personal arrangement. The family trust required his marriage before control of several offshore companies could transfer into his sole ownership.
And someone had been arranging that transfer for years.
Vanessa sank into a chair.
“Luca, I didn't know about the recording.”
“But you knew about the passage.”
“Because Gabriel told me. He said your father kept evidence down here.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because he said if I did, he'd kill Isabella.”
Sophie looked at her.
“You keep saying you were protecting the child. But you've been working with people who want her.”
Vanessa's eyes filled.
“I was protecting myself, too. I'm not proud of that.”
A sharp sound came from the far wall.
The chamber's old telephone was ringing.
Nobody had used it in years.
Luca answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“Leave the room. Leave the ledger. Leave the girl alone.”
“Who is this?”
“You're asking the wrong question, Luca.”
The voice paused.
“Ask your mother what she did the night your father died.”
The line disconnected.
Luca turned slowly toward Eleanor.
His mother was trembling.
“Mom?”
She lowered her head.
For the first time since the mystery began, Eleanor looked ashamed rather than afraid.
“I was there,” she whispered. “When your father died.”
Luca knelt in front of her.
“You told me you were upstairs.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
Tears slipped down her face.
May you like
“Because I was the one who put the poison in his glass.”
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