Chapter 2 - The Safe Behind the Bookshelf
The private study had not changed in twenty years.
Dark walnut shelves covered three walls. An antique clock ticked beneath a portrait of Lorenzo's mother, and the smell of old leather and cedar lingered in the air.
Lorenzo entered first.
Hannah followed, clutching the brass key.
Vanessa came behind them despite Lorenzo's order to wait downstairs.
“Get out,” he told her.
She stared at him. “You're seriously choosing a maid over your future wife?”
“I'm choosing to find out why you're afraid of a locked safe.”
“I'm afraid of nothing.”
“Then leave.”
Vanessa looked toward the doorway, where two security men stood. Neither moved until Lorenzo gave a small nod. They escorted her into the corridor.
Her heels struck the marble as she walked away.
At the bookshelf, Lorenzo pressed a hidden latch. A section of wood swung inward, revealing a steel door fitted with an old brass keyhole and a mechanical combination dial.
He tried the first code that came to mind: his mother's birthday.
Nothing.
Then he entered his father's birthday.
The dial clicked, but the handle remained locked.
Hannah watched him struggle.
“Maybe Mr. Giovanni wants you to remember something,” she said.
Lorenzo's jaw tightened. “I've spent three years trying to remember everything about the day he had his stroke.”
He entered the date of that night.
The lock gave a sharp click.
For a moment, he simply stared at the door.
“That was the night Uncle Antonio disappeared,” he whispered.
He stepped aside.
“Hannah, the key.”
She inserted it.
It turned smoothly.
Inside, the safe contained three leather folders, a black velvet box, several envelopes, and a small digital recorder. There was no mountain of cash or jewelry. The contents looked almost disappointingly ordinary.
Then Lorenzo picked up the top folder.
The first page bore his father's signature.
The second bore his uncle's.
The third was a bank transfer authorization dated twenty years earlier.
Lorenzo read the amount twice.
Forty-eight million dollars.
The money had been transferred from a Moretti holding company to an offshore account the night Antonio was accused of stealing from the family.
“That's impossible,” Lorenzo murmured. “Antonio was blamed for taking almost exactly this amount.”
Hannah studied the page. “Could someone have made it look as though he took the money?”
Lorenzo turned another sheet.
A handwritten note appeared beneath the transfer record.
If they ever discover the original ledger, the entire family will fall.
His pulse quickened.
Then he saw a sealed envelope bearing his name.
LORENZO — OPEN ONLY WHEN YOU ARE READY TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO YOUR UNCLE.
He tore it open.
Inside was a single photograph of Antonio standing outside a train station, holding a newspaper dated three weeks after his supposed death.
On the back, Giovanni had written:
Your uncle did not betray us. I failed him.
Lorenzo's face hardened.
“My father told me Antonio was dead.”
Hannah lowered her eyes. “Maybe he believed he had no choice.”
Lorenzo turned toward her.
“Why are you defending him?”
“I'm not. I'm saying the evidence deserves to be understood before anyone is condemned.”
He studied her for a moment. She spoke without the nervous deference most people showed him.
Then the digital recorder clicked on.
A man's voice filled the room, weak but unmistakably Giovanni's.
“If you're hearing this, the key has finally reached the person I chose.”
Lorenzo went still.
His father's recorded voice continued.
“Lorenzo, if you opened this safe yourself, you might already have made the mistake I feared. You would have searched for a traitor before asking why the truth had been hidden.”
A pause followed, filled by a strained breath.
“The person holding this key must be allowed to finish what I could not.”
Hannah looked toward Lorenzo.
He could barely speak.
“Why would he choose you?”
“I don't know.”
The recording continued.
“Find the original ledger. Do not trust copies. And above all, do not let Vanessa Sterling leave the house with the blue envelope.”
The recorder stopped.
Lorenzo stared at it.
The blue envelope was nowhere in the safe.
He searched the shelves, the drawers, and the folders. Hannah checked the velvet box. It contained a gold wedding band, an old photograph of Lorenzo as a child, and a small piece of paper with an address in Queens.
Then footsteps sounded in the corridor.
A security guard appeared at the doorway.
“Mr. Moretti, Ms. Sterling says she's feeling unwell. She wants to leave.”
“Where is she?”
“She went toward the front entrance.”
Lorenzo moved immediately.
Hannah followed with the photograph and the recorder.
They reached the foyer just as Vanessa handed her coat to the driver.
Lorenzo caught sight of a blue corner protruding from her clutch.
“Vanessa.”
She turned.
Her smile appeared a fraction too late.
“Darling. I was just going home to give you some space.”
“Open your bag.”
Her face changed.
“Excuse me?”
“Open it.”
“You cannot search me like a criminal.”
“Then you won't mind showing me what's inside.”
Vanessa clutched the bag to her chest.
For one brief second, her eyes darted toward the front doors.
Lorenzo understood.
She wasn't simply frightened of the truth.
She was trying to get it out of the house.
Before he could reach her, the lights went out.
A gunshot cracked through the foyer.
Someone screamed.
When the emergency lights flickered on, Vanessa was on the floor, Lorenzo was reaching for his weapon, and Hannah was staring at the front doors.
The blue envelope lay beside Vanessa's hand.
But the man who had fired the shot was already gone.
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And on the envelope, written in fresh black ink, were six words:
THE NEXT SHOT WILL KILL YOUR FATHER.
