Chapter 3 - The Secret Room at Bellamy Funeral Services
Sebastian left for Wisconsin shortly after midnight.
Marco accompanied him with a small security team. Rachel insisted on coming, explaining that she had spoken directly with Antonio's nurse and could identify the building.
Vanessa remained under guard at the mansion.
Before leaving, Sebastian stood over the empty coffin.
He ran his fingers along the polished wood.
“Seven days,” he murmured. “Seven days I believed you were gone.”
Rachel stood beside him.
“Your father said you would be angry.”
“Angry?”
Sebastian looked at her.
“He let me believe he was dead.”
“He believed that if you knew he was alive, you'd try to find him. He thought whoever planned the attack would use you to reach him.”
Sebastian said nothing.
He had spent his life learning that trust was a luxury. His father had taught him that enemies could wear friendly faces, and loyalty was measured by what a person did when there was nothing to gain.
Now he wondered whether Antonio's secrecy had protected him or simply made him easier to manipulate.
Before they departed, Rachel asked the funeral home's director, Arthur Bellamy, to meet them at the mansion.
The elderly director arrived carrying a leather folder.
“I should have reported the empty casket immediately,” Bellamy admitted. “But I was threatened.”
“By whom?” Sebastian asked.
Bellamy swallowed.
“A man who said he represented the Moretti family. He paid us to accept the sealed coffin without inspecting it.”
“Who signed the payment?”
Bellamy opened the folder.
A transfer receipt bore the signature of a company owned by Vincent Moretti.
Sebastian's jaw tightened.
“Why did you keep the original records?”
“Because your father visited me three days before the funeral. He said that if anything happened to him, I should preserve every document.”
Bellamy handed him another envelope.
Inside was a photograph of a narrow service corridor beneath the funeral home.
“Your father told me that he had hidden something there,” Bellamy said. “He called it the proof that would save his son.”
Sebastian stared at the photograph.
“What proof?”
“I don't know.”
They drove to the funeral home before continuing north.
Bellamy unlocked a service entrance and led them down a staircase into a basement used to store old records and equipment.
The air smelled of dust and disinfectant.
At the end of the corridor stood a rusted cabinet.
Bellamy opened it with a key from his ring.
Inside was a small metal box.
Sebastian lifted the lid.
It contained a flash drive, a handwritten ledger, and a photograph of Vincent meeting a man outside a warehouse.
On the back of the photograph was a date: three days before Antonio's car exploded.
Marco examined the image.
“I recognize the other man,” he said. “His name is Peter Rourke. He used to manage security for your father.”
Sebastian remembered Rourke. He had disappeared after a violent dispute several years earlier.
“Why would Vincent meet him?”
Rachel pointed toward the ledger.
“Perhaps the answer is there.”
The ledger contained a list of payments routed through shell companies. Each payment corresponded to a property or shipment controlled by the Moretti organization.
The amounts totaled nearly forty million dollars.
Several entries were marked with the same initials.
V.M.
Sebastian closed the book.
His uncle had been stealing from the family.
But the final page contained a handwritten note from Antonio.
Vincent is not working alone. The person behind him has access to every security system in the mansion. Do not trust the man who controls the cameras.
Sebastian looked at Marco.
Marco stared back.
“I've controlled security for twelve years,” he said quietly. “If someone has been manipulating the cameras, I need to know.”
Sebastian handed him the flash drive.
“Find out.”
As they climbed the stairs, Rachel stopped.
“Sir?”
“What is it?”
She looked toward the dark corridor behind them.
“I think someone followed us.”
A door slammed somewhere below.
Marco drew his weapon and hurried back down the stairs.
A moment later, he shouted.
“Boss! The cabinet is burning!”
Flames were spreading through the records room.
May you like
Someone had set the building on fire to destroy the evidence.
And whoever had done it knew exactly where they had been.
