Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Wasn't Supposed to Know
Matteo pulled Elena behind the lockers as bullets tore through metal.
“Stay down.”
He fired twice toward the muzzle flash.
A man cursed.
Footsteps retreated.
Matteo chased him through the service corridor, but by the time he reached the station platform, the attacker had vanished into the evening crowd.
He returned to Elena.
She was clutching Daniel's metal box.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He checked anyway.
No blood.
Only fear.
They returned to the mansion shortly before midnight.
Matteo didn't sleep.
He spent hours studying the records.
At 3:12 a.m., he found the first connection to Sofia.
Her charity foundation had unknowingly received money from one of Vittorio's shell corporations.
Three weeks before her death, Sofia had discovered it.
Two weeks before her death, she'd withdrawn $200,000.
One week before her death, she'd visited Daniel Carter.
Then she died.
Matteo sat motionless.
For seven years he'd believed a drunk driver had taken his wife.
Now he wondered whether the man who comforted him at her funeral had ordered her death.
A soft knock interrupted him.
Elena stood in the doorway.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I tried.”
She entered.
Matteo looked at her ruined shoes.
“Why didn't you sell the photograph? The watch? Anything?”
“They were my father.”
“They were objects.”
“So is your wife's photograph upstairs.”
That silenced him.
Elena immediately regretted the words.
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't be.”
Matteo leaned back.
“You're right.”
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Elena said, “There's something I haven't told you.”
Matteo's gaze sharpened.
“Three weeks before I applied here, I received another letter.”
“Another?”
She nodded.
“It told me to get a job inside your house.”
“Why didn't you mention this?”
“Because you'd fire me.”
“Who sent it?”
“I don't know.”
“What did it say?”
She pulled folded paper from her pocket.
Matteo read it.
The truth about Daniel Carter is inside the Falcone house. Find Sofia's blue room before Vittorio realizes who you are.
Matteo stood.
“The blue room?”
“You know it?”
“Yes.”
Sofia's private sitting room had been sealed after her death.
Matteo had never entered again.
At dawn, he unlocked it.
Dust floated through pale light.
Sofia's books remained untouched.
Her perfume bottles still sat on the vanity.
Lucia had been an infant when her mother died.
Matteo had preserved the room because destroying it felt like killing Sofia twice.
Elena searched quietly.
They found nothing.
Then Elena noticed scratches beneath the desk.
She crawled underneath.
A small compartment had been carved into the wood.
Inside was a flash drive.
Matteo plugged it into an offline laptop.
A video appeared.
Sofia filled the screen.
Matteo froze.
Seven years younger.
Alive.
“Matteo,” she began, “if you're seeing this, then I probably didn't get the chance to tell you myself.”
His hand clenched.
Sofia explained everything.
Vittorio's laundering.
Daniel's investigation.
Salvatore's plan.
And one final revelation.
Daniel Carter had not disappeared because he'd betrayed them.
He had disappeared because he had saved Matteo.
Eleven years earlier, Vittorio had arranged an ambush meant to kill twenty-four-year-old Matteo and force Salvatore into naming Vittorio his successor.
Daniel discovered the plan.
He diverted Matteo's car.
The assassins took Daniel instead.
Sofia believed Daniel survived.
She had spent years secretly searching.
Then she discovered where Vittorio was holding him.
An abandoned medical facility outside Joliet.
Sofia intended to rescue him.
The recording ended three days before her death.
Elena was crying silently.
“My father could still be alive?”
Matteo looked at the date.
Seven years had passed.
He couldn't give her false hope.
“I don't know.”
“But he was alive then.”
“Yes.”
She sat down.
For eleven years she'd mourned a man who might have spent at least four of those years imprisoned.
Matteo felt something unfamiliar.
Shame.
Daniel Carter had saved his life.
And Matteo had spent years believing him a traitor.
A floorboard creaked outside.
Matteo drew his gun.
The door opened.
Lucia stood there holding her stuffed rabbit.
“What are you doing?”
Matteo lowered the weapon.
“Lucia.”
She saw Sofia on the frozen video.
Her face changed.
“Mommy?”
Matteo's throat tightened.
Lucia walked toward the laptop.
“I don't remember her voice.”
Matteo couldn't speak.
Elena knelt beside Lucia.
“Would you like to hear it?”
Lucia nodded.
Elena restarted the video.
For the first time in seven years, Matteo sat beside his daughter and listened to Sofia speak.
Lucia eventually rested her head against Elena's shoulder.
Matteo watched them.
Something inside him shifted.
Then Sofia said something on the recording he'd missed.
“If Daniel is still alive, there is one person who knows where Vittorio moved him.”
The screen flickered.
“Marco Bellini.”
Matteo slowly looked toward the doorway.
May you like
His security chief had been standing there.
Listening.
