Chapter 5 - The Recording That Changed Everything
Clara was alive when I reached her.
Barely.
I pressed my hand against the wound beneath her shoulder while Rocco shouted for the medical team. Somewhere beyond the warehouse walls, an engine roared to life.
"Don't let them leave," I ordered.
Two of my men ran toward the loading bay.
The shooter was gone before they reached the street.
Clara grabbed my wrist.
"Listen to me."
"Save your strength."
"I don't have any left."
Her blood soaked through my sleeve.
"Vivien works for them," she whispered. "But she doesn't know who she's working for."
"Who?"
Clara struggled to breathe.
"The woman who raised you."
My mother.
I stared at her, refusing to accept what I had heard.
Clara pulled something from inside her coat. It was a small memory card sealed inside a plastic sleeve.
"Sofia left this with me. I was supposed to give it to you if anything happened to her."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I was afraid."
Her fingers tightened around mine.
"Your sister didn't die in an accident, Lorenzo. The brakes on her car were cut. I have the original inspection report and the recording of the man who ordered it."
"Who ordered it?"
Clara opened her mouth.
Then her eyes shifted toward something behind me.
I turned.
A second figure stood in the warehouse doorway.
The gun came up before I could reach for mine.
Rocco fired first.
The stranger fell backward, his weapon clattering across the concrete.
Clara's hand slipped from my wrist.
"Get a doctor!" I shouted.
But the medical team arrived too late.
Clara died before the ambulance reached the hospital.
She left me with a memory card, a dead gunman, and more questions than I had ever carried into a room.
Back at the mansion, I locked myself inside the study with Rocco.
The memory card contained three audio files, a scanned document, and a video recorded in a hospital corridor.
The first audio file began with Sofia's voice.
"Lorenzo, if you're hearing this, then I wasn't able to explain everything to you in person."
I stopped breathing.
Her voice was older than I remembered, exhausted but unmistakably hers.
"I know you think I abandoned the family. I didn't. I was trying to protect my daughter. I should have trusted you, but I was afraid you'd do what Father always did. You would decide that protecting me meant controlling every part of my life."
I closed my eyes.
Sofia had always hated the way our father treated fear as weakness.
I had inherited more of his habits than I cared to admit.
"I made mistakes," she continued. "The biggest was trusting someone who told me he could keep my baby safe."
A pause.
Then she said, "Vivien knows about the child. She has been looking for her since the day I died."
Rocco looked at me.
The recording continued.
"She believes the child is the key to the Bellini accounts. She doesn't know where the money is hidden, but she knows I left instructions with someone in the house."
Elena.
The wooden box.
The six million dollars.
Everything was connected.
The second recording was a conversation between Vivien and an unidentified man.
Vivien's voice was unmistakable.
"The girl is still in Chicago," she said. "I know that much."
The man answered, "Then find her."
"And if Lorenzo discovers what I'm doing?"
A short laugh.
"Make him believe you love him. That's what you're good at."
I felt something inside me go cold.
Vivien had never loved me.
She had loved the position she could occupy beside me.
The man continued.
"Once the marriage is official, you'll have access to the family trust. We can move the money before anyone realizes the girl is alive."
"She may not be alive."
"Then prove it."
The recording ended.
I played it again.
Then a third time.
I knew the man's voice.
Not from the underworld.
From my own childhood.
It belonged to Peter Caldwell, my father's former attorney.
He had retired shortly after Sofia's death and disappeared from public life. I had assumed he was enjoying his money somewhere in Florida.
Apparently, he had been preparing to steal six million dollars from a dead woman's trust.
I turned to Rocco.
"Find Caldwell."
"We'll find him."
"And find out where Vivien goes when she leaves the mansion."
Rocco hesitated.
"What about the wedding?"
I looked at the engagement ring on the desk.
"Move it forward."
He stared at me.
"You're going to marry her?"
"No. I'm going to give her a reason to believe she has won."
The following morning, I announced that the wedding would take place in ten days.
Vivien was delighted.
She kissed me in front of the household staff, thanked me for understanding her concerns, and immediately called her wedding planner.
I watched her from across the breakfast room.
She believed the countdown had begun.
She was wrong.
The countdown had ended.
Now came the reckoning.
At noon, I visited my mother in Boston.
Margaret Duca sat by the window of her private suite, a blanket over her knees. When I showed her Sofia's photograph, she began to cry.
"Oh, my little girl."
"Mother, I need you to tell me the truth."
She looked at me for a long time.
Then she reached for my hand.
"Your father wasn't the only man in this family who kept secrets."
"Who is Sofia's child's father?"
My mother closed her eyes.
"Someone you were taught to hate."
"Vincent Bellini?"
She shook her head.
"No."
Her fingers tightened around mine.
"The father of Sofia's daughter is alive. And he has been living under your protection for the past four years."
I stood so quickly that the chair scraped across the floor.
"Who?"
My mother looked toward the door.
A nurse stood in the hallway, watching us.
May you like
Then she whispered the name.
"Rocco."
