Chapter 5 - BLOOD DOESN’T ERASE A DEBT
In the darkness, Isabella heard Alessio’s breath catch. A second later, emergency lights glowed red along the floor. The door handle turned once, then stopped.
“Stay behind me,” Alessio said.
“You’re in a wheelchair.”
“And you’re holding a flashlight. We all have our limitations.”
Despite herself, Isabella almost laughed. She switched on her phone light and swept it over the shelves. A narrow service door stood ajar behind a stack of boxes. Someone had been in the archive before them—and had wanted to make sure they stayed there.
Alessio’s guard forced the main door open from the outside. He found no one in the corridor. The service passage led to the old wine cellar, where a window had been left unlatched. Whoever had locked them in knew the house well.
Alessio ordered the estate secured, but Isabella was staring at the photograph.
“You were there,” she said. “You said you didn’t know my father.”
“I said I didn’t know he was the worker who reported the problem. I remember him arguing with Marco over a maintenance log. I thought it was a routine disagreement.”
“And then he died.”
Alessio’s face hardened—not with anger at her, but at himself. “Yes.”
“Did you ever ask what happened to him?”
“I asked Marco for the investigation report. He told me the factory had accepted responsibility and the matter was closed.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I believed my family’s business had been protected from a lawsuit. I did not ask enough questions.” He looked down at his hands. “That is not an excuse.”
It was the first time Isabella had heard a powerful man admit a failure without dressing it up as somebody else’s fault. It did not make her trust him. But it made it harder to dismiss him as another rich man who believed apologies were a kind of currency.
The flash drive contained scanned emails, maintenance logs, and a short audio file. The audio was distorted, but a man’s voice could be heard saying the lift had to be shut down before somebody got killed. Another voice answered that the warehouse could not afford a delay. The second voice sounded like Marco.
Then came a sharp bang and the recording ended.
“Could be edited,” Alessio said. “We need the original source and someone who can authenticate it.”
“Dr. Shaw,” Isabella said.
They found the doctor at a private clinic the following morning. She listened to the audio twice, then confirmed that the inspection sheet matched a copy she had reviewed years ago. She also revealed that she had kept a separate record because she feared the company’s internal inquiry had been compromised.
“Your father’s report named a supervisor who ordered the lift back into service,” she told Isabella. “That supervisor died in a car accident three months later. The official story was drunk driving. I never believed it.”
“Who was he?”
“Peter Voss. He had a daughter. She disappeared after the accident.”
Alessio turned to his security chief. “Find her.”
Dr. Shaw hesitated. “There is something else. Marco wasn’t the only person who had access to the reports. Your father’s file was signed out by someone in the Moretti legal office. The authorization came from a family account.”
“Whose?” Isabella asked.
The doctor looked at Alessio. “Your mother’s.”
Alessio’s face changed. “That’s impossible.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she was protecting someone.”
He called Valentina. She arrived at the clinic within half an hour, wearing a dark coat and no jewelry except her wedding ring. When Alessio showed her the authorization, she did not deny signing it.
“I removed the file from the office,” she said. “Marco was asking questions about the accident, and I knew he would destroy anything that threatened the family.”
“You hid evidence?” Isabella said.
“I hid a copy. I believed I could force the truth out later, when it wouldn’t start a war.” Valentina’s voice trembled for the first time. “I was wrong.”
“Did you know Marco caused the accident?” Alessio asked.
“No. I knew he was involved in the cover-up. I did not know how far it went.”
Alessio looked at his mother as if he no longer knew where to place her in the world. Before he could speak, his security chief entered and handed him a phone.
“We found Peter Voss’s daughter,” the man said. “She’s alive. She’s been using another name for eleven years.”
“Where is she?”
The chief swallowed. “She’s in this building.”
May you like
A woman stepped into the doorway behind him, her face pale and eyes fixed on Alessio.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I didn’t come here to help you.” She raised a small pistol with shaking hands. “I came to make sure the Morettis finally pay.”
