Chapter 2 - The Man Outside the Door
Alessandro moved before I could scream.
He took Mia from my arms with one hand and pulled me behind him with the other.
“Don't make a sound.”
The handle turned again.
Locked.
Someone tested it once more.
Then stopped.
Alessandro handed Mia back to me and reached for his phone.
He typed one message.
Twenty seconds later, heavy footsteps came down the corridor.
A man's voice called, “Mr. Duca?”
Alessandro unlocked the door.
Two security officers stood outside.
Nobody else.
“Seal the penthouse,” Alessandro said. “Nobody leaves.”
The head of security nodded.
“What happened?”
“Someone was standing outside this room thirty seconds ago.”
The guard looked confused.
“We saw nobody.”
“Then your cameras did.”
The man's expression changed.
Alessandro showed him the photograph.
“Find whoever took this.”
Within minutes, the penthouse became something I had never seen before.
Elevators locked.
Service entrances guarded.
Staff questioned.
Security footage pulled onto Alessandro's office monitors.
Mia sat on my lap while Alessandro stood behind his desk watching four camera feeds simultaneously.
“Here,” a guard said.
The hallway footage showed me following Alessandro toward the laundry room.
Then the screen glitched.
Seven seconds of static.
When the image returned, the corridor was empty.
Alessandro leaned closer.
“Again.”
They replayed it.
Static.
Seven seconds.
“Someone accessed the internal system,” the guard said.
“From where?”
“We're tracing it.”
Alessandro looked at me.
“Gabriel knew this building's security.”
My stomach turned.
“He's dead.”
“I know.”
“Then why say that?”
“Because whoever did this knew where the cameras were and how long they needed.”
The guard's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression tightened.
“Mr. Duca, we found something.”
In the service stairwell lay a black baseball cap, disposable gloves, and an access card.
The card belonged to Raymond.
The doorman who had helped me hide Mia.
“No,” I said immediately.
Alessandro looked at me.
“Raymond wouldn't hurt us.”
“You're certain?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he helped me.”
“That proves kindness. It doesn't prove innocence.”
I hated the cold logic of it.
Raymond was brought upstairs.
He looked terrified.
“I didn't give anyone my card.”
“Then how did they get it?” Alessandro asked.
“I don't know.”
“When did you last have it?”
“This morning.”
“Who was near you?”
Raymond hesitated.
“A courier.”
“What courier?”
“Package delivery. Around eight-thirty.”
Alessandro turned toward security.
“Footage.”
They found the delivery.
A man wearing a gray jacket and baseball cap had entered carrying two boxes.
His face never turned toward a camera.
He stood beside Raymond for eleven seconds.
Long enough.
Then left.
The boxes were empty.
Alessandro ordered security to find the vehicle.
I stared at the screen.
Something about the man's walk bothered me.
“Pause.”
Nobody moved.
“Please.”
Alessandro nodded.
The image froze.
The man's left leg turned slightly inward.
My blood went cold.
“I've seen him.”
“Where?”
“Outside my apartment.”
Alessandro's eyes sharpened.
“When?”
“Twice.”
“And you didn't tell anyone?”
“I thought I was imagining things.”
“After Gabriel died?”
“I didn't know who to trust.”
His jaw tightened, but he didn't argue.
“Pack whatever Mia needs.”
“Why?”
“You're not going home.”
“I can't stay here.”
“You misunderstand. That wasn't an invitation.”
I stood.
“You don't get to decide where my daughter and I live.”
“Someone photographed your child inside a secured penthouse ten minutes ago.”
“And that makes you my jailer?”
“No. It makes me the man whose security system they just penetrated.”
He came closer.
“And Gabriel sent you to me before he died.”
That silenced me.
An hour later, Alessandro moved us into a guest suite on the opposite side of the penthouse.
It was larger than my apartment.
Mia immediately discovered a velvet pillow worth more than my monthly rent and drooled on it.
I grabbed it away.
Alessandro, standing in the doorway, said, “Leave it.”
“She'll ruin it.”
“It's a pillow.”
“It probably costs six hundred dollars.”
“Eight hundred.”
I stared at him.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
“Let her ruin it.”
That was the first crack in the version of Alessandro I thought I knew.
The second came that evening.
I woke after accidentally falling asleep beside Mia and found the guest-room door partly open.
Alessandro sat on the floor outside.
Laptop on his knees.
Back against the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“Working.”
“On the floor?”
He looked at me.
“The security team is downstairs.”
“That doesn't answer my question.”
“No.”
I stepped into the hallway.
“You're guarding the door.”
“I'm working.”
“You have an office.”
“I felt like working here.”
I folded my arms.
“Billionaires are terrible liars.”
That earned a faint smile.
Then it disappeared.
“I knew Gabriel well.”
I sat opposite him.
“How well?”
“He saved my life.”
I waited.
“Eight years ago, someone inside Duca Capital sold information about one of our acquisitions. It cost us millions. Gabriel discovered it wasn't about money.”
“What was it about?”
“My father.”
I knew Alessandro's father, Vittorio Duca, had died years earlier.
“What about him?”
“He had built relationships with people he should never have trusted.”
“Criminals?”
Alessandro's expression was enough.
“Gabriel found records.”
“The ledger?”
“Possibly.”
“What's 1704?”
“A safe-deposit box.”
My pulse jumped.
“Where?”
“That is the problem.”
“What problem?”
“The bank branch closed seven years ago.”
“So the box is gone?”
“Not necessarily.”
He turned his laptop toward me.
An archived corporate document appeared.
“The contents were transferred when the branch merged.”
“To where?”
“Private storage.”
“Can we get them?”
“Tomorrow.”
I looked toward Mia.
“Why would Gabriel wait eight years?”
“Maybe he didn't.”
“What does that mean?”
Alessandro opened another file.
“Gabriel disappeared from my organization four years ago. No resignation. No warning.”
“That was around when I met him.”
“I know.”
I stared.
“You investigated me?”
“Today.”
Anger flashed through me.
“You had no right.”
“Someone is hunting your daughter.”
“That doesn't give you permission to tear through my life.”
“No.”
His gaze stayed steady.
“But it gives me a reason.”
I stood.
“Good night.”
“Elena.”
I stopped.
“I found something else.”
I turned.
He handed me his phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
Gabriel.
Much younger.
Standing beside Alessandro.
Between them was another man.
I recognized him immediately.
My father.
The man who had abandoned my mother and me when I was nine.
I nearly dropped the phone.
“That can't be real.”
“It is.”
“My father didn't know Gabriel.”
“He did.”
“No.”
“He also knew mine.”
My stomach turned.
“What was he doing with you?”
“I don't know.”
“You investigate everything. How can you not know?”
“Because this photograph was taken the night before my father died.”
I looked at him.
Vittorio Duca had supposedly died of a heart attack.
“You think your father was murdered.”
“I've thought it for eight years.”
“And Gabriel knew?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did he come into my life?”
Alessandro said nothing.
The answer was too ugly to say.
Maybe Gabriel had not met me accidentally.
Maybe our first date had not been chance.
Maybe our two years together had begun as an investigation.
I felt sick.
“He used me.”
“We don't know that.”
“He lied about everything.”
“Not necessarily everything.”
“You don't know that either.”
Mia began crying from the bedroom.
I went to her immediately.
When I lifted her, she pressed her wet cheek against mine.
My beautiful daughter.
The one thing Gabriel had given me that could never become a lie.
Behind me, Alessandro's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression darkened.
“What?”
A pause.
“When?”
He looked at me.
Then ended the call.
“What happened?”
“The storage facility holding the transferred contents from Box 1704 was broken into tonight.”
My heart sank.
“They knew we were looking.”
“Maybe.”
“Was anything taken?”
“One box.”
“Which one?”
He stared at me.
“1704.”
Then Mia's baby monitor crackled on the nightstand.
A man's voice came through the speaker.
“Elena.”
I froze.
The voice continued.
May you like
“You were never supposed to open Gabriel's envelope.”
And I knew that voice.
