Chapter 3 - The Voice in the Monitor
My hands tightened around Mia.
Alessandro crossed the room and ripped the baby monitor from the outlet.
Silence.
“Who was it?”
I couldn't answer.
“Elena.”
“My father.”
Alessandro stared at me.
“You said he abandoned you.”
“He did.”
“When did you last hear his voice?”
“Sixteen years ago.”
“You're certain?”
“A daughter knows her father's voice.”
Alessandro immediately called security.
The monitor was examined.
Someone had accessed it remotely.
There had been no intruder inside the room.
That should have made me feel safer.
It didn't.
My father knew where I was.
Worse, he knew about Gabriel's envelope.
Alessandro spent the night tracing everything he could about Thomas Maren.
My father.
By sunrise, we had a new problem.
Thomas Maren had officially died eleven years ago.
I stared at the death certificate on Alessandro's screen.
“No.”
“Do you remember hearing about his death?”
“No. He disappeared when I was nine. My mother refused to discuss him.”
“Your mother?”
“Died when I was nineteen.”
“Did she leave records?”
“Nothing useful.”
Alessandro leaned back.
“Thomas worked for my father.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Financial operations.”
“You said you didn't know why he was in the photograph.”
“I didn't. I found archived payroll records overnight.”
“How long?”
“Twelve years.”
My father had spent twelve years working for the Duca family.
My mother had never told me.
Gabriel had never told me.
Everybody around me seemed to have lived inside a story I hadn't been allowed to read.
At ten that morning, Alessandro received another call.
The storage company had recovered surveillance footage.
The thief had removed Box 1704 but abandoned it in a parking garage six blocks away.
Empty.
Almost empty.
One item remained.
A key.
We drove there with security.
Alessandro refused to leave me behind.
I refused to leave Mia.
So the three of us traveled in an armored SUV while two security vehicles followed.
The key was small and brass.
Stamped with a number.
“Another box?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
Alessandro turned it over.
One word had been engraved into the back.
MIA.
My breath stopped.
“That isn't possible.”
Alessandro looked at me.
“How old was Box 1704?”
“Eight years.”
“And Mia is eight months old.”
“Yes.”
“So somebody put that key there recently.”
He nodded.
“Gabriel.”
“Or whoever killed him.”
Back at the penthouse, we searched Gabriel's belongings.
I had kept one box after his death.
Clothes.
A watch.
Photographs.
A paperback he never finished.
Nothing important.
Or so I thought.
Alessandro picked up Gabriel's watch.
“Did he wear this?”
“Every day.”
He examined the back.
A tiny scratch formed three numbers.
My pulse accelerated.
Alessandro pressed the crown.
Nothing.
Then he twisted it backward.
The rear plate opened.
Inside was a microSD card.
I stared.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Gabriel liked redundancies.”
We loaded the card.
Most files were encrypted.
One wasn't.
A video.
Gabriel appeared on screen.
Alive.
My hand flew to my mouth.
He looked exhausted.
“Elena,” he said.
My knees weakened.
“If you're watching this, I failed.”
I started crying before I could stop myself.
Alessandro remained beside me.
“I need you to understand something first.”
Gabriel looked directly into the camera.
“I did lie to you when we met.”
My heart cracked.
“I was supposed to watch you because Thomas Maren had disappeared and Vittorio Duca's enemies believed his daughter might know where he hid the evidence.”
I closed my eyes.
“But I stopped reporting on you after three weeks.”
I looked back.
“Because I fell in love with you.”
A sob escaped me.
“I should have told you. I kept waiting for a safe time. There was never one.”
Gabriel lowered his eyes.
“When Mia was born, I tried to leave everything behind.”
Then his expression changed.
“But someone found us.”
Alessandro leaned closer.
“Who?”
As if answering him, Gabriel continued.
“Thomas is alive.”
I gripped the desk.
“He contacted me two weeks ago.”
Gabriel held something toward the camera.
A photograph of my father.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Alive.
“He said the ledger was never about Vittorio's crimes.”
Alessandro stiffened.
“It was evidence against someone else.”
Gabriel swallowed.
“Someone who has been inside Duca Capital for years.”
The video distorted.
“No.”
I leaned toward the screen.
“Come on.”
Gabriel's face returned.
“The key marked Mia opens locker 312 at Grand Central.”
Alessandro immediately stood.
“In it, you'll find the only copy I could save.”
Gabriel looked exhausted.
“Elena, if Alessandro is with you, trust him.”
Alessandro froze.
“Not because he's innocent of everything.”
His jaw tightened.
“But because he doesn't know what his father did.”
The screen went black.
I stared.
“That can't be all.”
Alessandro checked.
Another file existed.
Locked.
We needed a password.
I tried Mia.
Wrong.
My birthday.
Wrong.
Gabriel's birthday.
Wrong.
Alessandro looked at me.
“What did he call you?”
“El.”
Wrong.
“Something only the two of you knew.”
I thought.
Then remembered our first date.
Gabriel had spilled coffee across my white blouse and joked that he had destroyed any chance of seeing me again.
I had told him, “You owe me a second cup.”
Secondcup.
The file opened.
It contained financial transfers.
Hundreds.
Millions of dollars moved through shell companies.
Alessandro scrolled.
Then stopped.
One recipient appeared repeatedly.
DUCA FOUNDATION.
His face hardened.
“That was my mother's charity.”
“Who controlled it?”
“My father.”
“After he died?”
“My uncle.”
“Which uncle?”
Alessandro didn't answer immediately.
“Marco.”
I knew Marco Duca.
Everyone did.
He was Alessandro's father's younger brother and the public face of Duca Capital's charitable work.
Warm smile.
Television interviews.
Hospitals.
Scholarships.
Everything Alessandro wasn't.
“You think your uncle—”
“I don't think anything yet.”
His phone rang.
Security.
They had found Locker 312.
We reached Grand Central before noon.
Inside the locker was a black notebook.
Nothing else.
Alessandro opened it.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Police officers.
Judges.
Executives.
My father.
Vittorio Duca.
Marco Duca.
Gabriel Vale.
Then one page near the end.
MIA VALE — INSURANCE.
My vision blurred.
“What does insurance mean?”
Alessandro turned the page.
A photograph was taped inside.
Mia in the hospital hours after birth.
Someone had photographed us through the nursery glass.
On the back, Gabriel had written:
THEY THINK SHE CAN LEAD THEM TO THOMAS.
My father.
This had never been about me.
Mia was leverage.
Alessandro closed the book.
“We're leaving.”
As we stepped from the locker area, his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man's voice spoke.
Even from several feet away, I recognized it.
My father.
“Put Elena on.”
Alessandro's face became stone.
“No.”
“Then tell my daughter she has twenty-four hours to bring the ledger.”
“Or what?”
A quiet laugh.
“Ask her what really happened to Gabriel.”
I grabbed the phone.
“What happened to him?”
Silence.
Then my father said, “Your boyfriend wasn't killed because he found the ledger.”
My heart stopped.
“He was killed because he discovered who Mia's biological father really is.”
May you like
Behind us, the locker-room door clicked shut.
And someone began locking it from the other side.
