Chapter 2 - The Doctor Who Signed Her Death
Dante had imagined killing Lorenzo Valli many times.
Eight years earlier, the doctor had stood outside a private hospital room and told him Chiara was gone.
Complications after a sudden cardiac episode.
Nothing could have been done.
Dante had believed him.
Now Lorenzo stood inside Chiara's music room looking at a cassette he apparently knew existed.
Dante shut the door.
“You have thirty seconds to start talking.”
Lorenzo looked toward Sofia.
That single glance told Dante more than words.
“You two know each other.”
Sofia whispered, “Dante, listen to him first.”
Dante laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You've spent eight years hoping I'd never listen to my wife. I'm done listening to you.”
Marco placed the cassette player on the piano bench.
Dante inserted the tape.
Lorenzo moved.
“Don't.”
Dante pressed PLAY.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman's breathing.
Dante's entire body locked.
Chiara.
Eight years disappeared.
Her voice came through the tiny speaker.
“Dante, if you're hearing this, I failed to tell you myself.”
He closed his eyes for half a second.
Then opened them.
“I discovered someone has been using Moretti shipping companies to move money for people your father refused to work with.”
Sofia began crying silently.
Chiara continued.
“I copied everything. Names. Accounts. Dates. But I made a mistake. I trusted someone close to you.”
Static.
Then:
“If anything happens to me, don't believe the first story they give you.”
The tape clicked.
Dante stared at Lorenzo.
“You told me she died naturally.”
Lorenzo swallowed.
“I told you what I was ordered to tell you.”
“By whom?”
“I can't—”
Dante slammed his palm against the piano.
Mia screamed from somewhere down the corridor.
The sound stopped him.
He lowered his voice.
“By whom?”
Lorenzo looked at Sofia.
Sofia whispered, “Tell him.”
Lorenzo answered.
“Your father.”
Dante stepped backward.
Impossible.
Antonio Moretti had adored Chiara.
Or Dante had believed he had.
“My father ordered you to lie?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the truth would have started a war.”
Dante stared at the cassette.
“What truth?”
Lorenzo looked exhausted.
“Chiara didn't die from a heart condition.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“What killed her?”
“She was poisoned.”
Dante's hand closed around the edge of the piano.
Sofia sobbed.
Dante turned toward her.
“You knew.”
“Not until afterward.”
“How long afterward?”
“Three days.”
Eight years of birthdays.
Eight anniversaries spent alone.
Eight years visiting a grave under a lie.
“You let me bury her believing—”
“I was trying to keep you alive!”
Sofia's voice cracked.
Dante said nothing.
Lorenzo continued.
“Your father discovered the poisoning after Chiara collapsed. He believed the person responsible was inside the organization.”
“So he covered it up?”
“He was trying to identify them.”
“And did he?”
Lorenzo hesitated.
“Before he could tell you, he died.”
Antonio Moretti had been killed in a highway accident eleven months after Chiara's death.
Dante suddenly felt cold.
“Was my father's accident really an accident?”
Neither answered.
That was answer enough.
Dante removed the cassette.
“You said Chiara copied names and accounts.”
Lorenzo nodded.
“The second cassette.”
“The one Mia says a man took.”
“Yes.”
“Who has it?”
“I don't know.”
Dante looked at Sofia.
She shook her head.
“I swear.”
Marco's phone vibrated.
He answered, listened, then looked toward Dante.
“We found something.”
“Where?”
“Security room.”
They moved downstairs.
The mansion's security system stored footage for thirty days.
Marco's team pulled recordings from the music-room corridor.
At 2:13 that morning, a man entered the hallway.
He wore a maintenance uniform and cap.
He unlocked the music room.
Dante leaned toward the monitor.
The man carried something.
A framed photograph.
Mia had called it Grandma Chiara's picture because Chiara was in it.
The intruder remained inside eleven minutes.
When he emerged, he carried nothing.
Marco froze the image.
“Facial recognition?”
“Running.”
Sofia stared at the screen.
Dante noticed.
“You know him.”
“No.”
“Stop lying to me.”
“I don't know his name.”
“Then what do you know?”
Sofia took a breath.
“He worked for Father.”
Marco's computer chimed.
A match appeared.
GABRIEL RUSSO.
Former Moretti financial auditor.
Officially dead seven years.
Dante stared at the screen.
“A dead man entered my house last night.”
Lorenzo whispered, “Then he's finally moving.”
Dante turned.
“Who?”
Lorenzo looked toward the doorway as if expecting someone.
“The person Chiara was trying to expose.”
Before Dante could ask another question, the lights went out.
The security monitors died.
Marco drew his weapon.
A crash sounded upstairs.
Dante ran.
He reached the music room.
The piano bench had been overturned.
The cassette player was smashed.
May you like
And on the polished black piano lid, written through the dust with one finger, were five words:
YOU HEARD THE WRONG TAPE.
