Chapter 4 - What the Dead Man Recorded
The bullet struck the wall inches above Emilia’s pillow, and Lorenzo understood with perfect clarity that the conspiracy was no longer hidden. Whoever had fired knew the memory card was inside the mansion—and knew exactly which room sheltered the child.
He pulled Renata and Emilia onto the floor.
“Stay behind the bed.”
Pino stood between them and the shattered window, barking into the dark garden. Lorenzo drew his pistol and moved to the side of the frame.
A second shot struck the stone exterior.
The angle revealed the shooter’s position near the tree line beyond the service wall.
Lorenzo fired once toward a flash of movement. He did not expect to hit the shooter, but the return fire stopped.
Footsteps thundered in the hallway. Two guards arrived.
“Take Renata and Emilia to the inner vault room,” Lorenzo ordered. “No windows. Two men at the door. Pino goes with them.”
Renata seized his sleeve. “Come with us.”
He looked at her hand, then at her frightened face.
“I have to end this.”
“You don’t even know who you’re fighting.”
“I know enough.”
Emilia began crying when one of the guards tried to lift her. Lorenzo holstered his weapon and took her himself.
He carried her through the concealed passage behind the library, into a reinforced room his father had built for emergencies. Renata followed while Pino remained pressed against Lorenzo’s leg.
The vault room contained water, medical supplies, communications equipment, and a small bed. Lorenzo placed Emilia on it.
She reached for him.
“Don’t go.”
The plea struck a part of him he had kept buried since childhood.
“My father used to leave during storms,” she said. “Then one day he didn’t come back.”
Renata’s eyes closed.
Lorenzo sat beside the girl. “I’m coming back.”
“Promise?”
He had learned long ago that promises were weaknesses other people could use. Yet he placed one hand over hers.
“I promise.”
Emilia studied his face as though deciding whether dangerous men could tell the truth.
Then she nodded.
Pino settled beside the bed.
Lorenzo gave Renata a secure phone. “Only answer if I call.”
She looked at the memory card in his hand.
“People are trying to kill my daughter because of that.”
“Yes.”
“Then destroy it.”
“If I destroy it, the people hunting her remain powerful. If I expose it, they lose the protection that lets them threaten children.”
Renata’s voice shook. “And if you fail?”
“I won’t.”
He left before she could hear the uncertainty behind the words.
In the private surveillance room, Lorenzo inserted the memory card into an isolated computer. Dozens of audio files appeared, along with scanned bank records and photographs.
The first recording began with his father’s voice.
“If Lorenzo is hearing this, then I failed to stop Vittorio.”
Lorenzo sat motionless.
Five years disappeared. He was thirty-four again and seventeen at the same time, listening for footsteps that would never return.
Alessandro described a criminal partnership between Vittorio Salvi and Eduardo Bellandi. They had been diverting money through Duca shipping routes, paying officials, and arranging violent incidents that were blamed on rival organizations. Their goal was to weaken Alessandro, then control Lorenzo before he became experienced enough to resist.
The final recording had been made two days before Alessandro’s death.
“Vittorio knows I have evidence,” his father said. “If anything happens to me, examine the brakes yourself. Do not trust Carlo Vieri. And do not let grief convince you that the men standing closest are the men standing with you.”
Lorenzo stopped the recording.
He had promoted Carlo after his father’s death.
He had kept Vittorio at his right hand.
For five years, he had rewarded the men responsible for making him an orphan.
A video file showed Carlo entering the estate garage the night before Alessandro’s fatal drive. He disabled a camera, opened the hood of the car, and worked near the brake system.
Lorenzo copied every file to three encrypted drives. One would go to a federal prosecutor his father had quietly trusted. Another would go to a journalist outside Bellandi influence. The third would remain with Lorenzo.
He had just completed the transfers when Agnes entered.
“There’s a fire in the east wing.”
Smoke was already curling beneath the door.
Vittorio had escaped his guard.
The fire spread from the study toward the central staircase, cutting off the main passage to the vault room. Staff members fled through the front entrance while guards searched for Vittorio.
Lorenzo ran into the smoke.
The corridor ceiling groaned. Flames climbed the silk wallpaper. He covered his mouth and reached the concealed library passage, but found its entrance blocked by a fallen beam.
He called Renata.
No answer.
He tried again.
The line connected, and Emilia’s coughing voice came through.
“Coffee man?”
“Emilia, listen to me. Where is your mother?”
“Sleeping.”
Fear tightened around his chest.
“Wake her.”
“She won’t wake up.”
Smoke had entered the vault through an old ventilation shaft.
“Stay low,” Lorenzo ordered. “Put your face near the floor.”
“Pino is scratching the wall.”
Lorenzo remembered the mansion’s original plans. The vault had a secondary exit leading into the wine cellar, sealed decades ago but not reinforced.
“Tell Pino ‘Home,’” he said.
“What?”
“Say the word.”
Emilia coughed. “Pino. Home.”
Through the phone, Lorenzo heard the Doberman bark and slam against something.
Again.
Again.
Then wood cracked.
Lorenzo changed direction, racing downstairs toward the wine cellar. Smoke filled the stairwell. Behind him, part of the ceiling collapsed.
He reached the cellar as Pino broke through a rotted panel in the wall.
The dog emerged first, dragging Renata by the sleeve.
Emilia crawled behind him with the stuffed rabbit clutched beneath one arm.
Lorenzo lifted the child and pulled Renata across the floor. She was unconscious but breathing.
They escaped through the cellar doors seconds before flames swallowed the stairway.
Outside, Emilia clung to Lorenzo, coughing into his coat. Pino stood over Renata until medics arrived.
Across the garden, a car engine roared.
Vittorio’s sedan crashed through the service gate and disappeared down the road.
Lorenzo watched it vanish.
His phone rang.
Matteo’s frightened voice answered when he picked up.
“My uncle took Renata’s mother.”
Lorenzo’s blood went cold.
“What?”
“He found out Samuel Greco wasn’t the only person your father trusted. Renata’s mother was a secretary in this house twenty-five years ago. She knows where the original records are.”
“Where did he take her?”
“To the old Bellandi hotel.”
“Why are you telling me?”
May you like
Matteo’s voice broke.
“Because Vittorio said if you survived the fire, he would make you choose which generation of that family dies first.”
