Chapter 9 - What Carmine Hid Behind the Locked Door
The certificate said I had been born Hannah Maria Moretti.
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Stress response.
Again.
“This is fake.”
Carmine shrugged.
“Perhaps.”
Mia looked at me.
Gabriel looked furious.
Carmine wanted confusion.
He wanted us doubting each other.
So I photographed both certificates.
Then I noticed something.
The registration numbers were sequential.
But the dates were six months apart.
Impossible for records supposedly issued in different counties.
“You forged them.”
Carmine’s smile vanished.
I enlarged the seals.
Same printing defect.
Same crooked letter R.
“You used the same template.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
Carmine leaned toward me.
“You should have stayed a nurse.”
“I am a nurse.”
“No. You’re a liability.”
That sentence mattered.
Because my phone was recording.
Court officers eventually forced Carmine to leave while ownership was disputed.
We had time.
Not much.
Vincent searched the estate records and discovered Carmine had maintained a private storage room beneath the old wine cellar.
We opened it after midnight.
Inside were decades of secrets.
Copies of Maria’s letters.
Medical records.
Photographs.
Cash.
Passports.
And surveillance files on Gabriel.
Carmine had watched his nephew for years.
One box contained records from the sniper attack.
Payment to a shell company.
Photographs of the estate.
Gabriel’s schedule.
The shooter’s code name.
MERCURY.
M.
Not Maria.
Not Mia.
Mercury.
We found a photograph attached.
The shooter was Dr. Adrian Locke.
The surgeon who had operated on Gabriel.
I felt sick.
Locke had not merely treated the wound.
He may have helped create the circumstances around it.
Gabriel’s injury had made him easier to isolate.
But something had gone wrong.
He survived.
And retained mental capacity.
So Carmine began drugging him.
Everything connected.
Almost.
One file remained locked.
The label read:
GABRIEL — FINAL.
We found the password in Carmine’s ledger.
ROSEGARDEN.
The folder opened.
Inside was a video.
Recorded six months earlier.
The night before Gabriel was shot.
Carmine sat across from Locke.
“If he survives?”
“He’ll likely lose lower-body function.”
“And cognition?”
“Unaffected.”
“That’s a problem.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Carmine looked directly toward the hidden camera without realizing it existed.
“Make sure he never gets the chance to recover.”
Gabriel’s hands tightened.
Then Locke asked:
“And the nurse?”
Carmine answered.
“Which one?”
“The Bennett woman.”
My blood turned cold.
This conversation happened months before I was hired.
Carmine smiled on-screen.
“She’s insurance.”
Gabriel paused the video.
“What does that mean?”
I did not know.
Then Vincent found another file.
A contract.
My name.
A photograph of me leaving my apartment.
A payment schedule.
Someone had been following me for almost a year.
The final page contained instructions.
If Gabriel survived the shooting, place Hannah Bennett inside the estate.
Reason:
SUBJECT POSSESSES ORIGINAL EVIDENCE WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE.
I stared at the words.
“What evidence?”
My mother’s key had led to the ledger.
But Carmine already knew about that.
This was something else.
Something I possessed.
We drove to my old apartment with security.
Most of my belongings were still boxed in storage.
I searched everything.
College books.
Photographs.
My father’s tools.
My mother’s old recipes.
Then I found a jewelry box that had belonged to my grandmother.
Inside was a cheap silver locket I had worn as a child.
I opened it.
No photograph.
Just a tiny strip of microfilm.
Vincent held it to the light.
Numbers.
Accounts.
Names.
Dates.
And one handwritten line.
CARMINE ORDERED DANIEL MORETTI’S DEATH.
Daniel.
Gabriel’s father.
The official story said heart attack.
Gabriel stared at the film.
Then my apartment door clicked shut behind us.
A voice came from the dark hallway.
“Your father didn’t die from a heart attack, Gabriel.”
May you like
Dr. Adrian Locke stepped into view.
And he was holding a gun...
