Chapter 3 - Four Million Reasons to Lie
"Don't move."
Luca's voice cut through the black room.
Mara stopped breathing.
A second later emergency lights flickered on.
Red.
Dim.
Marco stood between Mara and the door.
Elias covered the opposite side.
Rafael was already in the hallway.
The doorway was empty.
"Who was that?" Luca asked.
Mara stared at the darkness.
"I know that voice."
"Who?"
She struggled to place it.
Someone from childhood.
Someone impossible.
Then memory arrived.
Summer afternoons.
A boy's laughter.
A hand grabbing hers before she fell from a tree.
A voice telling her not to tell Dad they had broken the greenhouse window.
Mara whispered, "Evan."
Anne lowered her head.
Luca looked at Mara.
"Evan who?"
"My cousin."
She swallowed.
"At least... I was told he was my cousin."
"Where is he now?"
"He died."
Anne's head lifted.
"No."
Mara turned on her.
"Stop doing that."
"I'm sorry."
"Stop telling me dead people aren't dead!"
Anne flinched.
Mara stood so quickly her chair scraped backward.
"My mother is dead. Evan is dead. I don't secretly have some entire family living in tunnels beneath the city."
Anne whispered, "Evan is alive."
Mara laughed.
It sounded close to crying.
"Wonderful."
Luca rolled closer.
"Mara."
She stepped away.
"I need air."
"Not alone."
"I know."
That surprised both of them.
Mara looked at him.
"I'm starting to learn."
Luca accompanied her back upstairs.
The mansion had shifted into lockdown.
Men moved quietly through hallways.
Doors were checked.
Feeds reviewed.
Visitors confined.
Mara stood beside the tall windows of Luca's office.
Outside, evening had settled over the property.
She could see iron gates in the distance.
Beyond them, city lights.
Behind her, she heard the controlled movement of Luca's wheelchair approaching.
He stopped several feet away.
Not crowding her.
"Do you remember Evan clearly?"
"Bits."
"Tell me."
"Why?"
"Memory is evidence."
She almost rolled her eyes.
"Do you ever stop investigating?"
"No."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It keeps me alive."
Mara turned.
He was watching her with a calmness she was beginning to understand.
The calm wasn't natural.
It was practiced.
Built.
Like armor.
"Evan was older," she said. "Maybe six years. He stayed with us one summer."
"How old were you?"
"Nine."
"Parents?"
"I was told his mother was Mom's cousin."
"Name?"
"Michelle."
"Last name?"
Mara frowned.
"I don't know."
"Interesting."
"It was eighteen years ago."
"Children remember names when adults repeat them."
Mara stared.
"You think they deliberately kept it vague."
"I think your father deliberately did many things."
Mara looked back toward the window.
"Evan disappeared after that summer. Dad said there had been an accident."
"What kind?"
"Car crash."
"Body?"
"I was nine, Luca."
"Funeral?"
She thought.
"No."
"Memorial?"
"No."
"Photographs?"
"Mom had one."
"Where?"
"In a jewelry box."
"Do you still have it?"
Mara turned slowly.
"No."
"Where is the box?"
"My apartment."
The apartment someone had just searched.
Luca called Elias.
"Send two teams. Find a jewelry box belonging to Caroline. Nobody touches anything without photographs."
"Yes."
Mara watched him.
"You just assume everyone obeys you."
"They usually do."
"How humble."
"You'll get used to it."
The words came out too naturally.
They both noticed.
Mara folded her arms.
"Don't."
Luca's eyebrow rose.
"Don't what?"
"Talk like this marriage is happening."
"Isn't it?"
"I haven't signed."
"I noticed."
"Does that bother you?"
"No."
"Really?"
"I don't want a wife who signs because her father told her to."
"Then why agree at all?"
He went silent.
Mara stepped closer.
"My father said you wanted legitimacy."
"Your father says many things."
"What did you want?"
Luca looked toward the contract still lying on his desk.
"You."
The answer was so direct Mara forgot what she meant to say.
"Excuse me?"
"I wanted you."
"You don't know me."
"I know enough."
"That is possibly the most disturbing romantic sentence I've ever heard."
His mouth twitched.
"I'm not trying to be romantic."
"Good."
"I knew who you were before Daniel approached me."
"Because of my mother?"
"At first."
"And later?"
"I kept track of what happened to her trust."
"Why?"
"Because I failed her."
The humor disappeared.
Mara studied him.
"Tell me about the night she died."
Luca rolled toward the desk.
For several seconds he looked at nothing.
"She called me at 9:17 p.m."
"You remember the time?"
"I remember everything."
Mara waited.
"She was scared," he said. "Not for herself. For you."
"What did she say?"
"She said Daniel had discovered she was investigating him."
Mara's throat tightened.
"Did she accuse him of hurting her?"
"No."
"Did she think he would?"
"She believed he was capable of destroying anyone who threatened his reputation."
"That's not the same as murder."
"No."
Luca looked at her.
"I won't accuse him of killing your mother without evidence."
The fairness of that statement surprised her.
"What happened after the call?"
"I went to the hospital."
"Why?"
"She asked me to."
"And?"
"She gave me the letter."
The envelope was still in Mara's hand.
She had not opened it.
"Why didn't you read it?"
"Because it wasn't mine."
"You run a criminal empire, but sealed letters are sacred?"
"Some rules matter precisely because others don't."
Mara almost smiled again.
"How was she?"
"Weak."
His voice changed.
"Angry."
"That sounds like Mom."
"Very."
He looked down.
"She told me I had wasted too much of my life trying to become the kind of man my father respected."
Mara felt emotion rise unexpectedly.
"She did that."
"What?"
"Told people things they didn't want to hear."
"Constantly."
"What happened?"
"She asked me to promise that if Daniel ever used you as leverage in one of his financial deals, I'd intervene."
Mara's eyes narrowed.
"She predicted this."
"Apparently."
"Why marriage?"
"That I don't know."
"Did she mention Evan?"
"No."
"Another man?"
"No."
"The initials M.E.?"
"No."
Mara looked at the paper Anne had brought.
"M.E. could mean Mara Ellison."
"Or something else."
"Moretti Enterprises?"
Luca stared at her.
That possibility landed differently.
Mara saw it.
"Could it?"
"Yes."
"Did your companies receive money from my mother's trust?"
"Not knowingly."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one."
His phone buzzed.
Elias.
Luca answered on speaker.
"We found the jewelry box."
Mara moved closer.
"Photograph?"
Elias sent one.
Mara stared.
Dark walnut.
Small brass latch.
Her mother's initials.
C.E.
"Open it," Luca said.
A pause.
Then Elias spoke.
"Empty."
Mara's heart sank.
"But there's something underneath."
"What?"
"The bottom panel is loose."
Mara leaned against Luca's desk.
She heard tools.
Movement.
Then Elias inhaled sharply.
"Boss."
"Tell me."
"There's a photograph."
"Send it."
The image arrived.
Mara opened it.
Her mother stood beside Daniel.
Both younger.
Behind them was another couple.
A woman Mara recognized faintly.
Michelle.
And beside Michelle stood a man.
Mara enlarged the image.
Her breath stopped.
He looked astonishingly like Luca.
Same dark eyes.
Same jaw.
Same family resemblance.
She looked at Luca.
"Who is that?"
He stared.
For once, his control shattered.
"My uncle."
Mara whispered, "Your uncle knew my mother?"
"Apparently."
"What was his name?"
"Matteo."
M.E.
Matteo Moretti.
Mara looked down at Anne's list.
The initials suddenly had a face.
"What happened to him?"
Luca's jaw hardened.
"He disappeared eighteen years ago."
"The summer Evan supposedly died."
Neither spoke.
Then Elias said through the phone, "There's writing on the back."
"Read it."
Elias hesitated.
"Boss, I think Mara should hear this privately."
"Read it."
Another pause.
Then:
"'Caroline, if anything happens to me, Evan is yours. Daniel must never know who his father really is.'"
Mara's knees weakened.
Luca caught her hand.
Not her waist.
Not possessive.
Just steady.
Mara stared at him.
"Evan was Matteo Moretti's son."
"Looks that way."
"Then he's your cousin."
"Yes."
"And my mother raised him?"
"For one summer."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Mara's mind raced.
She remembered Evan's dark hair.
His strange reluctance to talk about his parents.
Her mother hugging him tightly the morning he left.
Daniel refusing to let Mara say goodbye.
Then another memory surfaced.
Evan standing at the top of the stairs.
Daniel below.
Shouting.
"You are not one of us."
Mara had forgotten it completely.
Until now.
She looked at Luca.
"My father hated him."
Luca's eyes sharpened.
"What do you remember?"
Before Mara could answer, the office doors opened.
Rafael entered with a man.
Tall.
Lean.
Late thirties.
A scar along his cheek.
Mara recognized his eyes before she recognized anything else.
"Evan."
The man looked at her.
For a second, all hardness disappeared.
"Little M."
Mara covered her mouth.
Only one person had ever called her that.
She took one step.
Luca said, "Stop."
Evan looked at him.
"Still suspicious."
"Still alive."
"Because I taught you well."
Luca's face changed.
"You didn't teach me anything."
Evan smiled faintly.
"No. My father did."
Mara stared.
"You knew Matteo?"
"My whole life."
"Then why did everyone tell me you died?"
Evan's smile vanished.
"Because Daniel tried to kill me."
Mara shook her head.
"No."
"He found out who my father was."
"Why would that matter?"
Evan looked toward Luca.
"Because Matteo had proof Daniel stole from both families."
Luca leaned forward.
"What proof?"
"A ledger."
"Where?"
Evan looked directly at Mara.
"Your mother hid it."
Mara's pulse jumped.
"Where?"
"She told me only one person would be able to find it."
"Who?"
"You."
Mara stared.
"Why me?"
Evan reached into his jacket slowly.
Marco tensed.
Evan removed a small brass key.
Mara recognized it immediately.
It belonged to her mother's piano bench.
She hadn't seen it since Caroline's funeral.
Evan held it out.
"She said you'd remember the song."
"What song?"
He whispered four words.
"'When the bluebird comes home.'"
Mara's heart stopped.
Her mother used to play a song with that phrase every night when Mara was afraid.
But there had been no lyrics.
Only notes.
A melody Caroline claimed she had invented.
Mara suddenly remembered what her mother always did at the final chord.
Three notes.
Then two.
Then five.
3-2-5.
A code.
Mara turned to Luca.
"The piano is still in my father's house."
Evan shook his head.
"No."
Mara looked back.
"Then where is it?"
"Daniel moved it."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
"Where?"
Evan's face hardened.
"To an Ellison warehouse on Pier Nine."
Luca instantly reached for his phone.
Evan raised a hand.
"Don't."
"Why?"
"Because Daniel isn't the only one waiting there."
Luca's expression went still.
"Who else?"
Before Evan could answer, his phone vibrated.
He looked at the message.
All color left his face.
Mara stepped closer.
"What is it?"
Evan slowly turned the screen toward them.
It was a photograph taken only seconds earlier.
Inside Luca's mansion.
From the hallway outside the office.
Mara could see herself standing beside Luca.
The message beneath it contained five words.
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING EVAN HOME.
May you like
Then the office door behind them quietly clicked shut.
And someone locked it from the outside.
