Chapter 3 - Someone Inside the House
“Turn it off.”
Vittorio’s command came instantly.
Dominic reached for the computer.
“Don’t touch it,” Elena said.
His hand stopped.
Everyone looked at her.
Elena pointed at the monitor.
“If they know we’re standing here, shutting it down tells them we’re scared.”
Marco gave her a look.
“We are not having a conversation with whoever is on the other side.”
“I didn’t say we should.”
The cursor blinked.
Another sentence appeared.
THE HOUSEKEEPER IS SMARTER THAN YOUR SECURITY TEAM, VITTORIO.
Marco’s jaw tightened.
Elena whispered, “They’re enjoying this.”
Vittorio stepped toward the screen.
“Can you trace them?”
Dominic shook his head.
“Not without touching the system.”
“Then touch it.”
Dominic connected a device.
The message disappeared.
For thirty seconds the monitor remained black.
Then a live image appeared.
The bedroom.
The torn headboard.
Vittorio stared.
“Camera?”
Dominic looked confused.
“We didn’t find one.”
Elena looked more closely.
The angle was wrong for the headboard.
The image came from above.
She remembered the chandelier.
“Ceiling.”
Marco ordered two men upstairs.
A second live image appeared.
Kitchen.
Then hallway.
Then library.
Camera after camera.
The entire house had been compromised.
Vittorio’s expression became colder with every screen.
“How long?”
Dominic opened a log.
“Months.”
“Four?”
“Some longer.”
“How much longer?”
Dominic looked up.
“Almost two years.”
Isabella sat slowly in the nearest chair.
Vittorio did not.
He looked at every photograph pinned to the wall.
Meetings.
Visitors.
Family dinners.
Private conversations.
Someone had built an invisible second mansion inside his mansion.
One made of microphones, cameras, and secrets.
Elena stepped toward a shelf of hard drives.
Each had a date.
Then she noticed labels.
Not dates.
Names.
Marco.
Isabella.
Vittorio.
Others she did not recognize.
One label stopped her.
ELENA M.
Her stomach dropped.
“Vittorio.”
He came over.
She pointed.
“My name.”
The hard drive looked older than five hours.
Dust coated its edge.
Vittorio picked it up carefully.
“You’ve never been here before?”
“No.”
“Never worked for anyone connected to my family?”
“No.”
“Never met Celia?”
“Not before this morning.”
Dominic took the drive.
“I can check creation dates.”
“Do it.”
Elena stared at the label.
Why would anyone have a file on her?
She was nobody important.
A housekeeper.
A daughter who had spent years caring for her mother.
A woman whose bank account occasionally required negotiation before the electric bill cleared.
She had no connection to Vittorio Moretti.
At least none she knew about.
Dominic connected the drive to an isolated laptop.
A password prompt appeared.
He worked.
Marco searched the surveillance room.
Isabella stood near her son.
“Vittorio, this cannot leave the house.”
He looked at her.
“Someone has been recording us for two years.”
“That is precisely why.”
“You’re worried about reputation?”
“I’m worried about survival.”
That silenced everyone.
Isabella looked around.
“You think these recordings contain only conversations about dinner?”
Vittorio understood.
Business discussions.
Names.
Accounts.
Deals.
Enemies.
Evidence.
Blackmail.
Everything.
Elena suddenly felt as if the room had become smaller.
“I should go.”
Vittorio turned.
“No.”
“I really should.”
“You’re already involved.”
“I cut furniture. That’s the full extent of my criminal career.”
“Someone had a file with your name before you arrived.”
“That is exactly why I’d like to leave.”
“If you walk outside without knowing who is watching you, you become easier to reach.”
Elena hated that he made sense.
“I have an apartment.”
“Not tonight.”
She crossed her arms.
“You don’t get to decide where I sleep.”
“No.”
His voice softened slightly.
“But whoever wrote your name on that drive may already know where you live.”
Elena’s anger disappeared.
She thought of her small apartment.
Her mother’s photographs.
The ceramic bowl beside the door where she kept spare keys.
Dominic interrupted.
“I’m in.”
Everyone gathered around.
The drive contained folders.
Employment.
Family.
Medical.
Audio.
Elena’s mouth went dry.
“Medical?”
Dominic opened it.
Scanned hospital records appeared.
Her mother’s records.
Elena grabbed the table.
“What the hell?”
Vittorio looked at her.
“You recognize them?”
“My mother.”
She scrolled.
Treatment notes.
Insurance disputes.
Prescription lists.
Then a document from twelve years earlier.
Not her mother.
Her father.
Thomas Marlowe.
Vittorio read the name.
His face changed.
Elena saw it.
“You know him.”
Vittorio did not answer.
“You know my father.”
“I knew the name.”
“How?”
Isabella stepped forward.
“Vittorio.”
He ignored her.
“Twelve years ago, Thomas Marlowe worked for a company that installed security systems.”
Elena stared.
“No. He repaired hospital equipment.”
“Before that.”
She shook her head.
“He never told me.”
Vittorio looked at Isabella.
She had gone pale.
“You knew?”
Isabella whispered, “Not everything.”
Elena turned on her.
“What did my father have to do with this family?”
Isabella sat down.
“Twelve years ago, someone attempted to penetrate our private communications.”
“Penetrate?”
“Hear things they weren’t supposed to hear.”
“And my father?”
“He found the equipment.”
Elena’s breath caught.
Just like she had.
“He heard it,” Isabella said. “Nobody else could.”
Elena remembered.
Her father had always complained about chargers, transformers, televisions left in standby mode.
He could walk into a room and locate a buzzing fluorescent ballast instantly.
The ability Elena inherited.
“What happened to him?”
Vittorio asked quietly.
“You know what happened.”
“Tell me.”
“He died.”
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
Vittorio looked at Dominic.
“Open the audio folder.”
Elena almost stopped him.
Then she didn’t.
There were dozens of recordings.
The oldest was dated twelve years earlier.
Dominic clicked.
Static.
Then a man’s voice.
Elena’s knees nearly gave way.
Her father.
“If anybody hears this, the system isn’t what Moretti thinks it is.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Thomas continued.
“The surveillance contractor installed a second network. I found it because I could hear the power supply. They offered me money to forget it.”
A pause.
“I said no.”
Elena felt tears fill her eyes.
The recording continued.
“I don’t know who inside the Moretti organization approved it. But somebody did.”
Then another voice.
Female.
Faint.
Thomas said, “You?”
A noise.
Recording ended.
Elena stared at the screen.
“Play it again.”
Dominic did.
“You?”
Then the noise.
Nothing more.
Elena closed her eyes.
She knew her father’s voice.
But the woman?
No.
Vittorio looked toward his mother.
Isabella seemed horrified.
“It wasn’t me.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You looked at me.”
“Because you’re standing there.”
Dominic examined the file.
“There’s more metadata.”
“What?”
“The recording was copied recently.”
“How recently?”
“Four months ago.”
The same time the bed arrived.
Again.
Everything returned to four months ago.
Elena wiped her eyes.
“Who copied it?”
Dominic typed.
Then stopped.
“Celia Grant.”
Marco swore.
Vittorio’s voice turned hard.
“Find her.”
“We are.”
“No. Find her now.”
Marco left.
Elena sat in the chair.
Her father had been dead eight years.
Yet someone had reopened his file four months ago.
Someone had then arranged for his daughter to be hired inside the same mansion.
“Wait.”
She looked up.
“I didn’t apply here.”
Vittorio frowned.
“What?”
“I applied to an agency.”
“For this position.”
“No. For hotel housekeeping.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“The agency called and said a private household wanted someone experienced. Better pay. Benefits.”
Vittorio looked at Dominic.
“Find the agency communication.”
Dominic searched the drive.
Nothing.
Elena pulled out her phone.
She found the email.
The sender was Premier Domestic Staffing.
Dominic checked the address.
“That domain is fake.”
Elena stared.
“What?”
“The website?”
“Probably copied.”
Vittorio’s expression darkened.
“You were sent here.”
“By who?”
Nobody answered.
Then Elena’s phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A text.
She opened it.
YOU FOUND WHAT YOUR FATHER FOUND.
Her breathing stopped.
A second message arrived.
HE MADE THE WRONG CHOICE.
A third.
DON’T MAKE HIS MISTAKE.
Vittorio took the phone.
Another message appeared while he held it.
LEAVE THE MORETTI HOUSE BEFORE NOON.
Then a photograph loaded.
Elena’s apartment door.
Taken minutes earlier.
May you like
Under the photograph were five words.
OR WE GO INSIDE FIRST.
