Chapter 6 - The Name on the Installation Order
Nobody moved.
The lock clicked.
Marco spun around.
Dominic raised both hands.
“Wasn’t me.”
Vittorio looked at the door.
“Who’s outside?”
No answer.
Marco approached.
The handle would not turn.
Elena looked at the note again.
The man who built Morpheus is already in this room.
Her gaze moved across them.
Vittorio.
Impossible.
He had been targeted.
Isabella.
The note said man.
Dominic.
Electronics expert.
Marco.
Head of security.
Elena’s eyes stopped.
Marco noticed.
“You think it’s me?”
“I think the note wants me to.”
“Good answer.”
Dominic approached the control panel.
“Electronic lock.”
“Can you open it?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually is not comforting,” Elena said.
Vittorio took the note.
“Celia wanted us suspicious.”
“Or warned us,” Isabella said.
Vittorio looked at Marco.
“How long have you worked for me?”
“Fourteen years.”
Morpheus began twelve years ago.
Marco understood.
“I didn’t build it.”
“Who had security access then?”
“Your father. Me. Dominic occasionally.”
Everyone turned toward Dominic.
He blinked.
“Oh, come on.”
Elena studied him.
“Celia said someone inside the family longer than she had.”
“Technically,” Dominic said, “that describes me.”
Vittorio stepped closer.
“Did you know Thomas Marlowe?”
Dominic paused.
Too long.
Elena saw it.
“You did.”
“Yes.”
Her stomach tightened.
“How?”
“He called me.”
“When?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Marco demanded.
Dominic removed his glasses.
“Because Thomas asked me to inspect a power anomaly. I found nothing.”
Elena stepped toward him.
“My father found Morpheus.”
“I know that now.”
“Did you threaten him?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone he contacted you?”
Dominic hesitated again.
Vittorio’s voice became dangerous.
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Dominic looked at Isabella.
Then at Vittorio.
“Your father.”
Vittorio went still.
Alessandro Moretti had died five years earlier.
Elena remembered Thomas’s video.
The person behind the network is not Vittorio Moretti’s father.
“My father said Alessandro wasn’t responsible.”
Dominic frowned.
“Then Thomas knew something I didn’t.”
Elena looked at the note.
The man who built Morpheus is already in this room.
Maybe the message was not literal.
Maybe “built” did not mean invented.
Maybe it meant maintained.
She looked at the locked door.
“Why lock us in?”
Vittorio followed her reasoning.
“To keep us here.”
“While something happens elsewhere.”
Marco reached for his radio.
Static.
“Jammed.”
Elena’s heart jumped.
“The surveillance room.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“If Celia escaped during the blackout, where would she go?”
Vittorio answered.
“The archive.”
Dominic forced open the lock.
They ran.
The hidden staircase door stood open.
Smoke rose from below.
“Fire!”
Marco shouted.
They descended.
The surveillance room was burning.
Not engulfed.
Not yet.
But flames climbed one equipment rack.
Dominic grabbed an extinguisher.
Marco helped.
Within minutes, the fire was contained.
Hard drives had been destroyed.
But not all.
Elena looked around.
“Celia?”
Gone.
Then she noticed a wall panel hanging open.
Behind it was another passage.
They followed.
It led to the mansion’s old wine cellar.
And there, sitting on the floor with her hands raised, was Celia.
Beside her stood an elderly man.
Seventy.
Gray suit.
Silver hair.
Vittorio stopped.
“Uncle Renato?”
Renato Moretti smiled.
“There you are.”
Isabella looked as if someone had struck her.
Renato was her brother-in-law.
Alessandro’s younger brother.
He had advised the family for decades.
He had attended Vittorio’s birthdays.
His father’s funeral.
Christmas dinners.
He had been inside the house longer than almost anyone alive.
Elena looked at Celia.
She shook her head urgently.
Renato held a small remote control.
“Put it down,” Marco said.
Renato smiled.
“You still think this is about weapons.”
Vittorio stepped forward.
“What did you do?”
“What your father was too sentimental to do.”
“Morpheus?”
Renato’s smile answered.
Isabella whispered, “Why?”
“Because Alessandro was going to destroy everything.”
“What?”
“He wanted legitimacy. Banks. Property. Construction. He wanted to dismantle the old organization.”
Vittorio stared.
“That was his decision.”
“And it would have made us weak.”
“So you recorded him.”
“I recorded everyone.”
Renato looked almost proud.
“People lie when they think they’re safe. Bedrooms. Offices. Cars. Those are where truth lives.”
Elena felt disgust.
“And my father?”
Renato looked at her.
“Thomas had excellent ears.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing.”
“You targeted him.”
“I frightened him.”
“He died.”
“Years later.”
Elena’s hands shook.
Renato’s expression remained calm.
“He was unfortunate.”
Vittorio stepped between them.
“You put Morpheus in my bedroom.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
Renato’s eyes hardened.
“Because you were becoming your father.”
Silence.
“You wanted to sell assets. Close operations. Remove people who had served this family for thirty years.”
“So you tortured me with sleep deprivation.”
“I weakened your judgment.”
“You tried.”
Renato’s smile faded.
Vittorio looked at Celia.
“You helped him.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“At first.”
Elena watched her.
Celia swallowed.
“My father worked for Renato. When he died, Renato inherited me along with everything else. I maintained accounts. Scheduled installations. Covered invoices.”
“Then why hire Elena?”
“Because I wanted it to stop.”
Renato laughed.
“You wanted insurance.”
Celia looked at Elena.
“Thomas told me years ago that if Morpheus ever returned, his daughter would hear it.”
Elena understood.
“You sent me into the house knowing I’d find the headboard.”
“Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
“I didn’t know who was safe.”
“You threatened me.”
“No. Renato did.”
Renato did not deny it.
Celia continued.
“I sent the message on the computer. I left the note. I tried to get you to the archive.”
“And the fire?”
“Renato.”
Marco moved closer.
Renato raised the remote.
Dominic’s face changed.
“Don’t.”
Everyone froze.
“What is it?” Vittorio asked.
Dominic stared at the remote.
“A wipe trigger.”
Renato smiled.
“Every remaining copy of Morpheus.”
Elena thought of her father’s flash drive.
Safe upstairs.
Offline.
Renato did not know.
“Give me the remote,” Vittorio said.
“No.”
“You’ve lost.”
“Have I?”
Renato looked toward Isabella.
“Tell him.”
Isabella’s face went pale.
Vittorio turned.
“Tell me what?”
She said nothing.
“Mother.”
Renato smiled.
“Tell him why his father really died.”
The room changed.
Vittorio stared at Isabella.
His father’s death had been called a heart attack.
Just like Thomas Marlowe’s.
Elena suddenly understood the connection.
Renato lifted the remote.
Marco took another step.
Renato pressed a button.
Nothing happened.
He frowned.
Elena held up the flash drive.
“You forgot one.”
For the first time, Renato looked afraid.
Vittorio saw it.
That was enough.
Marco moved.
The remote hit the floor.
Renato was restrained.
Celia began crying.
Isabella sat on a wine crate.
Vittorio remained standing.
“Mother.”
She looked up.
“Was my father murdered?”
Isabella’s eyes filled with tears.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you suspect?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Five years.”
Vittorio recoiled.
“You said nothing?”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“By letting the same man stay beside me?”
“I had no proof.”
Elena quietly handed Thomas’s drive to Dominic.
“Now we might.”
Dominic searched.
Orpheus payments.
Medical contractors.
One doctor appeared repeatedly.
Dr. Leonard Saye.
The same physician who signed Alessandro Moretti’s death certificate.
And Thomas Marlowe’s.
Elena stopped breathing.
“My father.”
Dominic opened another file.
Payment.
Date.
Three days before Thomas died.
Authorized by Orpheus Holdings.
Vittorio looked at Elena.
Nobody needed to explain.
Marco’s phone finally regained service.
He had dozens of missed alerts.
One came from the security team searching Celia’s office.
He opened the message.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Vittorio asked.
Marco turned the screen around.
They had found an original paper installation order for the headboard.
Renato’s signature was not on it.
Neither was Celia’s.
There was another name.
A name that made Vittorio stare at his mother.
Isabella saw it.
Her face collapsed.
May you like
Because the signature authorizing Project Morpheus belonged to a man everyone in the room believed had been dead for five years.
Alessandro Moretti.
