Chapter 4 - The Voice Inside the Dead Camera
The phone kept ringing.
Nobody moved.
The garage was completely dark.
No emergency lights.
No security alarms.
No sound except the old-fashioned ringtone cutting through the silence.
I stood still.
My hand was still on Enzo’s shoulder.
Marco was somewhere to my left.
The guards had their weapons raised.
The fake driver had stopped breathing.
Even Emma had gone silent.
The child who had warned me.
The child who had walked into danger without understanding it.
She was now holding onto Sophia’s hand, staring into the darkness.
I knew that ringtone.
Not because I had heard it recently.
Because I had heard it years ago.
It belonged to my father.
A custom sound.
One he used only for internal emergency calls.
A sound nobody outside my family knew.
Nobody.
I reached into my pocket.
My own phone was there.
Silent.
The ringing was not coming from me.
It was coming from somewhere inside the garage.
“Everyone stays where they are,” I ordered.
My voice was calm.
But everyone heard the warning behind it.
A guard turned on his flashlight.
The beam moved across the concrete floor.
Across the Mercedes.
Across Enzo’s chair.
Across the walls.
The phone kept ringing.
Then the light stopped.
A small black device sat behind one of the storage shelves.
An old phone.
Covered in dust.
Not modern.
Not connected to any network.
A phone that looked like it had been forgotten for years.
One of my guards walked toward it.
“Don’t.”
The guard stopped.
I approached slowly.
Because something about it bothered me.
The garage had been searched.
The cameras were disabled.
The fake driver had been preparing to leave.
Everything about this morning was planned.
That phone was not an accident.
Someone wanted us to find it.
I picked it up.
The ringing stopped immediately.
The screen turned on.
No number.
No contact.
Only one message.
PLAY THE RECORDING.
For several seconds, I stared at the screen.
Then Marco spoke behind me.
“Lorenzo.”
I turned.
“What?”
He looked at the phone.
And for the first time in twelve years, Marco looked genuinely afraid.
“Don’t play it here.”
That was enough.
I pressed the button.
The speaker crackled.
Then a voice filled the garage.
An old voice.
A familiar voice.
A voice I had heard thousands of times.
My father.
“Lorenzo.”
My entire body froze.
Nobody spoke.
The recording continued.
“If you are hearing this, then something happened that I spent years trying to prevent.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
My father’s voice was older than I remembered.
Tired.
Like a man who knew he was running out of time.
“I know you believe Adriano died.”
My eyes moved toward Marco.
He looked down.
“I know you believe I lied to you.”
The recording paused.
A small breath.
Then:
“But the truth is worse.”
The garage became colder.
“My first son did not die.”
Emma looked up at me.
She didn’t understand the words.
But she understood the fear.
“He disappeared because someone inside this family wanted him gone.”
My heartbeat changed.
Someone inside this family.
Not enemies.
Not outsiders.
Family.
The recording continued.
“Lorenzo, if you are hearing this, do not trust anyone who tells you they protected you.”
My eyes slowly moved toward Marco.
He looked away.
“Protection and control are often the same prison.”
The phone shook slightly in my hand.
My father had known.
He had known everything.
And he left me in the dark.
The recording continued.
“Adriano discovered something before he disappeared.”
A pause.
“The Duca organization was not attacked from outside.”
Silence.
“It was sold from within.”
The recording ended.
No explanation.
No name.
No answer.
Just silence.
I looked at Marco.
“You knew.”
He didn’t deny it.
That hurt more.
“How long?”
Marco remained quiet.
“How long did you know my brother was alive?”
Finally, he answered.
“Seven years.”
The number felt impossible.
Seven years.
Seven years of conversations.
Seven years of meetings.
Seven years of standing beside me.
Seven years of knowing the biggest secret of my life.
I walked toward him.
“You watched me mourn him.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me rebuild everything after his death.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me become the man I am because I thought he was gone.”
Marco swallowed.
“Yes.”
I stopped in front of him.
“Why?”
His answer came quietly.
“Because Adriano asked me to.”
The anger inside me shifted.
Not disappeared.
Changed.
“Adriano was alive?”
Marco nodded.
“Where is he?”
Marco looked toward the darkness.
“I don’t know.”
That was the first answer from him that sounded honest.
I believed him.
And that scared me.
Because if Marco didn’t know where Adriano was, then someone else did.
Someone who had been moving pieces around my house.
Someone who had attacked Enzo.
Someone who had sent a fake driver to replace him.
I looked at the fake driver.
“Who hired you?”
The man smiled.
Still.
Calm.
Like he was waiting for something.
I walked toward him.
“You came into my house.”
No reaction.
“You attacked my driver.”
Nothing.
“You planned to put me in that car.”
His eyes finally moved.
A tiny reaction.
I noticed.
“You weren’t trying to kill me.”
The man looked at me.
“No.”
His answer surprised everyone.
“I was trying to move you.”
“Where?”
He didn’t answer.
I grabbed his jacket.
“Where?”
The man smiled.
“Somewhere your brother wanted you to go.”
The garage went silent.
I released him.
“What did you say?”
The fake driver looked at Marco.
Then back at me.
“Your brother has been watching you.”
Marco stepped forward.
“Who sent you?”
The fake driver laughed.
“You still don’t understand.”
His smile disappeared.
“He didn’t disappear because someone wanted him dead.”
A pause.
“He disappeared because he found out who was really controlling this family.”
Nobody breathed.
I looked at the man.
“Name.”
He hesitated.
Not because he didn’t know.
Because he was afraid to say it.
Then his eyes moved upward.
Toward the security cameras.
The dead cameras.
“The person who knows the truth…”
He whispered.
“Is the person who turned them off.”
My eyes followed his.
One camera.
The one above the garage entrance.
Its indicator light suddenly flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then turned back on.
Impossible.
Someone had just activated it remotely.
The monitor in the corner of the garage suddenly lit up.
Static filled the screen.
Then the image appeared.
A live video feed.
From inside my house.
A room I recognized immediately.
My father’s old office.
The room that had been locked since the day he died.
And standing in front of the camera was a man who should have been buried twelve years ago.
May you like
Adriano Duca looked directly into the lens.
And said my name.
