Chapter 7 - Someone Inside the Gates
Marco answered.
Nobody spoke.
Then a woman laughed.
“Lorenzo.”
His face hardened.
Margaret Cole continued.
“You always were your father’s son.”
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
“You shot your own son.”
“He disappointed me.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
For the first time, I saw him not as the controlling man who had hurt me but as somebody raised by something colder.
That didn’t excuse him.
It explained him.
Margaret wanted the original ledger.
Lorenzo refused.
She threatened my mother.
He still refused.
I understood why.
The moment we surrendered the evidence, everyone became disposable.
We moved Mom to a protected location.
Then Marco discovered something worse.
Someone had accessed the Duca security system using Lorenzo’s master credentials.
Not copied credentials.
Biometric authorization.
Fingerprint and retinal confirmation.
“That’s impossible,” Lorenzo said.
Marco looked uncomfortable.
“There are two profiles with master access.”
“Mine and whose?”
“Your father’s.”
Lorenzo’s father, Vittorio Duca, had been dead eight years.
The dead were becoming crowded.
We searched Vittorio’s private rooms.
Behind a painting, we found an old safe.
Inside were letters from Thomas Carter.
My father.
The final one was dated two days before his death.
Vittorio,
Margaret knows.
If anything happens to me, protect Amelia.
She must never know about Crown until she is old enough to choose what to do with the truth.
Lorenzo read the final sentence twice.
Then handed it to me.
My father had known.
He had known I might one day be dragged into this.
And Vittorio had promised to protect me.
“Did he?” I asked.
Lorenzo looked toward Rosa.
Rosa sat down.
“The matchmaking letter,” I whispered.
Her eyes filled.
“You didn’t choose me randomly.”
“No.”
“Lorenzo knew?”
“No.”
I turned toward him.
His shock was genuine.
Rosa explained.
Vittorio had left instructions.
If evidence connected to Crown ever resurfaced, Rosa was to find Thomas Carter’s daughter and bring her somewhere protected.
The marriage arrangement had been camouflage.
I felt betrayed.
“You lied to both of us.”
“Yes.”
“You manipulated me.”
“Yes.”
Lorenzo’s voice went cold.
“Grandmother.”
“I kept her alive.”
“You used her.”
Rosa flinched.
Lorenzo rarely raised his voice.
He didn’t now.
Somehow the quiet was worse.
I walked outside.
He followed only to the terrace doors.
He didn’t cross them.
“Amelia.”
“I need space.”
He stopped.
“Okay.”
That one word nearly broke me.
He gave me what Ethan never had.
Space.
Even when every instinct told him to follow.
I returned twenty minutes later.
Lorenzo was exactly where I left him.
“I’m staying.”
“You don’t owe us that.”
“I know.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I know.”
I stepped closer.
“This is my father’s story too.”
He nodded.
Then Marco rushed into the room.
He carried an old security photograph.
The image showed a woman entering the estate through a service tunnel three nights earlier.
Dark hair.
Older now.
But unmistakable.
Elena Vescari.
Alive.
Beside her was another person.
Marco enlarged the image.
May you like
My stomach dropped.
The second person was my mother...
