Chapter 9 - The Secret Beneath Duca Shipping
Rosa had been taken through the service tunnel.
Or appeared to have been.
Elena found the flaw.
“No struggle.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“What?”
“Rosa would fight.”
She was right.
The walking stick was staged.
Security footage showed Rosa entering the tunnel voluntarily.
Alone.
Lorenzo looked furious.
Then frightened.
We followed.
The tunnel led beneath the estate to an old wine cellar and eventually to a sealed garage.
Rosa waited there.
Alive.
Angry.
“You took your time.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“You staged your kidnapping?”
“I needed the traitor to believe I was isolated.”
“Grandmother—”
“Complain later.”
She pointed toward a laptop.
Rosa had deliberately triggered the security breach.
Someone accessed her phone remotely within minutes.
Marco traced it.
Duca Shipping headquarters.
We drove there after midnight.
Inside the records room, we found a hidden server.
Crown’s archive.
Payments.
Bribes.
Threats.
Blackmail.
Deaths disguised as accidents.
My father’s name appeared.
So did Vittorio’s.
Both marked:
LIABILITY—REMOVED.
My knees weakened.
Lorenzo caught my elbow.
Then we found the command authorization.
M.C.
Margaret Cole.
Proof.
Almost.
Because another set of initials appeared beside hers.
M.B.
Marco Bellini.
Lorenzo stared at the screen.
Nobody spoke.
Marco stepped backward.
“I can explain.”
Lorenzo looked devastated.
Marco had grown up with him.
Brother in everything but blood.
“Then explain.”
Marco swallowed.
“My father worked for Crown.”
“Your father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“The payments continued.”
“To me.”
Lorenzo’s jaw hardened.
Marco raised his hands.
“I took their money because Elena needed someone inside Crown.”
Elena stepped forward.
“He’s telling the truth.”
For seven years, Marco had pretended to work for Margaret while secretly feeding Elena information.
The missing security footage.
The fake breaches.
Some were Marco.
But not all.
“Who filmed Amelia sleeping?” Lorenzo asked.
Marco’s face changed.
“I don’t know.”
That meant another infiltrator remained.
We copied the archive.
Then every light in the building went out.
Emergency doors locked.
A voice came over the speakers.
Margaret.
“Amelia.”
I stood still.
“You look so much like Thomas when you’re frightened.”
“I’m not frightened.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
I shrugged.
Okay.
I was terrified.
But Margaret didn’t deserve the satisfaction.
“You have something I need,” she said.
“The ledger?”
“No.”
A pause.
“You.”
Lorenzo stepped in front of me.
Margaret laughed.
“Still playing protector, Lorenzo?”
Then she said the words that changed everything.
“Ask Amelia why her father made her the legal owner of Crown.”
I stared at the speaker.
“What?”
Lorenzo turned toward me.
I genuinely didn’t know.
Margaret continued.
“Thomas didn’t hide the company from his daughter.”
“He gave it to her.”
A printer behind us suddenly came alive.
One page emerged.
A twenty-year-old corporate document.
At the bottom was my father’s signature.
Beside it was another line.
Beneficial owner: Amelia Claire Carter.
May you like
And underneath my name was a handwritten instruction:
ON HER THIRTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY, EVERYTHING TRANSFERS...
