Chapter 3 - The Room Lucian Never Opened
Lucian entered first.
Enzo followed.
Camille should have stayed behind.
She didn’t.
The archive looked less like an office than a life someone had stopped living.
Boxes lined one wall.
Photographs filled another.
A gray coat hung behind the door.
On the desk sat a framed picture of two teenage boys with an older man between them.
Daniel.
Camille recognized the silver bracelet immediately.
The room was empty.
The window was locked.
No second door existed.
Yet one drawer in the desk stood open.
Lucian crossed the room.
“What was in there?” Matteo asked.
Lucian didn’t answer.
He stared into the empty drawer.
“Lucian.”
“A ledger.”
Enzo’s face tightened.
“What ledger?”
“Daniel’s.”
Camille watched them.
“What did it contain?”
Lucian looked at her.
“Names.”
“Of whom?”
“People my father paid.”
Matteo frowned.
“Why would Daniel have that?”
“He kept records.”
“Of illegal payments?”
Lucian’s silence answered.
Camille folded her arms.
“So whoever brought the spoon took a ledger.”
“Or the ledger was why they came.”
Lucian examined the lock.
No damage.
Enzo checked the security panel.
“No forced entry.”
“Then someone had a key.”
“There is no spare.”
Camille walked toward the photographs.
Daniel appeared in dozens.
Daniel teaching Matteo to ride a bicycle.
Daniel standing beside a younger Lucian at a graduation.
Daniel cooking.
Daniel laughing.
The man wasn’t merely an employee.
He had been family.
Then Camille saw a photograph turned face down.
She lifted it.
Lucian’s voice cut across the room.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
“Why?”
“Put it down.”
Camille looked at the image.
Daniel stood beside Lucian’s father, Vittorio Moretti.
Between them was a woman Camille didn’t recognize.
She had dark hair and serious eyes.
On the back, someone had written:
Three people know the truth. One will survive it.
Camille handed it to Lucian.
His face changed.
“Who is she?”
“Isabella Vieri.”
Matteo whispered the name.
Lucian looked at him.
“You remember her?”
“Barely.”
Camille waited.
Matteo explained.
“She worked for our father. Accounting, I think.”
Lucian shook his head.
“Legal affairs.”
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared.”
Camille looked again at the photograph.
“When?”
Lucian answered.
“Fourteen years ago.”
The timeline bothered her.
“And Daniel kept this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Camille looked around the archive.
“You never went through his things?”
“No.”
“Eleven months?”
Lucian’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
She understood.
Grief had rules too.
Sometimes the strictest ones were the rules people created to avoid touching it.
“You couldn’t.”
His eyes met hers.
Camille expected denial.
Instead he said, “No.”
It was the first completely unguarded answer he had given her.
Matteo looked away.
Camille placed the photograph on the desk.
“Then whoever broke in knew something you didn’t.”
Lucian nodded.
“And they wanted us to know they knew it.”
Enzo received a call.
He stepped outside.
Matteo began searching the shelves.
Lucian caught his wrist.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not twelve.”
“Then stop behaving like you are.”
Matteo pulled free.
“There. That.”
Camille watched Lucian’s expression harden.
The lesson had returned.
Control.
Not protection.
Control.
“Lucian,” she said.
“Not now.”
“Especially now.”
He turned.
“You don’t know what is in these boxes.”
“Neither do you.”
His eyes flashed.
Matteo looked between them.
Camille lowered her voice.
“You keep saying you protect people by deciding what they’re allowed to know.”
“I do protect them.”
“Did that protect Matteo from learning tonight that Daniel’s last argument was about him?”
Lucian said nothing.
Matteo did.
“No.”
Lucian turned toward his brother.
Matteo’s face was no longer playful.
“You should have told me.”
“There was no reason.”
“It was about me.”
“It would have hurt you.”
“It hurts more finding out eleven months later.”
Lucian flinched.
Barely.
Camille saw it.
Matteo opened one of the boxes.
Lucian didn’t stop him.
Inside were letters.
Receipts.
Birthday cards.
A battered cookbook.
Matteo laughed softly when he saw it.
“He made terrible lasagna.”
“It was awful,” Lucian said.
The brothers looked at each other.
For a moment, the mansion, the guards, the threat—everything disappeared.
They were simply two men missing someone who had loved them.
Then Matteo found an envelope.
It had Lucian’s name on it.
Lucian took it.
The seal was unbroken.
“When was this written?” Camille asked.
“No date.”
He opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
Lucian read silently.
Then stopped.
“What does it say?” Matteo asked.
Lucian handed him the page.
Matteo read aloud.
“Lucian, if you are reading this, then either I finally convinced you to open this room, or something happened that forced you to.”
He stopped.
Camille felt cold.
Matteo continued.
“I hope it was the first.”
Another pause.
“You believe your greatest responsibility is keeping Matteo safe. You are wrong. Your greatest responsibility is making sure he never needs protection from you.”
Lucian looked away.
Matteo continued.
“If you become Vittorio, everything we survived will have been for nothing.”
The room was silent.
Then the final paragraph.
“There is one person who can prove what happened to Isabella. I kept her identity from you because I did not know which version of you would read this letter.”
Matteo lowered the page.
“That’s it.”
“No name?”
“No.”
Camille took the envelope.
Something felt strange.
She ran her finger along the inside.
A second piece of paper was hidden beneath the folded seam.
She carefully tore it free.
It was a business card.
BROOKS PROTOCOL & ETIQUETTE.
Her own company.
Camille stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
Lucian looked at her.
“How long have you had your business?”
“Six years.”
“Daniel had this envelope longer than that?”
Matteo checked the paper.
“No date.”
Camille turned the card over.
Writing covered the back.
Her breathing stopped.
CAMILLE BROOKS.
SHE DOESN’T KNOW.
Lucian took the card.
“Know what?”
“I have no idea.”
Enzo rushed back into the room.
“We traced the emails.”
Everyone turned.
“Where?”
Enzo looked at Camille.
“Your office.”
Camille stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“They originated from an account accessed through your office network.”
“My assistant?”
“We don’t know.”
Camille grabbed her phone.
She called her office manager, Nina.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Her pulse accelerated.
“Nina always answers.”
Lucian was already issuing instructions.
“Send two men.”
“I’m going.”
“No.”
Camille rounded on him.
“That is my office and my employee.”
“It could be a trap.”
“Then come with me.”
Matteo blinked.
Lucian looked almost offended by the suggestion.
Camille held his gaze.
“You want to control the situation? Fine. Control it from the passenger seat.”
Matteo laughed.
Twenty minutes later, Camille sat beside Lucian in the back of a black SUV.
Neither spoke.
Chicago lights slid across the windows.
Finally Lucian said, “You should be afraid.”
“I am.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“Being afraid and being useless are different things.”
He looked at her.
“Who taught you that?”
“My mother.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
The words were quiet.
Camille turned toward him.
“Was that spontaneous politeness?”
“Don’t ruin it.”
She smiled.
Then her phone rang.
Nina.
Camille answered instantly.
“Nina?”
Only breathing.
“Nina, where are you?”
A whisper came through.
“Camille, don’t come to the office.”
“Why?”
“I found something.”
“What?”
“I think someone has been using your computer.”
Lucian leaned closer.
Camille put the call on speaker.
“Nina, are you safe?”
“I don’t know.”
A noise sounded behind her.
Nina gasped.
Then whispered three words.
“He found me.”
The call ended.
Lucian ordered the driver to accelerate.
When they reached Camille’s office, the front door was open.
The lights were off.
Nina’s purse lay on the floor.
Camille stepped toward her desk.
Lucian caught her hand.
“Wait.”
Her computer screen suddenly turned on by itself.
A video file appeared.
The date beneath it was eleven months old.
The day Daniel Price died.
May you like
Camille pressed play.
And the first face that appeared on the screen was her own.
