Chapter 3 - The Man Behind My Password
Gabriel Duca had never frightened me.
That was probably why seeing his ring in the photograph frightened me so much.
He was Matteo's opposite.
Where Matteo entered a room and people stopped talking, Gabriel entered and made people laugh.
He was thirty-three, charming, reckless, frustrating, and somehow capable of turning every family dinner into a story.
He also wore one ring every day.
An old gold ring that had belonged to their father.
There was no mistaking it.
“That could be planted,” I said.
Matteo looked at me.
I knew immediately why.
I was defending Gabriel.
“I'm not saying it isn't him.”
“You're saying someone wants us to think it is.”
“Yes.”
Luca enlarged the photograph.
“The ring is real.”
“You can tell from a picture?”
“There's a repair line near the base.”
Matteo took his coat.
“We're going to Elena's apartment.”
I stood.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“No?”
“If someone is inside my home waiting for us, walking straight there is exactly what they expect.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
I continued.
“Call Gabriel.”
Matteo did.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Luca tried.
Voicemail.
I pulled my phone from the desk.
Thirty-seven missed notifications.
Most had arrived since Matteo ordered the room locked down.
Emails.
Calendar alerts.
One message from Gabriel.
Sent at 7:41 that morning.
ELENA, NEED TO TALK. DON'T MENTION IT TO MATTEO YET.
I showed Matteo.
His expression became dangerous.
“Why would he tell you not to mention something to me?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you answer?”
“No. I was already in the car.”
Another message followed.
8:03.
PLEASE. IT'S ABOUT THE CALENDAR.
The room went silent.
“He knew,” Luca said.
Matteo took my phone.
“He knew before we did.”
“Maybe he found something.”
“Or created it.”
I studied Matteo.
There was pain beneath the suspicion.
Gabriel wasn't just another employee.
He was his brother.
Their father had died when Matteo was twenty-four.
Their mother had nearly collapsed afterward.
Matteo had raised Gabriel through the years that followed.
Paid debts.
Cleaned disasters.
Protected him from consequences.
Loved him in the exhausting way people sometimes love the family member most capable of breaking their heart.
“Matteo.”
He didn't answer.
“If this is Gabriel, you still need proof.”
His eyes met mine.
“I know.”
That answer cost him something.
Luca's phone rang.
It was Marcus.
Alive.
He had locked himself inside a server maintenance cage when someone entered the room.
The intruder escaped through another stairwell.
Security footage captured only a dark jacket and baseball cap.
But Marcus had finished the trace.
The shadow account was created using Matteo's home network.
At 2:14 in the morning fourteen months earlier.
“Who was in the house?” I asked.
Luca started checking archived security.
The answer arrived seven minutes later.
Matteo.
His mother, Sofia.
Gabriel.
House manager Rosa Morales.
Security supervisor Carlo Venti.
I looked toward Carlo.
He had been standing in the room with us.
His face didn't change.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
But Matteo had noticed too.
“Where were you at two fourteen?”
“Security office.”
“Proof?”
“Logs should show it.”
Luca checked.
They did.
Carlo had scanned into the security room at 1:56 and scanned out at 3:07.
Rosa had been asleep in the staff wing.
Sofia's bedroom motion sensors showed no movement.
Matteo had been in his study until 1:40, then upstairs.
Gabriel had arrived at 1:22.
Left at 3:11.
No location inside the house recorded.
The evidence pointed straight at him.
Too straight.
My phone rang.
Gabriel.
Matteo answered.
“Where are you?”
Gabriel breathed hard.
“Is Elena with you?”
“Yes.”
“Put me on speaker.”
Matteo did.
“Talk.”
“Elena, don't go home.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“Why?”
“Because I've been there.”
Matteo's eyes closed briefly.
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Why?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Because I needed her laptop.”
Luca moved toward the door.
Matteo lifted a hand.
Nobody moved.
“What did you do with it?” Matteo asked.
“Nothing.”
“You broke into her apartment for nothing?”
“She gave me a key months ago.”
I spoke.
“For emergencies.”
“This was an emergency.”
“You could have called.”
“I did.”
“At eight this morning.”
“I was already inside.”
Matteo's voice became very quiet.
“What were you looking for?”
Gabriel exhaled.
“The original calendar data.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody is changing Elena's schedule after entries synchronize to the company system.”
That stopped us.
Gabriel continued.
“I noticed three weeks ago.”
“How?”
“One of the fake appointments was at a club I manage. I knew you weren't there.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I tried to verify it first.”
“By breaking into Elena's apartment?”
“Her laptop keeps local copies.”
My anger finally arrived.
“You searched my computer?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Do you hear how everyone in your family uses that sentence?”
Silence.
Even Matteo looked slightly wounded.
I didn't care.
Gabriel said, “I'm sorry.”
“Where are you now?”
“Parking garage on West Forty-Third.”
“Stay there.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“Because someone followed me from Elena's building.”
Matteo stood.
“What car?”
“Black sedan. No plates.”
“Get somewhere public.”
“I tried.”
A horn sounded through the call.
Gabriel swore.
Then running footsteps.
The connection broke.
Matteo looked at Luca.
“Find him.”
For the next twelve minutes, the office became controlled chaos.
Cameras.
Phones.
Traffic feeds.
Security teams.
I stayed beside Matteo.
Nobody asked me to leave.
At 9:51, they found Gabriel entering a crowded hotel lobby six blocks away.
Alive.
Alone.
Matteo sent Luca.
Twenty minutes later, Gabriel walked into the office.
His face was pale.
His shirt was untucked.
He looked directly at me.
“I'm sorry.”
I folded my arms.
“You should be.”
Matteo stepped between us.
“Show me what you found.”
Gabriel pulled a flash drive from his pocket.
Marcus connected it to an isolated laptop.
Files appeared.
My calendar.
Original version on the left.
Corporate version on the right.
Every forged appointment highlighted.
“The edits happen after synchronization,” Gabriel explained. “Elena creates the real schedule. It copies to the company server. Then a script inserts false entries.”
“Who wrote the script?” Matteo asked.
“That's what I was trying to find.”
Marcus opened the code.
He stared.
“I recognize this.”
Everyone turned.
“From where?”
“It's mine.”
Matteo's expression hardened.
Marcus lifted both hands.
“Not the application. Pieces of the code. Somebody copied modules I wrote for a scheduling system three years ago.”
“Who had access?”
“My team.”
“How many?”
“Six people.”
“Names.”
Marcus listed them.
I recognized five.
The sixth made Gabriel swear.
Victor Hale.
Former systems engineer.
Fired eighteen months earlier.
For selling internal information.
“Victor disappeared after termination,” Marcus said.
Matteo looked at Gabriel.
“You knew him?”
“Everyone knew him.”
“No. Did you know him?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“We gambled together.”
Matteo laughed once.
There was nothing humorous in it.
“Of course you did.”
“I stopped.”
“When?”
“After Dad's ring.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Gabriel looked down at his hand.
The gold ring.
“I lost it in a card game.”
Matteo stared.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“But you're wearing it.”
“I bought it back.”
“From whom?”
“Victor.”
Everything went still.
“How long did he have it?” Luca asked.
Gabriel swallowed.
“Maybe three months.”
I looked at the photograph again.
The ring.
If Victor had possessed it—
He could have photographed it.
Copied it.
Used it to frame Gabriel.
“Matteo,” I said.
He was already there.
“The picture proves nothing.”
Marcus searched Victor's old employee records.
Address disconnected.
Phone inactive.
Emergency contact dead.
Then he found something else.
Victor had accessed Matteo's residential network during legitimate maintenance several times.
He knew the architecture.
He knew Marcus's code.
He knew Gabriel's habits.
But that didn't explain who currently had access.
Victor couldn't enter secure offices alone.
Someone inside was helping him.
I returned to the calendar.
There had to be another pattern.
Something I had missed.
I printed the forged entries.
Spread them across the desk.
Dates.
Times.
Locations.
Amounts.
One by one.
Then I noticed something strange.
The fake appointments always appeared on days when I had changed Matteo's schedule at the last minute.
A delayed flight.
A canceled dinner.
A moved board meeting.
Meaning the traitor wasn't simply reading stored data.
They were watching updates in real time.
“Who gets notified when I change Matteo's schedule?”
Marcus answered.
“Security. Drivers. Relevant department heads.”
“Always?”
“Yes.”
“How many people?”
“Depends.”
“Who gets every change?”
He checked.
Five accounts.
Mine.
Matteo.
Luca.
Transportation dispatch.
Executive security.
“Who controls executive security?”
Matteo looked toward Carlo.
Carlo's face remained unreadable.
“I do.”
There it was again.
Carlo.
But suspicion wasn't proof.
I asked Marcus to pull notification logs.
One account had opened every single schedule-change alert within three minutes.
Executive security.
Carlo's.
He shook his head.
“My team shares that account.”
“Who?” Matteo asked.
“Me. Two shift supervisors.”
“Names.”
“Evan Brooks. Daniel Pike.”
Luca immediately called for both.
Evan was downstairs.
Daniel wasn't answering.
Marcus searched system access.
Daniel Pike had badged into the building at 6:18 that morning.
He never badged out.
But security couldn't locate him.
“Lock the building,” Matteo said.
Again.
Every exit sealed.
Elevators controlled.
Search teams moved floor by floor.
At 10:27, a guard reported finding Daniel's phone.
Twenty-seventh-floor restroom.
No Daniel.
Then a second item was discovered beside it.
A keycard.
Belonging to Elena Donovan.
Mine.
I checked my bag.
My card was still there.
A duplicate.
Marcus scanned the recovered one.
Perfect copy.
Someone could move through the building as me.
The pieces began forming something ugly.
My calendar.
My signature.
My access card.
My home.
Someone wasn't only framing Matteo.
They were building another Elena Donovan.
A digital version.
One who went places I never went.
Approved transactions I never saw.
Scheduled meetings I never made.
Eventually, nobody would know which Elena was real.
Matteo must have understood the same thing.
He looked at me.
“You're not going home tonight.”
I almost argued.
Then Marcus's laptop beeped.
A newly scheduled appointment.
The room went silent.
It appeared under my account.
6:30 P.M. — DUCA RESIDENCE.
ATTENDEES: ELENA DONOVAN / SOFIA DUCA.
Matteo's mother.
I stared at the screen.
“I didn't schedule that.”
Matteo was already calling home.
No answer.
He called Sofia directly.
Nothing.
Rosa.
Nothing.
Luca contacted the residential security desk.
Nobody responded.
Matteo's face changed.
“Get the cars.”
Then my phone received a text.
From Sofia Duca.
ELENA, PLEASE COME ALONE. I FOUND OUT WHAT GABRIEL DID.
A second message appeared.
DON'T TELL MATTEO.
May you like
And then a third.
HE CAN'T KNOW HIS BROTHER ISN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO BETRAYED HIM.
