Chapter 11 - The Secret in the Safe
The destruction of Salvatore Moretti’s leadership created a catastrophic power vacuum across the Chicago Midwest corridor.
For forty-eight hours, Damian remained sequestered in his lower study, coordinating with terminal managers, union bosses, and city officials to absorb Moretti’s fragmented territory.
The threat of external violence had temporarily receded.
Yet inside Blackwood Manor, a new tension began to take root.
Natalie was sitting in the library on Thursday afternoon, cataloging Ava’s sensory therapy schedules, when Marcus entered the room.
His arm was in a black medical sling, but his expression was unusually grim.
“Ms. Carter.”
“Marcus. How is your shoulder healing?”
“The doctor says I’ll be shooting straight by next week,” Marcus said dismissively.
He closed the heavy library doors and stepped closer to her desk.
“I need to show you something. While Mr. DeLuca is in the city.”
Natalie set her pen down.
“Marcus, if this is about security clearances—”
“It’s about Mrs. DeLuca,” Marcus interrupted quietly.
Natalie’s breath hitched.
Helena DeLuca.
The mother whose portrait hung in the grand gallery—a woman with delicate features, sad eyes, and an aristocratic lineage that had tied the DeLuca name to old Chicago banking money.
“Why would you show me anything about Helena?”
“Because Mr. DeLuca will never tell you,” Marcus said, his jaw tightening.
“And if you’re going to stay in this house... if you’re going to be what Miss Ava needs... you deserve to know what killed her.”
Marcus led Natalie through the western gallery toward the private master archives—a secure room adjacent to the family chapel that remained permanently locked.
Marcus keyed a seven-digit access code into the wall terminal.
The heavy steel door clicked open.
Inside, the room was cool, dry, and lined with climate-controlled storage vaults.
Marcus walked to the central console and unlocked a steel deposit drawer.
He removed a thick, bound forensic folder and placed it on the velvet viewing table.
“Fourteen months ago, Mrs. DeLuca’s Mercedes plunged through the barrier off Lake Shore Drive at sixty miles per hour,” Marcus recounted, his voice dropping into a monotone.
“The official report cited heavy rain, slick asphalt, and excessive speed.”
Natalie opened the folder.
Inside were high-resolution photographs of the twisted wreckage pulled from the freezing waters of Lake Michigan.
“It wasn't an accident, was it?” Natalie murmured, looking at the crushed driver’s compartment.
“No,” Marcus said.
He turned a page, revealing a series of close-up photographs of the vehicle’s undercarriage.
The hydraulic brake lines were severed.
Not torn by the impact.
Cleanly, surgically cut with an industrial pneumatic shear.
“Moretti?” Natalie asked, feeling a cold knot form in her stomach.
“That’s what Mr. DeLuca believed for thirteen months,” Marcus said.
“That’s why he waged the war. That’s why he bled the south suburbs dry.”
Marcus tapped a second document attached to the back of the file.
It was an internal wiretap transcript, stamped with the private seal of DeLuca Holdings Intelligence.
“Three weeks ago, our technical analysts cracked the encrypted servers seized from Julian’s apartment in the Gold Coast.”
Natalie felt her heart stop.
“Julian?”
“Julian didn’t just leak Ava’s route to pay his gambling debts,” Marcus whispered, the words hitting the quiet room like lead weights.
“Fourteen months ago, Julian took a three-million-dollar buyout from an offshore banking syndicate to clear his markers in Macau.”
Marcus turned to face Natalie directly.
“The mechanic who serviced Mrs. DeLuca’s Mercedes the morning of the crash was Julian’s personal driver.”
Natalie felt physically sick.
She gripped the edge of the velvet table, staring at the blurred black-and-white image of Julian smiling at a casino table in Macau.
“Damian doesn't know,” Natalie realized in sudden, horrifying revelation.
“If Damian knew his own brother murdered Helena... Julian wouldn't be locked in a cabin in northern Michigan.”
“He would be buried beneath six feet of concrete,” Marcus confirmed grimly.
“Why are you showing this to me, Marcus? Why haven't you handed this file to Damian?”
Marcus looked down at his uninjured hand, his fingers clenching into a tight fist.
“Because if Mr. DeLuca executes his own brother, the DeLuca family charter dissolves. The board of directors, the old men who control the holding trusts, will declare Damian legally unfit and seize control of the estate.”
Marcus leaned in.
“And under the trust charter, if Damian is removed... custody of Ava defaults to the court-appointed guardian.”
“Who is the court-appointed guardian?” Natalie asked, her voice trembling.
May you like
Marcus met her eyes with terrifying gravity.
“Julian DeLuca.”
