Chapter 5 - The Voice from the Shadows
The drive mounted instantly.
A single partitioned directory appeared on the high-resolution screen.
There were no spreadsheets.
There were no bank account ledgers.
There was only one encrypted video container labeled with a single date: March 14.
Six months ago.
The exact day Michael Moretti’s car had been found abandoned near the Calumet River with the driver’s door standing wide open.
Luca clicked the file.
The screen flickered, resolving into a grainy video recorded on a mobile device in a room with peeling floral wallpaper.
Sitting at a small laminate kitchen table was a woman wearing an oversized gray cardigan.
Her dark hair was pulled back into an unwashed knot.
Dark, bruised shadows hung under her eyes.
Luca’s breath hitched in his throat.
"Anna," he breathed.
It was Anna Moretti.
Michael’s wife of four years.
The sweet, quiet woman who had vanished seventy-two hours after Michael disappeared.
The police had told Luca that Anna had fled the country in grief, overwhelmed by her husband’s alleged underworld debts.
Vanessa had comforted Luca at the time, telling him that Anna was unstable, that she had drained their joint accounts and run off to Europe with an old lover.
On the screen, Anna looked directly into the camera lens.
Her hands were shaking so violently that the water in the glass beside her was rippling.
"If you are watching this, Luca, then Elena managed to get this drive past Arthur’s men," Anna began, her voice hoarse and broken.
"I am not in Italy. I have never left Illinois."
She took a deep, shuddering breath and pressed a hand against her abdomen.
"Six months ago, Michael found the offshore wire transfers."
"He realized that Arthur Sterling was not managing the family trust funds. He was liquidating them."
"Arthur was funneling millions through a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands under the name Bellini Maritime."
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard the muscles jumped beneath the skin.
"Michael went to your house to confront Arthur on the night of the fourteenth," Anna continued, a fresh tear carving through the grime on her cheek.
"He called me from your private study at eight o'clock."
"He told me that Arthur wasn't working alone."
"He told me that Vanessa was there in the room with them."
The video feed cut abruptly to a series of high-resolution surveillance photographs.
The first image showed Vanessa Bellini standing beneath an awning outside a discreet boutique hotel in Geneva, Switzerland.
Beside her, with his arm wrapped familiarly around her waist, was Arthur Sterling.
The second image was an invoice from a private fertility clinic in Zurich.
It listed Vanessa Bellini as the patient, with a definitive diagnosis of irreversible uterine scarring resulting from an unrecorded surgical procedure five years prior.
The video snapped back to Anna’s pale, terrified face.
"Luca... the engagement was never about love," Anna whispered, her voice cracking with pure agony.
"The family charter states that if you die without a biological heir, the entire Moretti estate passes to the surviving spouse as sole executor until a successor is chosen by the legal counsel."
"Arthur is the legal counsel."
"Vanessa was supposed to provide the heir."
Anna began to weep openly on the screen.
"Six months ago, before Michael went to your house, Vanessa came to my apartment while Michael was at the docks."
"She knew I was ten weeks pregnant with Michael’s child."
"She sat on my couch and offered me two million dollars in cash to sign over my maternal rights the moment the baby was born."
"She told me she would raise Michael’s child as her own with you."
"She said that with Michael’s blood in the child, you would never question the paternity."
"When I screamed at her to leave, she told me that Michael would pay for my arrogance."
"Three hours later, Michael went missing."
Anna leaned closer to the camera, her hollow eyes burning through the monitor.
"They didn't kill him, Luca."
"They couldn't kill him because Michael changed the biometric codes on the Zurich vaults before he left the house."
"Arthur is keeping him alive somewhere in the city until he breaks the cipher."
"Don't trust the lawyers. Don't trust the guards."
"And for the love of God, Luca... look under the floorboards at the old carriage house on Willow Creek."
The screen went black.
The study was dead silent.
I looked at Luca.
The mafia boss was standing motionless beside his desk.
His face was completely drained of color, his skin as gray as weathered slate.
He did not shout.
He did not slam his fist into the mahogany wood.
He simply reached down, closed the laptop with a quiet, decisive snap, and picked up the silver cake knife from the edge of the desk.
Then he looked at me.
May you like
"Lily," he said, his voice flat, hollow, and colder than a freshly dug grave.
"Go into the master bedroom."
