Chapter 6 - After the Ceremony
Enzo had Matteo against the wall before the third ring.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Matteo’s face went dark.
“Get off me.”
Giulietta stepped in.
“Phone.”
Matteo looked at her for a long second, then reached slowly into his jacket and handed it over.
The screen showed an incoming call from UNKNOWN.
Bellafonte’s emergency number.
Giulietta answered.
The technician’s phone on the table connected.
Same call.
No mistake.
Matteo stared at the ceiling.
“I created Bellafonte.”
Keller made a sound like a laugh and swallowed it.
Giulietta turned on him.
“You said you never met the person who paid you.”
“I didn’t.”
Matteo pushed Enzo’s arm away.
“Vincent ordered the corporation set up fifteen years ago. I kept the emergency contact because nobody ever dissolved it correctly.”
“And somebody has been paying Keller through it.”
“Yes.”
“Using your phone.”
“Using an old contact record.”
Giulietta watched his pupils.
Steady.
Too steady.
Keller suddenly stood.
“May I leave?”
Everyone looked at him.
Giulietta almost smiled.
“No.”
He sat again.
Enzo’s technician searched Bellafonte’s transfer records.
“Payments were authorized through a rotating token.”
“Who owns the token?”
“Can’t tell yet.”
Matteo pointed at Keller.
“Ask him who supplied the dosage instructions.”
Giulietta’s eyes narrowed.
“What dosage instructions?”
Matteo realized it too late.
Keller stopped moving.
Giulietta walked toward her uncle.
“I never told you Keller had instructions.”
Matteo’s voice lowered.
“You asked him the dose five minutes ago.”
“I asked what he carried. I didn’t say anyone instructed him how much to use.”
Matteo stared back.
A long beat.
Then the ballroom doors exploded open down the hall.
Three rapid gunshots cracked through the floor.
Enzo shoved Giulietta behind the stone wall beside the library entrance.
“Stay down.”
More shots.
Guests screamed.
Men shouted names.
Giulietta pulled a compact pistol from the holster beneath her dress and ran anyway.
The mezzanine was chaos.
A table had flipped. Crystal covered the floor. Two Marconi men were crouched behind columns, weapons aimed toward the service stairs.
“Where?” Giulietta shouted.
“Kitchen corridor!”
She saw one body on the carpet.
Not Luca.
Then another.
Still not Luca.
“Where’s my brother?”
Nobody answered.
Giulietta grabbed Enzo’s lieutenant by the jacket.
“Where is Luca?”
“He was downstairs checking the priest’s documents.”
“Was?”
The lieutenant’s eyes shifted.
Giulietta released him and sprinted toward the stairwell.
Her phone vibrated.
A draft message from Luca appeared through their encrypted family app.
It contained five words.
G - DAD WAS RIGHT ABOUT M.
The message had never been sent.
It had synced from Luca’s abandoned phone.
Giulietta stopped on the landing.
Enzo came up behind her.
“What?”
She showed him.
Before he could speak, one of his men ran up from below, breathing hard.
“Boss.”
Giulietta grabbed the rail.
“What happened?”
The man looked straight at her.
May you like
“Luca’s gone.”
