Chapter 5 - The Message in Luca's Watch
Dominic survived.
He remembered almost nothing.
Someone had struck him from behind near the service corridor.
When he woke, he was in the greenhouse.
He never called Gabriel.
That left one question.
Who had?
Alejandro moved Elena and Emma out of the basement that morning.
Elena argued.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“We’re safer downstairs.”
“You were watched through the window.”
“We can leave.”
“That is exactly what the person outside wants.”
Elena glared at him.
“You don’t get to decide where my daughter lives.”
Alejandro stopped.
She was right.
He hated that she was right.
“Then choose any room in the house.”
“I choose somewhere else.”
“Not until we know who tried to kill me.”
“That sounded a lot like an order.”
“It was a request delivered badly.”
Emma looked between them.
“You two fight funny.”
Neither adult answered.
Emma chose a small guest room overlooking the courtyard because it had yellow curtains.
She refused the enormous suite Alejandro offered.
“It looks lonely.”
He did not know how a room could look lonely.
Then he looked at his own bedroom and understood.
That afternoon, Elena gave him something she had carried for four years.
Luca’s watch.
The face was scratched.
The leather band had cracked.
Alejandro held it carefully.
“He gave this to you?”
“The night he sent me away.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because for four years I thought everything connected to Luca could get Emma killed.”
Fair.
Alejandro turned the watch over.
There was a tiny notch in the back plate.
He frowned.
Luca hated damaged things.
He would never have left a notch like that without reason.
Tomas brought tools.
Inside the watch casing was a micro-storage card wrapped in plastic.
Elena stared.
“I never knew.”
Alejandro almost laughed.
“That sounds like Luca.”
His brother had always enjoyed hiding important things inside ordinary objects.
The card contained four files.
Three were financial spreadsheets.
One was audio.
They played it.
Luca’s voice filled the study.
“If you are hearing this, I was right about one thing and wrong about another.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Emma, sitting on the rug with crayons, looked up.
She had never heard her father’s voice.
Nobody moved.
Luca continued.
“The money is not the real problem.”
“Someone has been selling security schedules, judges’ names, shipment routes, everything.”
“I traced the payments through Bellweather Imports.”
Tomas whispered, “That company doesn’t exist anymore.”
Luca’s recording continued.
“I thought Gabriel was behind it because his authorization appears on the transfers.”
Gabriel shut his eyes.
“But tonight I learned his signature was copied.”
Gabriel looked at Alejandro.
“I told you.”
The recording crackled.
Then Luca said something that changed the room.
“The person doing this has access to both Alejandro’s security office and my personal accounts.”
“There are only two people who fit.”
The audio cut.
Alejandro cursed.
Tomas checked the file.
“Corrupted.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
Emma crawled closer to the laptop.
“Daddy?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Emma touched the speaker.
“He sounds like Uncle Alejandro.”
Alejandro turned away.
That hurt in a place he had kept numb for four years.
Tomas opened the financial files.
Bellweather Imports had received payments from dozens of Moretti-linked businesses.
Most were small enough to avoid attention.
One account was still active.
A payment had been made two days ago.
From inside the mansion.
Tomas pulled the access record.
The authorization code belonged to one person.
Not Gabriel.
Not Dominic.
Not any guard.
It belonged to Tomas himself.
Everyone looked at him.
Tomas stared at the screen.
“That’s impossible.”
Alejandro’s hand moved toward the gun at his waist.
Tomas slowly raised both hands.
“I did not make that transfer.”
Elena backed toward Emma.
May you like
Then the lights went out.
