Chapter 7 - Blood Oath
Emilio grabbed for the phone.
Lucia pulled it away first.
"Do not touch it."
"It is my phone."
"And someone just threatened you on it."
"Give it to me."
Giovanni stepped between them.
"Enough."
Emilio stared at the message from over his father's shoulder.
IF THEY FIND VENN, YOU GO DOWN WITH HIM.
The words seemed to drain the heat from his anger.
"I do not know who sent that."
Lucia looked at him.
"I believe you."
Emilio blinked.
He had expected accusation.
Lucia had expected to enjoy surprising him.
She did not.
"For once," she continued, "you look too frightened to be lying."
Giovanni handed the phone to the family's security director, Marco Santini.
Marco was forty-four, quiet, and almost offensively calm.
He had worked for Helena longer than he had worked for Giovanni.
That mattered to Lucia.
"Clone it before anyone deletes anything remotely," Giovanni said.
Marco nodded.
"Already started."
Emilio looked at him.
"How?"
"The backup system copied the notification when it reached the device."
Lucia glanced at Marco.
"Mother set that up?"
"Mrs. Moretti did not trust disappearing messages."
Lucia almost smiled.
Helena had apparently spent her final months turning every ordinary device into a witness.
Giovanni called a family council for that evening.
Lucia argued against it.
"You do not know who we can trust."
"That is why I want them in one room."
"So the guilty person can learn everything we know?"
"We will not tell them everything."
"Then what is the point?"
Giovanni looked at Emilio.
"The point is to see who reacts to what we do tell them."
Lucia did not like the strategy.
She liked having no better one even less.
At six thirty, sixteen members of the Moretti inner circle gathered in the estate dining room.
The long walnut table had hosted Christmas dinners, christenings, arguments, and reconciliations.
That night, no food was served.
Helena's chair at the far end remained empty.
Giovanni ordered that no one sit in it.
Carlo arrived last.
He took the seat two places from Emilio.
He did not look at Lucia.
Salvatore DeLuca sat near Giovanni.
Marco remained standing near the wall.
Martin Bell placed a folder in front of each principal family member.
The folders contained only a summary of the unauthorized transfers.
They did not mention the ledger.
They did not mention Daniel Reeve.
They did not mention Clarissa's third passport.
Giovanni waited until the doors were closed.
"Helena discovered that money was being diverted from Moretti Maritime."
Several people shifted.
Carlo did not.
"The transfers appear to have been authorized through Emilio's office."
Emilio clenched his jaw.
Giovanni continued.
"Emilio admits he approved an investment arrangement introduced by Clarissa."
Carlo turned toward Emilio.
His surprise looked convincing.
Lucia trusted it less because of that.
"What arrangement?" Carlo asked.
Emilio stared at him.
"You know exactly what arrangement."
Carlo leaned back.
"I know you make bad decisions."
"Do not pretend you never met Clarissa."
Every face at the table turned toward Carlo.
He smiled faintly.
"I have met your girlfriend."
"In Miami."
Carlo's expression barely changed.
Lucia saw the change anyway.
"What happened in Miami?" Giovanni asked.
Emilio pointed at his uncle.
"Ask him."
Carlo folded his hands.
"I attend meetings in Miami."
"At the Bellandi restaurant?"
That landed.
Carlo's eyes moved to Giovanni.
Lucia said nothing.
They had never told him about the photograph.
"Which restaurant?" Carlo asked.
Too careful.
Giovanni heard it too.
"You tell me."
Carlo's mouth tightened.
"This is childish."
"So was following me to a chapel."
One of the older men, Vincent Rota, cleared his throat.
"Giovanni, what exactly are you accusing people of?"
Giovanni looked down the table.
"Nothing yet."
"Then why are we here?"
"Because Helena is dead, her company was being robbed, and someone wants a missing doctor kept missing."
The room erupted.
Lucia watched faces instead of listening to voices.
Shock.
Confusion.
Fear.
Carlo remained still.
Salvatore looked genuinely stunned.
Vincent whispered to his son.
Emilio looked at no one.
Then Lucia noticed Marco.
He was not watching the room.
He was watching the hallway through the cracked door.
Lucia followed his gaze.
A young security guard stood outside with his phone lowered beside his leg.
Marco crossed the room immediately.
The guard tried to step away.
Marco took the phone from him.
"Who are you texting?"
"My wife."
"Unlock it."
"Mr. Santini, I was just-"
"Unlock it."
The guard obeyed.
Marco looked at the screen.
His face hardened.
"Not your wife."
Giovanni stood.
"Who?"
Marco read the last outgoing message.
"They know about Venn."
The dining room fell silent.
Lucia stared at the guard.
"Who did you send it to?"
The young man's face went pale.
"I don't know his real name."
"Then give us the number."
"It changes."
Giovanni walked toward him.
The guard began shaking.
"I never hurt Mrs. Moretti."
That sentence again.
Lucia felt sick hearing it.
"Why does everyone say that before anyone asks?"
The guard's eyes filled with panic.
"Because whoever is doing this is killing people."
"Who has been killed?"
"I don't know."
"Then why did you say people?"
The guard looked toward Carlo.
It happened for less than a second.
Carlo saw it.
So did Giovanni.
Carlo stood violently.
"Do not look at me."
The guard backed into the wall.
"I didn't-"
"Do not use me to save yourself."
Giovanni stepped between them.
"Sit down, Carlo."
"He is trying to point at me."
"Sit down."
Carlo stared at his brother.
Then he slowly returned to his chair.
Marco took the guard out for questioning by law enforcement and the family's attorneys.
The council dissolved without answers.
Lucia left the dining room angrier than she had entered.
Emilio followed her into the east hallway.
"You saw him look at Carlo."
"I saw a frightened man look in a direction."
"If he had looked at me, you would call it proof."
Lucia stopped.
"You want fairness now?"
"I want you to admit I am not the only person in this family capable of betrayal."
"I admitted that three chapters of disaster ago."
Emilio stared at her.
Lucia regretted the strange phrasing immediately and rubbed her forehead.
"I have been awake for almost two days."
For the first time since the funeral, Emilio's face softened.
"So have I."
"You slept on a plane."
"Barely."
"I still hate you."
"I know."
Lucia turned to leave.
Emilio spoke again.
"I did not know Mother was dying."
She stopped.
"You knew she was sick."
"Clarissa told me Helena had stabilized."
Lucia looked back.
"Clarissa?"
"She said she had spoken to the clinic."
"Why would Clarissa be speaking to Mother's clinic?"
Emilio's face tightened.
"I thought she was helping."
Lucia felt the anger return.
"You let a woman Mother distrusted manage information about her health?"
"I did not understand how much they hated each other."
"You did not want to understand."
Emilio looked away.
That was as close to agreement as he could manage.
"I was supposed to be gone three days," he said.
"The island meeting was with a man named Adrian Cross."
"Who is he?"
"He represented the infrastructure fund."
"Bellandi?"
"I did not know that then."
"And now?"
"Now I think he wanted me out of the country when something happened here."
Lucia studied him.
"Why?"
"Because he refused to postpone when I told him Mother had been admitted again."
"And you still went."
Emilio's shame showed before he buried it.
"Yes."
Lucia could not forgive him for that.
She could, however, believe he regretted it.
That distinction mattered more than she wanted.
Later that night, Marco insisted Lucia leave the estate for a secure apartment in Manhattan.
"Why me?"
"Because Helena gave you the trust."
"Everyone knows that."
"Exactly."
Lucia wanted to stay near Giovanni.
He ordered her to go.
"If your mother put the company in your hands, you do not make yourself easy to reach."
Lucia hated being told what Helena would want.
She went anyway.
Marco drove.
A second vehicle followed behind them.
Rain had begun by the time they crossed into the city.
Lucia sat in the rear seat with the black ledger inside a locked document bag against her knees.
At Forty-Ninth Street, a dark SUV pulled out from a side road.
Marco noticed it before Lucia did.
"Seat belt tight."
"What?"
The SUV accelerated.
It struck the rear quarter of their sedan hard enough to throw Lucia against the door.
Glass cracked.
The document bag slid from her knees.
Marco fought the steering wheel and kept the car out of a concrete divider.
"Down."
Lucia ducked.
The SUV hit them again.
The second security vehicle moved between the cars.
The SUV swerved around it.
"They are trying to stop us," Lucia said.
"I noticed."
Marco's calm voice was almost insulting.
The sedan turned sharply into an underground parking entrance.
The SUV followed.
Marco braked beside a support column.
"Stay in the car."
He got out with the second security team.
Lucia heard shouting.
A man ran toward her side of the vehicle.
He smashed the rear window with a metal tool.
Lucia screamed and pulled the document bag against her body.
The man's arm reached through broken glass.
He did not reach for Lucia.
He reached directly for the ledger bag.
That certainty terrified her.
He knew what she carried.
Lucia kicked the door outward.
The impact knocked him backward.
Marco reached him two seconds later.
The attacker was forced to the ground.
The SUV reversed violently and disappeared up the ramp.
Lucia climbed from the sedan on shaking legs.
"He wanted the ledger."
Marco nodded.
"Which means someone knows you found it."
The attacker refused to identify himself.
Police found no wallet, no phone, and no identification in his clothing.
They did find one thing.
A black signet ring on his right hand bore a small engraved crest.
Lucia recognized it from Helena's photographs.
The Bellandi crest.
Then Marco searched the man's jacket lining and found a torn piece of paper.
One number was written on it.
Lucia stared at the digits.
Marco had seen them before.
He pulled out his own secure phone and checked the security guard's outgoing records.
The numbers matched.
The man who attacked Lucia had been receiving information from inside the Moretti estate.
Marco looked at her.
"There is one more thing."
"What?"
"That number was activated three months ago."
"Under whose name?"
"A prepaid registration."
Lucia exhaled in frustration.
"So we still have nothing."
Marco shook his head.
"The activation location was captured by the store camera."
He turned the screen toward her.
The still image was grainy.
The face was not.
May you like
Carlo Moretti stood at the counter purchasing the phone.
