Chapter 9
The third recording began with an argument.
Elena.
Marcus.
No one else.
His voice was unmistakable.
“You don't know what you're touching.”
Elena answered:
“I know exactly what I'm touching.”
Paper moved.
Marcus cursed.
Then Elena said:
“You sold Vittorio’s shipment routes twice.”
Vittorio’s face hardened.
That was bigger than personal debt.
Marcus had sold operational information.
Two shipments were hit the previous year.
One guard had nearly died.
Marcus had blamed rival surveillance.
Elena had found the internal leak.
The recording continued.
Marcus’s breathing sounded ragged.
“I was paying back a debt.”
“You sold his men.”
“I sold empty routes.”
“One wasn't empty.”
Silence.
Elena’s voice became colder.
“You knew that after the first hit and did it again.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
Vittorio stared at him.
The power in the room shifted completely.
Bianca looked horrified.
“You told me it was bookkeeping.”
Marcus looked at her.
For the first time, brother and sister were no longer standing on the same side of the truth.
Bianca stepped back.
“You said Elena was trying to frame you over money.”
Marcus said nothing.
Her eyes widened.
“You never told me about the routes.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“Because I handled it.”
Elena’s recording continued.
“If anything happens to me, Vittorio gets everything.”
A chair scraped.
Marcus:
“You think he’ll believe you?”
Elena:
“He’ll believe Lucy.”
Everyone froze.
Vittorio’s head lifted.
Lucy.
Marcus looked genuinely confused.
So did Bianca.
Elena continued:
“She saw the photograph.”
Marcus’s voice sharpened.
“What photograph?”
The file ended.
Vittorio replayed the last sentence.
She saw the photograph.
Nobody knew what it meant.
Then Emma whispered:
“Lucy keeps a picture inside her bedroom drawer.”
Vittorio turned.
“What picture?”
“I thought it was just one of Mrs. Romano’s old photos.”
They went upstairs.
Lucy was asleep.
Emma opened the bottom drawer.
Beneath coloring books sat a photograph folded in half.
Elena standing outside a restaurant.
Bianca beside her.
In the background—
Marcus.
And another man.
The man had been identified publicly as the rival who orchestrated the two shipment attacks.
Marcus was shaking his hand.
Vittorio stared at the image.
Then turned it over.
Elena had written one date.
The night before the second ambush.
May you like
And beneath it:
Bianca took this photograph.
