Chapter 5 - The Men at the Gate
Matteo answered on the second ring.
“Luca?”
His voice carried concern polished to perfection.
“I heard about the fire. I’m on my way.”
“No.”
Silence.
“Do not come to the estate.”
“Why?”
“Because the men at my gate may mistake you for the people trying to kill me.”
He allowed exactly the right amount of shock into his breathing.
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone breached the grounds. The archive is burning.”
“My God. Are Sophia and the child safe?”
I had not mentioned them.
Neither had the press.
My brother realized the mistake one second too late.
“Why did you ask about Sophia?”
“Your housekeeper called my office.”
“Which housekeeper?”
Another pause.
Small.
Fatal.
“Luca, you are not thinking clearly.”
“No. For the first time in three years, I am.”
I disconnected.
Above the bunker level, gunfire moved through the western hall.
I climbed the service stairs with two loyal guards behind me—Elias Ward and Nina Park, both recruited after the crash and therefore less likely to belong to whatever network Matteo had built inside my house.
Smoke covered the upper corridor.
We reached the central gallery as three attackers came through the broken conservatory doors.
The first raised a rifle.
Nina fired.
Glass exploded behind him.
Elias dragged me behind a marble column as bullets struck the wall.
“These men are not here to rob you,” he said.
“I had reached that conclusion.”
We returned fire.
One attacker fell. Another retreated toward the terrace. The third threw something beneath the long portrait table.
“Down.”
The grenade detonated.
The blast lifted the table and split it against the ceiling. My ears filled with a high, thin ringing. Dust rolled across the floor.
Through it, I saw the attacker running toward the east wing.
Toward the passage leading to the garden.
He was not searching for me.
He was searching for the ledger.
I followed.
Pain burned through my injured ankle, but rage carried me faster.
He crossed the ruined study, stepped through the broken window, and dropped onto the terrace. I went after him.
He reached the garden wall.
I fired once.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
He stumbled beneath the stone arch but continued into the sunflower garden.
By the time I reached the oak, he was on his knees digging beside Arya’s painted rock.
He tore at the earth with both hands.
“Move away from it.”
He turned.
The mask covered his face, but blood soaked his sleeve.
“Mr. Moretti,” he said. “You should have stayed broken.”
I shot the ground beside his knee.
“Remove the mask.”
He laughed.
“Matteo said you would hesitate.”
“I am not hesitating.”
“You are. Because you want answers.”
He was right.
I wanted names.
Dates.
The truth about Isabella’s final minutes.
The truth about whether Arya had cried for me.
“Who altered the vehicle?”
The man’s eyes shifted toward the wall behind me.
I moved as the shot came.
Stone shattered beside my head.
A second attacker stood on the garden arch with a rifle.
Nina fired from the terrace.
The attacker fell backward out of sight.
When I turned again, the wounded man had reached beneath his jacket.
I shot him in the leg.
He screamed and dropped a pistol.
“Who altered the vehicle?”
“A mechanic.”
“Name.”
“He’s dead.”
“Who ordered it?”
“You heard the recording.”
“Say his name.”
The man smiled behind his mask.
“Your brother only approved the accident.”
The sentence froze me.
“Who planned it?”
He lunged for the pistol.
I fired.
He collapsed beside the wet earth Emma had watered.
For several seconds, I heard only my own breathing.
Your brother only approved the accident.
Someone else had designed it.
Nina entered the garden, weapon raised.
“The grounds are secure for now.”
“For now is not secure.”
“It is what we have.”
She crouched beside the dead attacker and removed his mask.
I recognized him.
Calvin Roach.
Former driver for Graham Vale.
Declared dead two years earlier in a boating accident.
Nina searched his pockets.
“No identification. Burner phone. Key card.”
She handed me the card.
The Moretti crest was printed on one side.
On the other was a single number.
M-17.
The approval code Daniel mentioned.
A radio crackled at Nina’s shoulder.
“North team to Park. We found a vehicle near the chapel exit.”
My chest tightened.
“Sophia?”
“No sign of the woman or child. One guard down.”
“Marcus?”
“Missing.”
I ran.
The old chapel stood beyond the northern orchard, unused since my mother’s funeral. The tunnel exit opened behind a stone crypt outside the estate wall.
A black van idled on the dirt road.
The driver was dead.
Marcus’s blood marked the ground beside the open rear doors.
Sophia’s scarf lay in the mud.
Emma’s rag doll rested beneath the wheel.
I picked it up.
One button eye was missing.
Nina inspected the tracks.
“Two vehicles. The van arrived first. Another left north.”
“Marcus fought them.”
“There is too much blood.”
“Not Sophia’s?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone rang.
Matteo.
I answered.
A video appeared instead of a voice call.
Emma sat in a metal chair beneath a hanging industrial light. Her hands were tied in front of her. Dirt streaked her cheek.
Sophia was not visible.
A man stood behind Emma but remained outside the light.
“Mr. Moretti,” he said through a voice distorter. “The child will remain alive if you bring us the memory card and the key.”
Emma looked toward the camera.
She was frightened.
But she was not crying.
“Do not hurt Mama,” she said.
The man placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Tell Mr. Moretti what happens if he contacts the police.”
Emma swallowed.
“They said Mama goes where Papa went.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Let me speak to Sophia.”
“No.”
“Then you receive nothing.”
The man leaned closer to Emma.
She flinched.
“You have two hours.”
The video ended.
Nina looked at me.
“Can you trace it?”
“Not quickly enough.”
I stared at the dirt road.
Tire marks curved north toward abandoned Moretti industrial property.
There were seven possible locations within twenty miles.
Matteo wanted the key and memory card.
He believed I had not yet found the ledger.
That gave us one advantage.
A weak advantage.
But weak things sometimes survived because powerful men failed to notice them.
I looked at Emma’s doll.
The missing button eye had exposed a line of white stitching beneath the fabric.
Not factory stitching.
New thread.
I pulled at it carefully.
A folded scrap of paper slipped from the doll’s head.
Sophia’s handwriting covered one side.
DANIEL TAUGHT EMMA A GAME:
WHEN SHE IS AFRAID, SHE COUNTS RED DOORS.
ASK HER HOW MANY.
Beneath the sentence was a list of old Riverside warehouses.
Only one had red loading doors.
Warehouse Six.
I looked at Nina.
“Prepare two vehicles.”
“You cannot walk into a hostage site with the memory card.”
“I am not bringing the real one.”
“What about the key?”
I held up the brass key.
“They need it because they still do not know what it opens.”
“And neither do we.”
“That is why Emma remains alive.”
I placed the rag doll inside my coat.
For three years, I had believed the worst thing that could happen to a father had already happened to me.
May you like
I had been wrong.
The worst thing was being given another child to save—and knowing exactly what failure would cost.
