Chapter 4 - TWELVE CAMERAS, ELEVEN LIES
Alessandro moved before the echo faded.
He carried Emma into the hidden wardrobe cavity and placed her behind the wooden panel.
“Do not move until I come back.”
Her eyes widened.
“Where you go?”
“To make the house safe.”
“Promise?”
He hesitated only once.
“I promise.”
He closed the panel.
Another gunshot sounded downstairs.
Alessandro drew his pistol and stepped into the hallway.
Emergency lights should have activated automatically.
They did not.
Someone had disabled the secondary system.
He moved down the stairs without making a sound.
At the landing, one of his guards lay beside the broken window, bleeding from the shoulder. Another crouched behind a marble pillar.
“Two intruders,” the guard whispered. “Possibly three.”
“Where?”
“West corridor.”
Alessandro crossed the foyer.
The mansion had been his home for thirty-eight years. He knew every turn, every blind corner, every floorboard that betrayed weight.
The intruders did not.
He heard one breathing behind the dining room door.
Alessandro fired through the wood.
A weapon struck the floor.
The second man ran toward the kitchen.
Alessandro followed and found the back door swinging open.
Rain had begun outside.
A figure crossed the garden toward the eastern wall.
Alessandro aimed.
Then stopped.
The man held something in one hand.
A gasoline can.
He was running toward Sophia’s cottage.
Alessandro fired once.
The man fell beside the roses.
Before Alessandro reached him, the intruder raised his pistol toward the cottage window.
Alessandro fired again.
The man’s arm dropped.
He was young, perhaps thirty, wearing black clothes with no identifying marks. His face showed no fear.
“Who sent you?”
The man smiled through blood.
“You still think this is your house.”
Alessandro pressed the barrel beneath his jaw.
“Name.”
“Ask the cameras.”
Then the man bit down.
His body convulsed.
Poison capsule.
Dead within seconds.
Alessandro searched him and found only a matchbook from a waterfront restaurant called Belladonna.
It belonged to Vittorio Moretti.
His uncle held private dinners there every Thursday.
This was Monday.
Too obvious.
Perhaps intentionally so.
Alessandro returned to the mansion and ordered the wounded guard treated. The second intruder had escaped. No bodies besides the dead attacker were found.
He went upstairs.
Emma was exactly where he had left her.
When he opened the panel, she launched herself into his arms.
“You came back.”
“I promised.”
She buried her face against his neck.
For the first time in his life, Alessandro understood that a promise could feel heavier than a gun.
By dawn, the estate was sealed.
Alessandro entered the security room beneath the west wing. Twelve monitors covered the wall.
One showed the front gate.
One the driveway.
One the harbor road.
The remaining cameras watched the garden, corridors and service entrances.
Carlo Rinaldi had designed the system.
Alessandro ordered his young technology specialist, Matteo Greco, to examine every recording from the previous four weeks.
Matteo was twenty-six, nervous and exceptionally loyal because Alessandro had paid for his mother’s cancer treatment when no bank would lend the family money.
After two hours, Matteo pointed to the eastern garden monitor.
“It loops.”
“How often?”
“Every night between one and three.”
“Show me.”
The footage displayed an empty garden under moonlight.
Matteo increased the speed.
The trees did not move.
The fountain water repeated the same pattern.
Ninety seconds copied over and over.
“How long has this happened?”
“At least seven months.”
Alessandro looked at the other screens.
“Twelve cameras.”
Matteo nodded.
“Eleven cameras and one lie.”
“Can you recover the original recordings?”
“Possibly from the local cache. Rinaldi thought deleting the server copy was enough.”
“Do it.”
By afternoon, Matteo recovered fragments.
The first showed Carlo Rinaldi walking toward Sophia’s cottage at one twenty-three in the morning. He carried a medical bag.
The second showed Vittorio Moretti’s driver entering the garden through the eastern gate.
The third showed Sophia standing outside the cottage with a man whose face was hidden by the camera angle.
They appeared to argue.
The man struck her.
Sophia fell.
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
“Can you identify him?”
Matteo froze the image.
The man wore a ring.
Gold.
A black stone engraved with a wolf’s head.
Only members of the Moretti inner council possessed that ring.
Alessandro looked down at his own hand.
Seven rings had been created.
One for his father.
One for Vittorio.
One for Carlo.
Four for the senior captains.
His father’s ring had been buried with him.
Or so Alessandro had been told.
“Find every recording with that man.”
Matteo searched.
At sunset, they found another.
Sophia stood beneath the chestnut tree holding a folder. The man faced her.
This time the moonlight revealed part of his profile.
Not Vittorio.
Not Carlo.
Father Gabriel Santoro.
The priest who had baptized Alessandro.
The priest who had buried his mother.
The priest who visited the mansion every Sunday and told Alessandro that forgiveness was the only road to peace.
In the recording, Father Gabriel took the folder from Sophia.
Then he hugged her.
Not like an enemy.
Like someone terrified for her.
A second figure emerged from the shadows.
Carlo Rinaldi.
Father Gabriel turned.
Carlo struck him from behind.
The recording cut off.
Alessandro stood.
“Where is Father Gabriel now?”
Matteo searched church records.
“He has not held Mass in eleven days.”
“Any travel?”
“No.”
“Hospital?”
“No.”
The young man looked up.
“It appears he disappeared.”
Alessandro walked toward the door.
“Prepare the car.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the chapel.”
The family chapel stood beyond the rose garden, separated from the mansion by a low stone wall. Its iron doors were rusted, but the lock was new.
Alessandro shot it off.
Inside, dust covered the pews.
Candles stood cold beneath a marble statue of the Virgin.
Behind the altar was a dark stain.
Blood.
Recent.
Alessandro followed it to the confessional.
He opened the wooden door.
Father Gabriel sat inside, barely conscious, his hands tied and his white collar soaked red.
His eyes opened.
“Alessandro.”
“Who did this?”
The priest’s lips trembled.
“Your mother was right.”
“About what?”
“The killer never left the house.”
A sound came from the rafters.
Alessandro looked up.
May you like
A wire snapped.
The iron bell above the chapel dropped toward them.
