Chapter 6 - What Lies Beneath
Luca pushed the heavy grate upward, shifting it just enough to slip through. He reached down, grasping Maggie’s hand, and hauled her up into the shadows of the warehouse’s lower mezzanine. They were crouched behind a stack of wooden shipping crates, shrouded in darkness.
The main floor of the warehouse was illuminated by harsh, portable construction lights. Dust danced in the bright beams. In the center of the vast, empty space, Samuel D’Angelo and Tommaso Bellini stood over a rectangular pit that had been freshly jackhammered out of the concrete floor.
Maggie peered around the edge of a crate, her breath catching in her throat.
Inside the pit was a rusted metal barrel, cut open to reveal what remained of a human skeleton, preserved in some sort of chemical lime.
"I told you," Tommaso said, his voice echoing nervously through the cavernous room. "I told you we should have burned it completely. Now the old man has the proof."
Samuel stared down at the bones, his face a mask of cold fury. "Stop panicking, Tommaso. Anthony is an old, dying man. He played a good hand tonight, trying to spook us with that recording. But he doesn't have the drive. If he did, he would have gone to the feds years ago."
"Then whose body is that?" Maggie whispered to Luca, her mind racing. "I thought your father faked his death here."
Luca’s eyes were locked on the pit, his expression unreadable. "My father did fake his death here. But someone actually died in that fire. The body the police found... the dental records were altered. But it was a real person."
He looked at Maggie, the grim realization settling in. "My father didn't just hide. He left a victim in his place. To make it convincing."
"Who was it?" Maggie asked.
"An investigative reporter," Luca murmured, remembering the old newspaper clippings he had seen as a young man. "A journalist who got too close to Samuel's embezzlement. My father used the reporter's murder to fake his own death. He kept the real remains hidden here as leverage."
Down on the floor, Samuel pulled his phone from his pocket. "Bring him in," he barked into the receiver.
A moment later, a side door opened. Two armed guards dragged a figure into the light.
Maggie gasped softly.
It was Anthony Ferrante.
He looked nothing like the powerful patriarch from the portraits in the mansion. He was frail, gaunt, and confined to a wheelchair, an oxygen tube looped over his ears. But his eyes—sharp, dark, and unbroken—were exactly like Luca’s.
"Hello, Samuel," Anthony wheezed, a faint, mocking smile on his lips. "You look tired."
Samuel stepped forward, striking the old man across the face with the back of his hand. Anthony’s head snapped to the side, but he didn't cry out.
Luca shifted, his hand drifting toward the gun at his waist. Maggie grabbed his wrist, shaking her head frantically. Not yet. Too many guards.
"Where is the master ledger, Anthony?" Samuel demanded, leaning in close. "You tried to blow the whistle tonight. You wired the chair. You played the tape. But you didn't release the files. Because you don't have them here."
Anthony coughed, spitting a drop of blood onto the concrete. "I sent the drive to the one person you could never buy, Samuel. The one person who would know exactly how to destroy you."
Samuel laughed bitterly. "Who? Luca? Your boy is a businessman, Anthony. He doesn't want to see his legacy burned to the ground. If he gets that drive, he’ll bury it to protect the company."
"Not Luca," Anthony whispered, his eyes sliding upward. Straight toward the mezzanine. Straight toward the crates where Luca and Maggie were hiding.
"I gave it to someone who knows all of your secrets," Anthony said softly.
May you like
Maggie’s blood ran cold. She reached into her pocket, her fingers brushing against a small, hard, plastic rectangle she had found taped to the bottom of the wire under the chair. A USB drive.
Anthony had left it for her.
