Chapter 7 - THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
The courtyard was dead silent, save for the crackle of the dying fire inside the kitchen walls.
Luca carefully extracted the tiny roll of microfilm from the hollowed-out key. He held it between his large fingers as if it were made of fragile glass.
“Proof of what?” Luca asked, his voice a low, dangerous whisper. He didn't look at his mother; he looked directly at Dante.
Dante sneered, though the blood running down his chin ruined the effect. “It’s nothing. Old paranoid ramblings from your father. Throw it away, Luca. You have the empire. Let me walk, and we call it even.”
“You don't negotiate when you're in zip-ties, uncle,” Luca said coldly.
Luca turned to Julian. “Take him to the basement holding cell. Nobody speaks to him. Nobody gives him water until I know exactly what is on this film.”
As Julian dragged Dante away into the shadows, Luca turned his attention back to his mother. He knelt beside her wheelchair, his large frame making her look even smaller.
“Mom,” Luca said gently, his voice cracking slightly with the weight of the night. “Did you know he had this?”
Mrs. Moretti tapped YES.
Then she spelled: F. A. T. H. E. R. S.
I read the letters aloud. “Your father’s?”
She tapped YES. Then: A. C. C. O. U. N. T. A. N. T.
My breath hitched. The blood drained from my face so quickly I felt dizzy.
“Her father’s accountant?” Luca asked, looking at me for confirmation.
But Mrs. Moretti was shaking her head emphatically. She tapped NO.
She pointed her trembling finger directly at me.
Answer One: The microfilm didn't belong to the Moretti family accountant. It belonged to my father.
“My dad?” I whispered, falling to my knees beside the wheelchair. “My dad was a high school math teacher, Mrs. Moretti. He didn't know anything about the mafia.”
Mrs. Moretti looked at me with deep, profound sadness. She began to spell, her finger moving with a desperate, agonizing slowness.
N. O. T. A. T. E. A. C. H. E. R.
The reversal shattered everything I thought I knew about my own life. My father hadn't died of a degenerative nerve disease when I was seventeen. He had suffered the exact same symptoms Mrs. Moretti was suffering now—the gradual loss of speech, the trembling hands, the eventual paralysis.
Dante hadn't just poisoned Mrs. Moretti six months ago. He had perfected the poison on my father ten years ago.
“Why?” I choked out, tears instantly flooding my vision. “Why would he kill my dad?”
Mrs. Moretti spelled: H. E. K. N. E. W.
Luca stood up, his face carved out of granite. The puzzle pieces were finally slamming together into a horrifying picture.
“Your father wasn't a teacher, Lena,” Luca said softly. “If Dante silenced him, it means your father was the one keeping the real books. The hidden ledgers. The money Dante has been stealing from the family for decades.”
Open Two: If my father hid the real ledgers before Dante poisoned him, where were they? And how did Dante find me, the daughter, and allow me to be hired as a maid in the Moretti household?
“He hired you to watch you,” Vanessa suddenly spoke up. She was still sitting on the grass, holding Leo. “Dante told me once that the housemaid was an insurance policy. He said if he ever needed to find the 'ghost accounts,' you were the only leverage he had.”
My head spun. I wasn't just a girl who answered a classified ad. I was a hostage in plain sight.
Suddenly, the heavy iron gates at the front of the estate groaned loudly.
The sound of multiple heavy-duty engines roared down the long driveway. Headlights pierced the darkness, cutting through the smoke of the courtyard.
Three black SUVs screeched to a halt in front of the fountain.
The doors flew open, and a dozen men poured out, armed to the teeth.
But they weren't wearing the sharp suits of Luca’s men. They wore leather jackets and heavy boots.
They were Dante’s men. The old guard.
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And leading them was a man holding a megaphone.
“Luca Moretti!” the man’s voice boomed across the estate. “We know you have Dante! Release him now, or we burn the rest of the house down with everyone inside!”
