Chapter 3
The video froze when the battery warning interrupted the old recording, leaving Matteo’s face motionless on the screen. Alessandro stood with both hands against the countertop, staring at the brother he had mourned for seven years.
Elena finally whispered, “Play the rest.” **Julian connected external power, and Matteo began speaking again.**
He explained that the helicopter crash had not been an accident. Matteo had discovered evidence that someone inside the company was stealing from Duca Meridian and using criminal intermediaries to pressure vendors, employees, and whistleblowers.
When he confronted the wrong person, the helicopter carrying him and two investigators was sabotaged.
The pilot died. Matteo survived with severe injuries because the aircraft struck shallow water near an isolated fishing vessel.
Terrified that whoever arranged the crash controlled people inside the company and law enforcement, Matteo allowed the world to believe he was dead.
For years he investigated from abroad. He eventually discovered that the stolen money flowed through accounts originally created by Alessandro and Matteo’s father, Lorenzo Duca.
Alessandro shook his head. “My father created legitimate emergency reserves.”
Matteo appeared to anticipate the objection. “The accounts were legitimate when Dad created them, but someone hijacked them after he died.”
That person had access to family credentials, corporate signing authority, and enough knowledge of the brothers to imitate their habits.
Then Matteo said the name. **“Adrian Vale.”**
Julian swore softly.
Elena stared at the screen. “But Sofia was working with Adrian.”
Matteo continued, explaining that Adrian had approached Sofia pretending to be a whistleblower while quietly feeding her selected truths.
He wanted Sofia to find Matteo. Once she did, Adrian planned to follow her and eliminate both of them.
Matteo realized this shortly before the parking-garage recording.
The bruises on Adrian’s face had not come from attackers, as Sofia believed. Matteo had confronted him minutes before Sofia arrived.
Adrian escaped during the confusion.
“So where is Sofia?” Elena whispered.
The recording answered indirectly.
“Sofia is alive when we are making this video, but Adrian knows she discovered him.” Matteo looked toward someone outside frame.
“She refuses to run because she thinks Elena and Mia are already targets.”
Elena began to cry.
Alessandro reached toward her, stopped, then let his hand fall.
Matteo explained the genetic report next. He had secretly obtained Mia’s hospital sample because Gabriel Reyes had contacted him before the supposed Colorado accident.
“Gabriel was not simply Elena’s boyfriend,” Matteo said.
Elena stared at the screen. “What does that mean?”
Matteo continued.
“Gabriel Reyes was born Gabriel Duca.”
Alessandro closed his eyes.
Their father had fathered another child before marrying Alessandro and Matteo’s mother. Lorenzo learned about Gabriel only late in life but privately acknowledged him and created a trust.
Gabriel wanted no money, no public recognition, and no place in the company.
He wanted only to know his brothers. Matteo had met him twice.
Alessandro never knew he existed.
Elena looked down at Mia. “Gabriel was your brother.”
Alessandro nodded faintly.
That explained the genetic test. **Mia was Alessandro’s niece.**
For eight months she had unknowingly been crawling through the home of the uncle she had never been told existed.
Mia chose that moment to laugh at Rosa’s dangling necklace. Elena made a broken sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh.
Alessandro stared at the child as though the room had narrowed until only she remained.
“Gabriel knew?” Elena asked the recording even though Matteo could not answer. His next words seemed almost to respond.
“Gabriel discovered Adrian’s financial network independently and contacted me three weeks before his crash.”
The Colorado accident had also been staged. Gabriel survived because he had been warned not to take the car registered in his name.
Another man stole it from the parking lot and died in the crash.
Gabriel saw the news reports and understood somebody expected him dead. He disappeared to protect Elena, unaware she was pregnant.
Matteo later found him, but by then Adrian was watching Elena closely.
“Why didn’t he come home?” Elena demanded through tears.
Matteo explained that Gabriel tried.
Three months before Sofia disappeared, Gabriel approached Elena’s apartment building. A surveillance team intercepted him before he reached the door.
He escaped but suffered a gunshot wound.
The timing struck Elena like a blow. **Three months ago—exactly when Sofia’s behavior changed and Elena began bringing Mia to work.**
Sofia had learned Gabriel was alive.
Matteo’s video ended with an address. An abandoned Duca Meridian cold-storage warehouse in Brooklyn.
“Gabriel and Sofia will go there if we get separated,” Matteo said. “But do not trust Adrian, no matter what story he tells you.”
Alessandro immediately ordered a trusted federal contact summoned through Daniel Cho, his outside attorney. Elena insisted on going to the warehouse.
“No.”
“My sister and Mia’s father may be there.”
“You have Mia.”
“Rosa can stay with her.”
Alessandro shook his head.
Elena stepped closer. “You don’t get to become my protector simply because we discovered you’re Mia’s uncle.”
The words landed harder than she intended.
Alessandro looked at the child. “No, but I get to be afraid.”
Elena’s anger softened.
They compromised. Mia would remain in the secure penthouse with Rosa and two federal agents once those agents arrived.
Elena would travel with Alessandro, Julian, and Daniel Cho.
But before they could leave, the private elevator chimed. Julian’s face hardened because he had disabled it.
The doors opened anyway.
Adrian Vale walked out alone with his hands visible. Blood stained one sleeve.
“Before anyone does something stupid,” he said, “Sofia sent me.”
Alessandro nearly hit him. Elena stepped forward first.
“Where is my sister?”
“At the warehouse.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“And Gabriel?”
Adrian looked at her. “Alive for now.”
Julian drew his weapon.
Adrian laughed bitterly. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t walk into a fortress filled with your security.”
Alessandro replied, “Matteo says you’re behind everything.”
“Of course he does.”
Elena stared.
Adrian claimed Matteo was manipulating them. According to him, Matteo had survived the crash and then spent years stealing from the company while blaming a nonexistent conspirator.
Sofia discovered Matteo’s fraud, and Matteo abducted her.
“Why would Matteo tell us where to find them?” Alessandro asked.
“Because he wants you there.”
“For what?”
Adrian glanced toward Elena.
“To exchange.”
The room went quiet.
“He wants Mia.”
Elena lunged at him.
Julian caught her before she reached Adrian. “You stay away from my daughter!”
Adrian raised both hands.
“I don’t want Mia. Matteo does.”
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel’s trust is worth nine hundred million dollars, and under Lorenzo Duca’s will, control transfers to Gabriel’s legitimate child if Gabriel dies.”
Alessandro’s face hardened.
Mia was not just family. She was heir to a fortune nobody knew existed.
Adrian claimed Matteo planned to use the infant’s identity to seize the trust.
The story was horrifyingly plausible. Alessandro looked toward the isolated laptop.
Two contradictory versions now existed, each accusing the other.
Elena whispered, “Sofia trusted Adrian.”
Alessandro replied, “Until Matteo said she learned the truth.”
Adrian reached slowly into his coat and produced a phone. “Then ask her.”
He opened a live video.
Sofia appeared seated inside the warehouse. Her face was bruised but conscious.
“Elena?”
Elena rushed toward the screen. “Sofia!”
“Listen to Adrian.”
Alessandro froze. “Where is Matteo?”
Sofia glanced nervously off camera.
“Gone.”
“What about Gabriel?”
Another figure moved into frame. Elena stopped breathing.
Gabriel Reyes appeared.
He was thinner, scarred, and older, but undeniably the man she had loved.
“Elena.”
She covered her mouth.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Gabriel looked toward where he imagined Mia might be. “Is she safe?”
Elena nodded, crying openly.
“She's beautiful,” she whispered.
Gabriel’s face broke.
“I know.”
That answer made Alessandro uneasy.
“How?” he asked.
Gabriel looked toward Adrian.
Adrian said quietly, “Because we’ve been watching her.”
Elena’s grief transformed into anger.
“You watched us struggle?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You watched me bring our daughter to work because I couldn't afford childcare!”
“I sent money.”
“You sent money where?”
Gabriel looked confused. “To Sofia.”
Every person in the room went still.
Elena turned toward the phone.
Sofia’s face had changed.
“Sofia?” Elena whispered.
Her sister looked away.
Gabriel said, “I transferred twenty thousand dollars every month for Mia.”
Elena stared at Sofia.
“I never received anything.”
Sofia began crying.
Adrian took the phone back. “There’s the part nobody wanted to tell you.”
Elena could barely breathe.
**Sofia had been receiving Gabriel’s money for eighteen months.**
She had never given Elena a dollar.
“No,” Elena whispered.
Sofia finally looked into the camera.
“I can explain.”
Elena laughed once, painfully.
Those were the same words she had spoken to Alessandro that morning.
Now she understood how useless they sounded.
Sofia admitted she had intercepted Gabriel’s payments. At first she claimed she did it to create an emergency fund because she feared Elena would ask where the money came from.
But the transfers became larger.
She used some to pay debts. Then more.
Eventually she stole nearly three hundred thousand dollars.
Gabriel discovered irregularities and contacted Matteo. That investigation uncovered the hijacked Duca accounts.
Sofia panicked because she believed Gabriel would expose her.
Elena stared at the sister she had mourned for ninety days. “You disappeared because you stole from us?”
Sofia shook her head violently.
“No. I disappeared because Adrian found out.”
Adrian stiffened.
Sofia suddenly looked past the camera.
Her eyes widened.
“ELENA, DON’T TRUST—”
The video went black.
Adrian stared at his phone.
A gunshot echoed faintly through the disconnected feed.
Elena screamed her sister’s name.
Alessandro turned toward Adrian.
“You’re taking us to that warehouse.”
Adrian did not argue.
Twenty-three minutes later they arrived at the Brooklyn waterfront. Rain hammered corrugated metal as Julian’s team surrounded the enormous warehouse.
Alessandro told Elena to remain behind cover.
She ignored him.
Inside, one lamp burned over an empty chair.
Blood marked the concrete.
Sofia was gone.
A voice came from the darkness. “Alessandro.”
Matteo stepped forward holding a gun.
Adrian raised his hands. “There he is.”
Matteo smiled grimly.
“You brought him.”
Then another voice came from behind Alessandro.
“Actually, he brought all of you.”
May you like
Julian Cross raised his weapon.
And pointed it at Alessandro.
