Chapter 5 - The Man Victor Trusted Most
Victor had known Gabriel Costa for twenty-two years.
They had fought in schoolyards together.
Buried Victor’s father together.
Built businesses together.
Gabriel had saved Victor’s life twice.
Victor trusted him more than he trusted relatives who shared his name.
Which was precisely why the message worked.
For one second.
Only one.
Victor looked at the blood.
Gabriel followed his gaze.
“It isn’t mine.”
“Whose?”
“Matteo’s.”
Carlo stepped forward.
“What happened?”
“Found him near the east gate.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Who attacked him?”
Gabriel looked at Victor.
“He claims he didn’t see.”
Victor showed him the phone.
Gabriel read the message.
His expression barely changed.
“Convenient.”
“Very.”
“You believe it?”
Victor studied him.
“I believe somebody wants me to.”
Gabriel nodded once.
“Good.”
Elena watched both men.
“How did someone take that picture?”
Gabriel looked inside the bedroom.
“Hidden camera.”
They found it behind a smoke detector.
Another transmitter was concealed inside the hallway molding.
Someone had installed professional surveillance equipment throughout portions of the mansion.
Gabriel ordered a complete sweep.
Within an hour, six cameras were discovered.
One in Victor’s office.
One in the west hall.
Two near the staff quarters.
One overlooking the garage.
And one inside Elena’s room.
She stood in the doorway when Gabriel showed it to her.
Her face went blank.
Victor felt something darker than anger.
Not explosive rage.
Cold fury.
Someone had watched her sleep.
Dress.
Cry.
Live.
For months.
Elena stepped out of the room.
“I need air.”
Victor followed her to the rear terrace.
Morning had fully arrived.
Chicago moved beyond the estate walls as if nothing had changed.
Elena wrapped her arms around herself.
Victor removed his jacket.
She shook her head.
“I’m not cold.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
“Then why?”
“Because you’re shaking.”
She accepted it.
The jacket hung large around her.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Elena said, “Your family wants me gone.”
“Some of them.”
“Dominic wants the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“My father lied to me for nineteen years.”
“Yes.”
“Someone filmed me sleeping.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“And you rejected a twenty-million-dollar marriage yesterday.”
“Closer to eighteen after taxes.”
Elena stared at him.
Then laughed despite herself.
Victor smiled.
“You did that on purpose.”
“You looked like you needed one normal sentence.”
“There are no normal sentences left.”
“Probably not.”
She looked down at his jacket around her shoulders.
“Why are you helping me?”
Victor could have answered with the letter.
His father.
The ledger.
The threat.
All were true.
None were complete anymore.
“Because what they’re doing is wrong.”
“That’s not all.”
“No.”
Elena waited.
Victor was not accustomed to explaining himself.
In his world, explanations were often treated like weaknesses.
But Elena had never asked him for power.
Only honesty.
“I saw you in my bed,” he said, “and for a second I thought you had crossed a boundary.”
She looked embarrassed.
“I did.”
“No. You collapsed because people in my house worked you for almost thirty hours.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“It happened under my roof.”
Victor continued.
“Then I saw you look at the doorway.”
Her expression changed.
“You were terrified.”
He looked toward the garden.
“I know what it looks like when someone believes their choices belong to other people.”
“You mean your mother.”
Victor looked back at her.
“Yes.”
Elena understood without asking more.
“Is that why you never married?”
“One reason.”
“What’s the other?”
“I haven’t wanted to.”
“That’s surprisingly simple.”
“Most truths are.”
Their eyes held.
Elena looked away first.
Victor felt the same dangerous shift from the car.
Trust becoming something warmer.
Something neither of them had time for.
Gabriel appeared behind the terrace doors.
“Victor.”
“What?”
“We found where the cameras transmit.”
Victor turned.
“Where?”
“Security room.”
Victor frowned.
“That room requires biometric access.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Three people are authorized.”
Victor.
Gabriel.
Carlo.
Carlo joined them minutes later.
He denied installing anything.
Gabriel denied it.
Victor obviously had not.
Someone had duplicated credentials.
They checked security logs.
The system showed repeated entries under Gabriel’s identity.
Usually between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“Those aren’t mine.”
Carlo scoffed.
“Of course.”
Gabriel turned toward him.
“You’re welcome to say that again.”
Victor stepped between them.
“Elena’s father said the second box identified whoever was watching her.”
Elena held up the phone.
“Maybe this is the box.”
Gabriel examined its files.
Most photographs were stored locally.
But one encrypted folder appeared at the bottom.
PASSWORD REQUIRED.
Victor tried Daniel’s name.
Wrong.
Elena tried her birthday.
Wrong.
Then she remembered the music box.
“Second verse.”
She typed the four words from the engraving.
ALWAYS FOLLOW THE SECOND VERSE.
Unlocked.
Inside were surveillance logs.
Payment records.
Voice recordings.
And a document titled INSURANCE.
Gabriel opened it.
The first file contained photographs of Dominic Bellandi meeting secretly with someone inside the Russo garage.
The person’s face was obscured.
Second file.
Carlo speaking with Daniel years earlier.
Third.
Matteo accepting cash from an unidentified man.
Carlo cursed.
Victor’s expression hardened.
“Where is Matteo?”
“In the clinic.”
“Bring him back.”
Gabriel left.
Elena opened an audio recording.
Dominic’s voice filled the room.
“The girl doesn’t know what her father kept.”
Another male voice answered.
“She’s getting curious.”
Victor frowned.
The voice sounded familiar.
Dominic continued.
“Then scare her.”
“And if she doesn’t leave?”
A pause.
Then the unknown man said:
“I’ll handle her.”
Elena looked at Victor.
“Play it again.”
He did.
She listened.
“I know that voice.”
Victor did too.
But neither placed it.
Gabriel returned with Matteo thirty minutes later.
Matteo had stitches above one eyebrow.
Victor played the recording.
Matteo looked confused.
“That isn’t me.”
“Nobody said it was.”
Matteo’s face tightened.
“Then why am I here?”
“Because Daniel photographed you taking money.”
Matteo sat.
He looked at the floor.
Carlo cursed.
“Idiot.”
Victor said, “Who paid you?”
Matteo hesitated.
“Dominic.”
Elena stiffened.
“For what?”
“Information.”
Victor’s voice became dangerous.
“What information?”
“Your schedule. Meetings. Cars. Nothing about Elena.”
“You sold my movements?”
“I owed money.”
Carlo stepped toward him.
Victor raised a hand.
“Let him finish.”
Matteo looked ashamed.
“I stopped three months ago.”
“Why?”
“Dominic asked about Elena.”
Everyone went silent.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“You warned her to stop investigating.”
“Yes.”
“Why not tell me?”
Matteo laughed bitterly.
“Because admitting Dominic had been paying me seemed like a bad career move.”
Victor rubbed his jaw.
The stupidity was believable.
Unfortunately.
Elena replayed the audio again.
The unknown voice.
“I’ll handle her.”
She suddenly froze.
Victor noticed.
“What?”
“I heard him say that exact phrase.”
“Who?”
Elena turned toward Carlo.
Not accusing.
Remembering.
“Your brother.”
Victor stared at her.
“My father?”
“No.”
Carlo’s face changed.
Elena shook her head.
“I’m sorry. I mean Victor’s other uncle.”
Victor felt cold.
“Sebastian?”
Carlo said nothing.
Victor’s uncle Sebastian Russo lived mostly in Florida.
He rarely attended family meetings.
He had arrived in Chicago two weeks earlier for “health appointments.”
Victor had barely seen him.
Gabriel searched the recordings.
Then found another audio file.
Sebastian’s voice was unmistakable.
“The marriage has to happen before Daniel returns.”
Dominic answered.
“Victor keeps refusing.”
“Then give him a reason he can’t refuse.”
Sofia.
Victor suddenly understood.
The marriage was not simply an alliance.
It was meant to merge both families legally and financially before Daniel surfaced.
Elena whispered, “Where is Sebastian?”
Carlo looked at the hallway.
“He left dinner early.”
Victor grabbed his phone.
Called security.
No one had seen Sebastian leave.
Because he had not left.
Gabriel pulled up the interior cameras still operating.
They searched room by room.
Then one feed showed movement.
The old wine cellar.
Sebastian descended the stairs carrying a small gasoline can.
Victor’s expression changed.
“The archives.”
Carlo went pale.
The original Russo financial archives were stored beneath the cellar.
Victor ran.
Elena followed.
“Elena, stay upstairs.”
“No.”
“This time I’m not debating it.”
“Victor—”
He turned.
“If Sebastian is destroying evidence, Dominic’s people may be coming. Stay with Gabriel.”
She stopped.
Victor and Carlo rushed downstairs.
Smoke already seeped beneath the archive door.
Victor opened it.
Heat rolled outward.
A metal waste bin burned in the center.
Sebastian stood beside it feeding documents into the flames.
Carlo stared at his brother.
“Sebastian.”
The older man turned.
No surprise.
No panic.
Only exhaustion.
Victor stepped inside.
“You installed the cameras.”
Sebastian smiled faintly.
“Eventually.”
“You threatened Elena.”
“I tried to make her leave.”
“You worked with Dominic.”
“I worked with whoever kept this family alive.”
Victor’s hands curled.
Sebastian looked at Carlo.
“Tell him.”
Carlo said nothing.
“Tell me what?”
Sebastian laughed.
“Your father wasn’t the innocent man in Daniel’s letter.”
Victor already suspected that.
“What did he do?”
“He ordered Daniel’s disappearance.”
Carlo closed his eyes.
Victor looked at him.
“Is that true?”
Carlo whispered, “At first.”
Victor felt something inside him crack.
Sebastian threw another document into the fire.
“Anthony changed his mind later. By then Daniel was gone.”
Elena’s voice came from the doorway.
“My father wasn’t gone.”
Victor spun.
She had followed anyway.
Sebastian’s expression changed.
Elena held the surveillance phone.
“He was watching all of you.”
Sebastian stepped forward.
Victor moved between them.
Elena pressed PLAY.
Daniel’s recorded voice filled the burning archive.
“If you are hearing this, Sebastian finally found the cameras.”
Sebastian went completely still.
The recording continued.
“He thinks I was watching Elena.”
A pause.
“I wasn’t.”
Victor looked toward Elena.
Daniel’s voice became quieter.
“I was watching the man inside the Russo family who had been protecting her.”
Sebastian’s face lost color.
“And his name is—”
The recording abruptly stopped.
Elena stared at the screen.
Battery dead.
Then a gunshot sounded upstairs.
Gabriel shouted Victor’s name.
Victor ran toward the stairs.
Another gunshot.
A door slammed.
By the time Victor reached the main hallway, the front entrance stood open.
Gabriel was on one knee beside an injured guard.
Elena arrived behind Victor.
“Where’s my father?”
Gabriel looked at her.
His expression answered first.
Daniel’s security escort had been attacked.
The car was gone.
May you like
Daniel Marlow was missing again.
And lying on the floor where the vehicle had been parked was a red silk scarf belonging to Sofia Bellandi.
