Chapter 2 - The Phone Mia Hid
I didn't open the door.
That decision lasted perhaps three seconds.
It felt longer.
“Luca?” Vincent called again.
I looked at Elena.
She was holding Mia against her side now.
The little girl had gone quiet.
“Where is the phone?” I asked.
Mia pointed vaguely toward the wall of books.
“Behind the horse.”
On the upper shelf sat a small brass sculpture of a horse my mother had bought in Florence decades earlier.
I crossed the room.
“Luca,” Daniel called.
His voice was harder now.
I moved the sculpture.
Nothing.
Then I noticed the edge of something black wedged between two books.
A phone.
Not mine.
I picked it up.
Elena inhaled sharply.
“You've seen this before?”
She nodded.
“Whose?”
“I don't know.”
That was another lie.
I held her gaze.
She lasted five seconds.
“Daniel’s.”
The door handle moved.
Locked.
I had locked it when I entered.
For years, that lock had been mostly decorative.
Now it suddenly felt important.
“Why did Mia have Daniel’s phone?”
“I didn't know she did.”
That, I believed.
I examined it.
The screen was cracked along one corner.
A notification glowed across the display.
BACKUP COMPLETE.
My stomach tightened.
“Elena.”
She looked away.
“What am I looking at?”
“I don't know.”
“Mia said Daniel wanted this phone.”
“He does.”
“Why?”
She hesitated.
“Because I took it.”
Outside, Vincent said something quietly to Daniel.
I couldn't hear the words.
“Why did you take Daniel’s phone?”
“Because he left it in my room.”
That sentence changed the temperature of the room.
“Why was Daniel in your room?”
Elena’s fingers tightened around Mia.
“He said there was a security issue.”
“At night?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
Her silence answered.
I walked back toward the desk.
“Sit.”
“I’d rather stand.”
“Elena.”
“Please don't order me right now.”
I stopped.
There was no disrespect in her voice.
Only exhaustion.
So I nodded.
“All right.”
Mia tugged at Elena’s dress.
“Mommy, can I have juice?”
“Later, sweetheart.”
“I’m thirsty.”
I walked to the small refrigerator behind the side cabinet, took out a bottle of water, and handed it to her.
Mia smiled.
“Thank you, Uncle Luca.”
This time Elena didn't correct her.
I turned the phone over.
“Passcode?”
“I don't know.”
“Then what were you hoping to find?”
“I already found it.”
My eyes lifted.
Elena reached into the pocket of her apron.
She removed a tiny memory card.
“I copied what I could.”
Outside the office, Daniel knocked again.
“Luca, this isn't funny.”
I stared at the memory card.
“What did you copy?”
Elena whispered, “Enough to know someone has been stealing from you.”
Money.
That was what I expected.
In my world, betrayal usually had a number attached.
“How much?”
“I don't know.”
“Thousands?”
She shook her head.
“Millions?”
“I think so.”
Vincent spoke through the door.
“Luca, Elena is confused. Let us handle this.”
Elena flinched at the sound of her own name.
That bothered me more than the accusation.
They knew she was inside.
“How do they know you're here?”
“I don't know.”
I glanced toward the ceiling.
Camera.
Daniel controlled security.
Of course.
I walked to the wall switch and killed the monitor feeds inside my office.
It didn't guarantee privacy.
It was a start.
“Elena, from the beginning.”
She looked at Mia.
“Not in front of her.”
I nodded toward the adjoining reading room.
“Mia, there's a television in there.”
The child shook her head.
“I stay with Mommy.”
Elena crouched.
“You'll be right there.”
“No.”
“Mia—”
“I’m the boss.”
Under different circumstances, it might have been funny.
Elena kissed her forehead.
“Then the boss needs to protect Mr. Bunny.”
Mia looked at the stuffed rabbit she'd brought with her.
“From what?”
“Boredom.”
Mia considered this a serious problem.
She finally walked into the adjoining room.
I left the door open.
Elena waited until Mia was out of earshot.
Then she began.
“Three months ago, Daniel started coming to the staff wing after midnight.”
“Why?”
“He said he was inspecting security.”
“Daniel doesn't personally inspect staff rooms.”
“I know that now.”
“What did he want?”
“At first, questions.”
“About?”
“You.”
That surprised me.
“My schedule. Where you kept documents. Which visitors used the private entrance. Whether you ever left your office unlocked.”
“And you answered?”
“No.”
“What happened when you refused?”
Her hand moved instinctively toward the bruised wrist.
I felt something cold settle inside me.
“Did Daniel do that?”
She didn't answer.
“Elena.”
“Not all of it.”
My jaw tightened.
“Vincent?”
Her eyes closed.
“They weren't supposed to hurt me.”
Men had said versions of that sentence for centuries.
It never made the harm smaller.
“What were they supposed to do?”
“Scare me.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw something.”
“What?”
“One night I was cleaning the library. Vincent came in with Daniel. They didn't know I was there.”
She paused.
“They were talking about shipments.”
My freight companies.
“What shipments?”
“I don't know. They mentioned invoices and properties. Then Vincent said everything had to be ready before October.”
“For what?”
“He said, ‘When Luca signs, he won't know what he's giving us.’”
September.
October was two weeks away.
“What was I supposed to sign?”
“I don't know.”
I looked at the phone.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Elena laughed once, without humor.
“Tell you?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Moretti, Vincent has been with your family longer than I've been alive.”
“That doesn't answer me.”
“And Daniel controls every person who enters this house.”
Her voice cracked.
“Who was I supposed to tell?”
“Me.”
“They told me you already knew.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“They said you approved everything.”
“I didn't.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
“Because of Mia.”
I frowned.
Elena looked toward the adjoining room.
“Last week she wandered into your office while I was cleaning nearby. You gave her strawberries.”
“I remember.”
“When she came back, she said you asked why Mommy looked sad.”
I remembered that too.
Elena had looked exhausted.
I had assumed she was tired.
“Mia said she told you I needed a vacation.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“She did.”
“And you told her everybody deserved to feel safe at home.”
I remembered the conversation.
It had meant nothing to me at the time.
To Elena, apparently, it had meant everything.
“That was when I realized they were lying,” she said. “If you knew what they were doing, you wouldn't have said that.”
“You took a dangerous gamble based on something I told a three-year-old.”
“I didn't have many choices.”
Fair enough.
“What did you find on Daniel’s phone?”
“Photographs of documents. Bank transfers. Messages with Vincent.”
“Anything else?”
She went silent.
“Elena.”
“There was a list.”
“What kind of list?”
“Names.”
“Whose names?”
“People who work for you.”
That didn't surprise me.
Then she said:
“Beside some names it said loyal. Beside others it said remove.”
My expression hardened.
“And mine?”
She looked directly at me.
“Yours had a date.”
Outside, the door handle moved again.
Daniel’s voice came through.
“Last chance, Luca.”
I ignored him.
“What date?”
Elena swallowed.
“October third.”
Sixteen days away.
“What happens October third?”
“I don't know.”
Then Mia appeared in the doorway to the reading room.
She had apparently abandoned Mr. Bunny’s boredom emergency.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“The phone made a picture.”
I looked down.
The locked screen had illuminated.
A new message.
The sender was identified only as V.
But I didn't need help understanding who that was.
The message contained six words.
GET ELENA OUT. THE CHILD TOO.
A second message arrived.
LUCA MUST SIGN BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
I looked at Elena.
She stared at the screen.
Outside, Vincent knocked once.
“Luca.”
This time his voice was calm.
Almost fatherly.
“You're making a mistake.”
I had heard Vincent use that tone hundreds of times.
Usually moments before someone else regretted a decision.
But for the first time in thirty years, the warning was directed at me.
I slipped Daniel’s phone into my pocket.
Then I unlocked my desk drawer.
Not for a weapon.
For another phone.
A private device Daniel didn't know existed.
There were only three numbers stored inside it.
I selected the first.
The man who answered spoke after one ring.
“Yeah?”
“Marco.”
Silence.
Then:
“Luca?”
“I need you at the house.”
“How many men?”
I looked at Elena.
At Mia.
At the door.
“None you don't trust with your life.”
Another pause.
“How bad?”
I watched the handle slowly turn again.
“I'm about to find out.”
I ended the call.
Then I walked toward the door.
Elena whispered, “What are you doing?”
I put my hand on the lock.
“Giving Vincent exactly what he asked for.”
I unlocked it.
But when I opened the door, only Vincent stood there.
Daniel was gone.
And Vincent’s first words told me why.
“You shouldn't have called Marco.”
I stared at him.
My private phone was supposed to be invisible.
Nobody was supposed to know it existed.
Yet Vincent knew exactly whom I had called.
Which meant the betrayal wasn't just inside my house.
May you like
It was inside every system I trusted.
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