Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE WALL
Marco Bellini opened the door.
He was forty-two, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven, and wearing the black suit all senior Moretti security men wore when the estate prepared for formal events.
A clove cigarette rested unlit between two fingers.
He stopped when he saw Dante.
Then Elena.
Then Bruno.
Then the open panel in the wall.
His expression changed.
Barely.
Dante saw it.
“Boss.”
“Marco.”
“I heard there was an issue in the servants’ wing.”
“Did you?”
“Guard called.”
Dante glanced toward the cigarette.
“You smoke inside now?”
Marco looked at it as though noticing it for the first time.
“Not lit.”
Dante held up the butt found in the passage.
Marco’s eyes moved to it.
Nothing else.
“Yours?”
“Could be.”
“Interesting answer.”
Elena stood beside Sophie’s bed.
Still.
Watching.
Marco looked toward the hidden corridor.
“I did not know that was there.”
Elena’s mouth tightened.
Dante noticed.
“What?”
She shook her head.
Marco looked at her.
Too quickly.
That was enough.
Dante said, “Elena.”
She met his eyes.
“Say it.”
Marco’s shoulders changed.
Elena spoke.
“Javier knew Marco.”
Silence.
Marco looked at her.
Not angry.
Warning.
Dante stepped between them.
“How?”
Elena’s face had gone pale.
“Javier reported to him.”
Marco said, “Maintenance reports to security for restricted areas.”
Dante kept his eyes on Elena.
“What did your husband tell you?”
“Not much.”
“Tell me what you have.”
She hated his tone.
He softened it.
“Please.”
Marco shifted.
Dante heard.
He turned.
“Do not move.”
Marco stopped.
That was not a request.
Some situations still required command.
Dante looked back at Elena.
She swallowed.
“The week Javier died, he said there was a room in the walls.”
Marco’s face tightened.
“He said someone was moving cases through it after midnight.”
“What cases?”
“He did not know.”
“Why tell Marco?”
“Because Marco was security.”
Dante looked at him.
Marco said, “I never received a report.”
Elena laughed.
Quiet.
Bitter.
“You came to our apartment.”
Marco’s face changed.
There.
“You sat at my kitchen table two days before Javier died.”
Dante’s anger sharpened.
Marco looked at her.
“That was about payroll.”
“No.”
Elena stepped forward.
“You told him to stop asking questions.”
Marco said nothing.
“Didn’t you?”
“Elena.”
“You said, ‘You have a wife and baby. Be smarter.’”
Sophie moved in her sleep.
Everyone went silent.
Elena lowered her voice.
“I remember because Javier repeated it all night.”
Dante looked at Marco.
“Explain.”
Marco’s jaw worked.
“Javier found old service routes. I told him not to enter restricted sections without clearance.”
“Why go to his house?”
“He was agitated.”
“Why threaten his family?”
“I did not.”
Elena stared.
Marco continued.
“I was warning him.”
“From what?” Dante asked.
Marco said nothing.
Wrong move.
Dante stepped closer.
“From what?”
Marco looked toward the open panel.
Then at Dante.
“Your father.”
The room changed.
Dante’s father, Salvatore Moretti, had been dead six years.
Cancer.
Not murder.
Not betrayal.
At least that was the official history.
Dante’s expression became stone.
“My father?”
Marco nodded.
“Those passages were used for business.”
“What business?”
“I do not know all of it.”
“Try.”
“Cash. Documents. Sometimes weapons.”
Dante looked at Sophie’s room.
“Through this wall?”
“Not this room specifically. The old corridor connects the west stairs to the wine cellar and lower garage.”
Elena’s face twisted.
“Javier found it.”
“Yes.”
“And died.”
Marco looked at her.
“He died at another site.”
“Three days later.”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
That answer surprised everyone.
Marco rubbed one hand over his mouth.
“I thought it was an accident until later.”
Dante stared.
“What happened later?”
“Someone came for Javier’s maintenance notebook.”
Elena stopped breathing.
“What notebook?”
Marco looked at her.
“He kept diagrams.”
“I never saw one.”
“Because I took it.”
Dante’s voice dropped.
“You what?”
“After his death.”
Marco looked at Dante.
“I went to his locker before the police did.”
“Why?”
“To keep whatever he found from reaching people who would kill Elena too.”
Elena went white with anger.
“You stole from my dead husband to protect me?”
“Yes.”
“You let me think he died because he was careless.”
Marco closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
She slapped him.
Hard.
Dante did not stop her.
Marco accepted it.
Elena’s hand shook.
“You came to the funeral.”
“Yes.”
“You carried Sophie.”
Marco looked away.
That hurt him.
Good.
Dante held up the black storage device from the pillow.
“Did you put this there?”
Marco’s eyes narrowed.
“No.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
“Do you know who uses the passage now?”
A pause.
“Sometimes me.”
Elena stared.
Dante’s hand moved toward his weapon.
Marco saw.
“Listen first.”
“Fast.”
“My father—your father—no. Salvatore had a contingency archive hidden in the old wine cellar. After he died, Vittorio wanted it.”
Dante’s uncle.
Vittorio Moretti.
Sixty-five.
Chairman of two family trusts.
The only relative who still called Dante “boy” when angry.
“What archive?”
“Financial leverage.”
“On who?”
“Everyone.”
Of course.
Dante’s family history was built from men preserving blackmail as if it were heirloom silver.
“Why are you in the passage?”
“I check the archive room.”
“For Vittorio?”
“No.”
“For me?”
“No.”
“Then?”
Marco exhaled.
“For Javier.”
Elena stared.
“What?”
“He found something in the corridor before he died.”
Marco looked at Sophie.
Then lowered his voice.
“A recording.”
Dante’s pulse changed.
“Of?”
“Vittorio and two captains discussing Salvatore’s succession.”
“My succession.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Before Dante’s father died.
“What did they say?”
Marco hesitated.
“They discussed removing you if your father chose you instead of Vittorio.”
Dante went still.
His father had officially designated Dante successor three months later.
Vittorio publicly accepted.
Apparently not privately.
“Where is the recording?”
“I do not know.”
“You said Javier found it.”
“He told me he hid a copy.”
“Where?”
Marco looked at the pillow.
“No.”
Elena turned.
“Sophie’s pillow?”
Marco shook his head.
“I never knew.”
Dante looked at the storage device.
Could be the copy.
Why inside the pillow?
Who put it there now?
Marco said, “I used the three-knock line.”
Elena stared.
“You.”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“It was Javier’s signal.”
“Why use it after he died?”
Marco looked ashamed.
“Because whoever had his notebook might respond.”
Dante’s anger flared.
“You used a signal beside a child’s bedroom to lure an unknown person.”
“I never knew Sophie slept here.”
“That is your defense?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Marco continued quickly.
“The original room was storage. Elena moved into these rooms last year.”
Dante remembered renovations.
Staff quarters shifted.
Security maps updated.
Apparently old passage maps did not.
“Who else knows the signal?”
Marco said, “Anyone who found Javier’s notebook.”
Elena crossed both arms over herself.
“Someone did.”
“Yes.”
Dante looked at the storage device again.
“Who hid this?”
Marco genuinely did not know.
That frightened Dante more than if he had confessed.
A sound came from the hallway.
Luca Ferraro—Dante’s chief of operations—entered.
“Boss.”
He stopped when he saw Marco.
Dante said, “Close the door.”
Luca did.
Dante handed him the device.
“Offline machine only.”
Luca nodded.
“No network.”
He left.
Marco said, “If that is Javier’s copy, do not play it on house systems.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever is using the passages may be watching network access.”
Dante looked at him.
“How compromised is my security?”
Marco’s face answered badly.
“I do not know.”
Dante hated that phrase.
Sophie woke.
Everyone froze.
She blinked at four adults and one giant dog surrounding her bed.
“Mommy?”
Elena sat instantly.
“Hi, baby.”
Sophie rubbed one eye.
“Why is everybody here?”
“No reason.”
Sophie looked at Dante.
“That’s a lot of people for no reason.”
Dante almost smiled.
She looked toward Marco.
Her face changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“You’re the knocking man.”
The room stopped.
Marco stared.
“What?”
Sophie pointed.
“You smell like Christmas fire.”
Cloves.
Elena’s face hardened.
Marco crouched several feet away.
“Sophie, have you seen me at your door?”
She thought.
“No.”
“Then why am I the knocking man?”
“Because Bruno growls when you walk past.”
Dante looked at the dog.
Bruno’s eyes were fixed on Marco.
Interesting.
Sophie continued.
“But you’re not the scary one.”
Dante felt cold.
Elena whispered, “What scary one?”
Sophie hugged the star pillow tighter, unaware its seam now hung open.
“The shiny-shoes man.”
Dante crouched.
“What does that mean?”
“He comes after the knocks.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Just his feet.”
“Where?”
She pointed toward the hidden wall.
“Under there.”
A narrow gap at the baseboard.
From bed height, Sophie could see the floor inside the passage when the panel was not fully closed.
“What do his shoes look like?”
“Black.”
Half the house wore black shoes.
“Anything else?”
Sophie thought.
“Gold lion.”
Dante’s stomach dropped.
Not shoes.
Cufflinks reflected near the floor when the man bent.
Gold lion cufflinks.
A Moretti family crest.
Only three men wore the old lion set.
Dante.
Vittorio.
And Luca Ferraro.
Luca had just taken the storage device downstairs.
Dante stood.
Too fast.
“Marco, stay here.”
“Boss—”
“With Elena.”
Elena glared.
“I do not need—”
Dante looked at her.
“Would you prefer him gone?”
She considered.
Then looked at Sophie.
“No.”
Choice.
Good.
Dante ran.
Down the back stairs.
Past the linen closet.
Toward the small secure office where Luca was supposed to inspect the drive.
The door stood open.
Computer on.
Chair empty.
Storage device gone.
On the screen, one audio file had appeared.
JAVIER_ALVAREZ_FINAL.
Dante clicked.
A man’s voice filled the room.
Breathing hard.
“If anyone hears this, Vittorio knows I found the tunnel. Marco tried to warn me. Do not trust the man with the lion on his wrist.”
Dante stopped breathing.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
He turned.
May you like
Luca Ferraro stood in the doorway.
Gold lion cufflinks gleamed beneath his sleeves.
