Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO WANTED THEM SILENT
Matteo reached the study in seconds.
Luca followed close behind, one hand near his radio.
The room looked almost exactly as Matteo had left it. The vacuum cleaner stood beside the desk, and the brass mechanism remained exposed beneath the bookshelf.
But Mia was gone.
So was Lily.
A glass lamp lay shattered near the doorway.
“Security!” Luca shouted.
Two guards appeared from the corridor.
“Where are the children?”
One guard pointed toward the adjoining library.
“We heard a noise. Someone came through the service entrance.”
Matteo felt a cold pressure settle in his chest.
“Lock down the house. Nobody leaves without my authorization.”
He crossed the library in three strides.
Behind a velvet curtain, he found Mia crouching beside a low cabinet, holding Lily against her chest. The baby was crying, and Mia was trying desperately to keep her quiet.
“It's all right,” Matteo said.
Mia looked up.
“Someone came in.”
“Did you see who?”
She shook her head.
“I heard Mama's name.”
Matteo crouched.
“What did they say?”
Mia hesitated.
“They said she should have stayed home.”
A terrible possibility began forming in his mind.
Before he could ask another question, Luca called from the study.
“Matteo. You need to see this.”
Matteo asked one of the female security officers to remain with the children and returned to the hidden passage.
Elias had been moved into the study and laid on the sofa. Luca had cut through the restraints and covered him with a blanket.
Beside the man lay a small black device.
“A recording unit,” Luca explained. “Someone left it in the chamber.”
“Does it work?”
“Possibly.”
Elias struggled to sit up.
“Julian isn't acting alone.”
Matteo pulled a chair beside the sofa.
“Start talking.”
Elias stared at him.
“Your cousin has been moving money out of Duca Holdings for almost three years. At first, it was small amounts disguised as consulting fees. Then he started creating companies that existed only on paper.”
“How much?”
“More than thirty million dollars.”
Matteo's expression hardened.
“Why didn't you come to me?”
“I tried. Three months ago, I found a set of accounts connected to a private investment fund. The fund was transferring money to companies owned by people who were supposed to be dead.”
“Dead?”
“Witnesses. Contractors. People who knew too much.”
Luca exchanged a glance with Matteo.
Elias continued.
“When I confronted Julian, he told me I was looking at the wrong records. Two days later, someone followed me home. I disappeared before they could reach my wife.”
“Who put you in that room?”
“I never saw his face.”
“Then how do you know Julian is involved?”
Elias closed his eyes.
“Because I heard him.”
The room fell silent.
“I heard him speaking on the other side of the wall. He thought I couldn't understand everything he was saying.”
“What did he say?”
Elias looked toward the children.
“Not here.”
Matteo understood.
He turned to Luca.
“Get him medical attention. Quietly, but through legitimate emergency care. And contact an attorney who isn't connected to the company.”
Luca nodded.
“And the police?”
“We'll contact them through independent counsel. First, I want to understand what we're dealing with.”
Elias grabbed his sleeve.
“Don't trust Evelyn Marlowe.”
Matteo frowned.
“Why?”
“She knew I was here.”
Before Matteo could press him, the study door opened.
Evelyn Marlowe stood in the doorway wearing a gray cardigan over her nightdress. Her silver hair was perfectly arranged, despite the hour.
She looked at the broken lamp, the open bookshelf, and the injured auditor.
Then her gaze settled on Matteo.
“What has happened here?”
Matteo studied her.
“That's what I'm trying to determine.”
Evelyn noticed the bloodless face of Elias and immediately covered her mouth.
“Oh, dear God.”
“You know him?”
“I have seen him at company functions.”
“Then perhaps you can explain why he was imprisoned behind my bookshelf.”
Her expression changed for a fraction of a second.
It was almost too brief to notice.
Almost.
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“Someone entered my study tonight. Someone knew Mia and her mother. Someone knew about the passage. You manage the household. How much do you know?”
Evelyn straightened.
“I have managed your home for seventeen years. I have never given you reason to question my loyalty.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Her eyes hardened.
“The little girl shouldn't have been here. Grace has been unreliable for weeks, and I told her she couldn't continue missing shifts.”
“Grace was ill.”
“Everyone has difficulties, Mr. Duca. A household cannot operate according to every employee's personal circumstances.”
Matteo stared at her.
“Did you know Mia came here tonight?”
“No.”
“Did you know about the passage?”
“Of course not.”
Evelyn's answers were too quick, too smooth.
Matteo had spent his adult life recognizing the difference between someone who knew nothing and someone who was carefully deciding what to reveal.
Evelyn was doing the latter.
“Leave the study,” he said.
Her face flushed.
“Excuse me?”
“Leave.”
For the first time since he had known her, Evelyn looked genuinely angry.
Then she turned and walked away.
Luca waited until the door closed.
“You don't believe her.”
“No.”
“Should I have someone follow her?”
“No. That would tell her we suspect her.”
Matteo returned to the hidden passage.
Near the chamber's entrance, he noticed a faint mark scratched into the wall.
Three short lines arranged in a triangle.
Elias saw him looking.
“That's their symbol.”
“Whose?”
“The people Julian works with.”
“Who are they?”
Elias shook his head.
“I only know what appeared in the financial records. The same symbol was stamped on documents connected to an organization called Northstar.”
Matteo had heard the name once before.
Years ago, his father had received a letter bearing that exact word. When Matteo asked about it, his father had burned the letter without explanation.
He had died six months later.
Matteo returned to the study and opened his father's old filing cabinet.
Most of the folders contained contracts, property records, and correspondence. At the bottom sat a narrow envelope with his name written in his father's unmistakable handwriting.
Inside was a photograph of Matteo at twelve years old, standing beside his father and a woman he barely remembered.
On the back, his father had written:
If the knocking returns, trust the child who hears it. The people closest to you will tell you that you're imagining things.
Matteo read the sentence twice.
Then he turned the photograph over.
The woman standing beside his father was Grace Harper.
Younger, perhaps twenty years old, she was smiling at the camera.
And in her arms was a baby.
A baby with the same small crescent-shaped birthmark visible near Lily's left ear.
Matteo's phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
Send the girl to us before sunrise. If you want Grace to live, don't involve the police.
A second message followed.
It contained a photograph of Grace lying in her bed, apparently unconscious.
Matteo's blood ran cold.
Luca read the message over his shoulder.
“We need to move the children.”
Matteo looked toward the library.
“No,” he said quietly. “We need to protect the entire family.”
He called a trusted physician, arranged emergency care for Grace, and ordered his security team to move the children to a protected guest suite.
But before they could leave the study, Mia appeared in the doorway.
She had overheard enough to understand that her mother was in danger.
“Mr. Duca?”
Matteo knelt in front of her.
“We're going to find your mother.”
Mia's eyes filled with tears.
“Is it because I came here?”
“No.”
“Is it because I heard the knocking?”
Matteo hesitated.
Then he made a decision.
“Someone is trying to frighten us into making mistakes. We aren't going to help them.”
Mia studied him.
Then she reached into the pocket of her oversized sweater and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“I found this in Mama's coat.”
Matteo unfolded it.
The paper contained a short handwritten message.
If anything happens to me, find the room beneath the old library. Ask Matteo about the winter photograph.
At the bottom was a symbol.
Three lines arranged in a triangle.
For the first time that night, Matteo understood that the hidden passage was only the beginning.
His father had left behind a secret.
May you like
Grace had known about it.
And Mia might be the only person who could lead him to the truth.
