Chapter 4 - THE COUSIN WHO SMILED AT THE WRONG TIME
Julian Duca arrived at the townhouse shortly after noon.
He came alone, wearing a navy suit and carrying two coffees.
To anyone watching from the street, he looked like a concerned family member visiting his cousin after an exhausting night.
Matteo watched him through the security monitor.
“Should I let him in?” Luca asked.
“Yes.”
“You're certain?”
“No,” Matteo replied. “But I want to see what he does when he thinks he still has control.”
Julian entered the foyer and placed the coffees on a table.
“Matteo. What happened last night?”
“You tell me.”
Julian laughed nervously.
“Is this about the gala? If you're still angry about the contract, we can discuss it.”
“Elias Ward has been found.”
The smile disappeared.
Only for a second.
Then Julian recovered.
“Elias? That's wonderful. Where was he?”
“In my house.”
Julian stared at him.
“What?”
“Behind a hidden bookshelf. Bound and injured.”
“That's insane.”
“Someone imprisoned him there.”
Julian shook his head.
“Then call the police.”
“We have.”
It was a lie, carefully delivered.
Julian looked toward the staircase.
“Where are the children?”
Matteo said nothing.
Julian's eyes returned to him.
“The little girl. Mia. I heard she was here.”
“Why are you interested in Mia?”
“I'm not. I simply don't understand why a child was in your study at two in the morning.”
“Neither do I.”
For a moment, neither man spoke.
They had grown up together, and Matteo remembered Julian as a boy who always knew how to turn an argument into a joke.
Now he noticed the small signs of anxiety beneath his cousin's composure: a clenched jaw, a thumb rubbing the edge of his watch, eyes that kept drifting toward the library door.
“Tell me something,” Matteo said. “Do you remember the old library?”
Julian's face became unreadable.
“Of course.”
“Did your father ever tell you what was beneath it?”
“No.”
“Did mine?”
“Not that I remember.”
Matteo leaned back.
“Interesting.”
Julian shifted.
“What is this really about?”
“Northstar.”
The name struck like a slap.
Julian's coffee cup trembled in his hand.
Then he placed it down.
“I have no idea what that is.”
“Your name appears in the financial records.”
“Then the records are wrong.”
“Thirty million dollars doesn't disappear because a record is wrong.”
Julian's expression hardened.
“You've been listening to someone who wants to destroy us.”
“Possibly.”
“Elias has always been unstable. You know that.”
“I know he vanished eleven days ago.”
“People leave companies.”
“People don't usually leave behind their shoes in hidden rooms.”
Julian's composure finally cracked.
He stood.
“You're making a mistake.”
“Then help me understand the truth.”
Julian looked at him for several seconds.
Then he said something Matteo hadn't expected.
“Ask your father.”
Matteo's jaw tightened.
“My father has been dead for twelve years.”
“And yet you still think you know everything he did.”
Julian walked toward the door.
Before leaving, he turned.
“Be careful who you trust, Matteo. Especially people who arrive in your life carrying sad stories and convenient secrets.”
His gaze shifted toward the library.
Then he left.
Matteo remained still until the front door closed.
Luca entered from the hallway.
“He knew about the hidden room.”
“Yes.”
“Should we stop him?”
“No. Find out where he goes.”
Luca nodded.
Matteo returned to the underground chamber.
He examined the ledger again, tracing the transactions with a pencil. The earliest payments to Northstar dated back twenty-four years, when his father had still been alive.
At the bottom of one page, he discovered a handwritten notation:
WINTER FILE — ORIGINALS RETAINED BY G.H.
G.H.
Grace Harper.
The woman who had worked in his home for eight years.
The woman who had protected two little girls while apparently carrying a secret that could threaten the Duca family.
Matteo called the hospital.
Grace was awake.
When he arrived, she was sitting upright in bed, pale but alert. An intravenous line ran into her arm, and a nurse was checking her blood pressure.
The moment Matteo entered, Grace looked toward the doorway.
“Where are my daughters?”
“Safe.”
“Both of them?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes closed in relief.
“Thank God.”
Matteo pulled a chair beside her bed.
“Grace, we need to talk.”
“I know.”
“Who is Elena?”
Grace's face went white.
For several seconds, she seemed unable to breathe.
Then she whispered, “You found the library.”
“And the photographs.”
She turned toward the window.
“I hoped your father had destroyed them.”
“Why?”
“Because he knew what would happen if Julian found out.”
Matteo leaned forward.
“Found out what?”
Grace's eyes filled with tears.
“Your father wasn't just an investor in Northstar. He helped create it.”
Matteo sat back.
“My father built Duca Holdings from a small construction company.”
“He built that company too. But Northstar wasn't what he told people it was.”
“What was it?”
“A private network of investors, politicians, and business owners who believed they could control Boston by controlling its money.”
Grace took a shaky breath.
“They financed projects, bought debts, pressured officials, and made inconvenient people disappear from public life. Sometimes they destroyed reputations. Sometimes they forced families out of their homes. Your father told himself he was protecting the city from worse people.”
“And Julian?”
“He inherited his father's position in the network. When your father tried to leave, Julian's father threatened him.”
Matteo stared at her.
“My father died of a heart attack.”
Grace said nothing.
That silence was answer enough.
Matteo felt anger rising, but he forced himself to remain calm.
“Tell me about Elena.”
Grace began to cry.
“She was my daughter.”
“Your first daughter?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
Grace covered her mouth.
“They told me she died.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Who told you?”
“Your father's attorney. He said she had been taken to another hospital after complications during birth. He gave me papers and told me there was nothing anyone could do.”
“Did you see her body?”
Grace shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why did you believe him?”
“Because I was twenty years old, frightened, and completely alone.”
She looked at Matteo.
“Your father paid for my education after I left the hospital. He found me a job. He helped me raise Mia. He said he would make things right, but he never told me what had happened to Elena.”
Matteo's thoughts raced.
“Do you believe Lily is Elena's child?”
Grace shook her head.
“Lily is my second daughter. The birthmark runs in our family.”
“Then why does the necklace matter?”
“Because it contains the key to the original records. Your father gave it to me before he died. He said if anyone came looking for my children, I should protect the key and find you.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of what you might discover about your own family.”
Grace reached for his hand.
“Matteo, your father was not an innocent man. He did terrible things because he convinced himself the ends justified the means. But in the end, he tried to stop Northstar. Julian knows that. And if he discovers what your father left behind, he'll do whatever it takes to destroy the evidence.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Where is the original file?”
Grace hesitated.
“Somewhere your father believed no one would think to look.”
“Where?”
She leaned closer.
“Inside the winter photograph.”
Matteo returned to the townhouse and examined the photograph under a magnifying glass.
At first, he saw nothing unusual.
Then he noticed a tiny seam along the cardboard backing.
Carefully, he removed it.
Inside lay a thin strip of microfilm and a handwritten note.
The truth belongs to the people who paid for our lies.
Below the sentence was a list of names.
Politicians.
Developers.
Bankers.
And at the top, written in his father's hand, was the name of Julian's father.
Matteo understood now why Julian had been so frightened.
The documents could expose Northstar's entire network.
But one name on the list was even more troubling.
Evelyn Marlowe.
The woman who managed his house.
The woman who had threatened Grace's job.
The woman who knew every entrance, every schedule, and every secret in the Duca townhouse.
Matteo stared at the photograph.
May you like
He had spent twelve years believing Evelyn was merely a loyal employee.
Now he wondered whether she had been guarding his family's secrets all along.
