Chapter 5 - The Man Luca Trusted Most
Darius Vane had guarded Luca Moretti since Luca was nineteen.
He had taken a bullet for him in Marseille.
Dragged him from a burning car outside Nice.
Slept in hospital corridors after an assassination attempt.
Luca trusted very few people.
Darius had been one of them.
Until Elena unfolded her father’s letter.
They returned to Moretti Tower after midnight.
Police controlled the entrances.
Investigators occupied the executive floors.
Darius was nowhere to be found.
“When did anyone last see him?” Luca asked.
Tomas checked security logs.
“Ten forty-two this morning.”
“Before the lockdown.”
“Yes.”
Elena reread Antonio’s letter.
There were only three paragraphs.
Most described evidence her father intended to deliver.
Then the warning:
Darius Vane has been feeding information to people outside the family. I do not know who employs him. Matteo is compromised, but I believe Darius is directing more than Matteo understands. Protect Luca. He is young, and his father trusts the wrong men.
Elena looked at Luca.
“You were twenty-two.”
“My father died six months later.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Heart attack?”
“That’s what we were told.”
“Do you believe it now?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Tomas searched records.
Darius had been assigned to Luca’s father the night he died.
Luca stared at the screen.
“He found him.”
Tomas nodded.
“Elena’s father tried to warn yours.”
“And six months later both were dead.”
A terrible pattern formed.
Victor had killed Antonio under Matteo’s instructions.
But Darius appeared connected to something larger.
Perhaps Matteo himself had been manipulated.
Luca called every security unit.
“Find Vane.”
No answer from Darius’s phone.
His apartment was empty.
His company vehicle remained in the garage.
Then Elena noticed something.
A maintenance access log.
Darius had entered the archives on the fifty-fourth floor at ten thirty-eight.
Four minutes before disappearing.
They went down.
The archive vault had been opened.
Inside, shelves of historical company documents stretched through climate-controlled rooms.
One drawer was missing.
“What was stored here?”
Tomas checked the catalog.
“Original corporate formation documents.”
Elena understood.
“My father's ownership records.”
Luca looked at the empty slot.
Darius had removed the originals.
“Why?”
“To challenge my claim.”
“But copies already reached investigators.”
“Originals carry more weight.”
Tomas checked another drawer.
Also empty.
Luca frowned.
“What?”
“Medical records.”
“Whose?”
Tomas looked up.
“Your father.”
Silence.
Elena stepped closer.
“Darius took records proving how Luca’s father died.”
Luca’s expression became unreadable.
A guard entered.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“What?”
“We found Vane.”
“Where?”
“Security camera outside Saint-Joseph Hospital.”
Elena frowned.
“Hospital?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Who is there?”
The guard hesitated.
“Elena’s mother.”
Her blood froze.
“My mother?”
She grabbed her phone.
Three missed calls.
All from the assisted-living facility where her mother had lived since suffering a stroke two years earlier.
Elena called.
A nurse answered.
“Ms. Rossi, thank God.”
“What happened?”
“Your mother experienced respiratory distress. An ambulance transferred her.”
“When?”
“About forty minutes ago.”
“Who authorized Saint-Joseph?”
A pause.
“A family representative.”
“I’m her only family.”
The nurse went silent.
Elena already knew.
Darius.
They raced toward the hospital.
On the way, Elena’s hands shook.
Luca sat beside her in the armored vehicle.
“He won’t touch her.”
“You can’t know that.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“But I know he wants something from us. Your mother is leverage.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It wasn't supposed to.”
She looked out the window.
After a moment Luca said:
“She knows, doesn’t she?”
“About my father?”
“About everything.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“My mother stopped talking about him after the accident.”
“Maybe because she was afraid.”
“Or because she knew.”
At the hospital, they discovered no record of Elena’s mother arriving.
The ambulance company had been given new instructions mid-route.
The vehicle was found abandoned.
Driver and paramedic alive.
Sedated.
Elena nearly collapsed.
Luca caught her.
“He took her.”
She pushed away.
Not angry at him.
Angry at helplessness.
“For twelve years I kept my mother safe by staying quiet.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I knew somebody was watching.”
Luca looked at her sharply.
“What?”
She hesitated.
“There were letters.”
“What letters?”
“After my father died.”
She had never told anyone.
Every year on the anniversary of Antonio’s death, a plain envelope arrived.
No return address.
Inside was one sentence.
Your father made a mistake. Do not repeat it.
Luca’s face hardened.
“How many?”
“Twelve.”
“You kept them?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
Luca called Tomas.
“Search Elena’s apartment. Gloves. Evidence bags. Everything.”
Elena looked down.
“I should've told you.”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised her.
He continued.
“But I understand why you didn’t.”
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Luca and Elena looked at each other.
She answered.
“Mom?”
Darius’s voice came through.
“Elena.”
Her knees weakened.
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“I want to hear her.”
A pause.
Then her mother’s voice.
“Elena?”
Tears filled Elena’s eyes.
“Mom.”
“I’m okay.”
Then Darius returned.
“Now you know.”
“What do you want?”
“The encryption key.”
“You're too late.”
“No.”
He sounded almost amused.
“You transmitted financial evidence. But there is one account nobody has opened.”
Elena looked at Luca.
“What account?”
“Your father’s.”
Her breathing stopped.
“My father didn't have—”
“He did.”
Darius continued.
“Antonio was smarter than Matteo. Smarter than Victor. Maybe smarter than all of us.”
“What did he hide?”
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
“The beginning.”
Luca took the phone.
“Darius.”
“Luca.”
“You touch her mother and there is nowhere—”
“Still threatening people before asking the right question.”
“What question?”
Darius laughed quietly.
“Why did your father really die?”
Luca went still.
“You killed him.”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Bring Elena to the old Moretti estate tomorrow at sunrise.”
“What estate?”
“The one your father never told you about.”
The call ended.
Tomas traced it.
No result.
Elena looked at Luca.
“You're not telling me not to go.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going too.”
At four in the morning Tomas returned with the letters.
Forensics found identical paper fibers across all twelve.
But there was something else.
The oldest envelope contained a fingerprint.
Partial.
They ran it.
Not Darius.
Not Victor.
Not Matteo.
The print belonged to a woman.
Elena’s mother.
She stared at the result.
“That’s impossible.”
Tomas placed another document beside it.
One of the surveillance cameras from the assisted-living facility had recorded Elena’s mother leaving her room willingly before the supposed medical emergency.
No struggle.
No fear.
She had walked into the ambulance on her own.
Beside Darius.
Elena stared.
“She knows him.”
Luca said nothing.
A final security still showed them speaking.
Her mother was smiling.
Elena’s heart broke in a different way.
For twelve years she had believed her mother was another victim.
Now she no longer knew.
Then Tomas handed Elena one more item found hidden behind a loose panel in her apartment.
A letter.
Not one of the threats.
This one had been written by Elena’s mother.
Never sent.
It was addressed to Elena.
The first line read:
If you ever discover what your father left behind, you must understand that Darius was not his enemy.
Elena read the sentence again.
Then the next.
Her hands began shaking.
May you like
Darius was the man Antonio trusted to protect you after his death.
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