Chapter 6 - The Last Experiment
“Elena?”
Vittorio’s voice sounded lost.
His gun remained raised.
Elena did not move.
“Vittorio, look at me.”
His hand trembled.
Around them, the sound continued.
Carlo was on the floor.
Dominic pressed both hands against his ears.
Sofia crawled toward a breaker panel.
Mara grabbed a metal bar.
“Kill the power!”
“Elena,” Vittorio said again.
“Yes.”
His pupils were dilated.
Sweat covered his forehead.
“What are you doing here?”
“Ruining your furniture.”
Something changed in his face.
Recognition.
Tiny.
Elena continued.
“You told me your headboard cost twenty-seven thousand dollars.”
“Fifteen.”
“Carlo said twenty-seven.”
Carlo, half-conscious, muttered, “Twenty-seven.”
Elena almost laughed.
“See?”
Vittorio’s gun lowered an inch.
The sound pulsed again.
He winced.
Elena stepped closer.
“You haven’t slept in four months.”
His breathing quickened.
“You think everyone is trying to betray you.”
Another step.
“But I’m the woman who slapped your hand away from a suspicious black box.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Very disrespectful.”
“There you are.”
The gun lowered.
Elena took it gently.
Then the warehouse went dark.
Sofia had cut the power.
Silence.
Real silence.
Everyone breathed.
Backup lights came on.
Alessandro was gone.
Mara knew where.
“He has a control center beneath Moretti Tower.”
Vittorio looked at her.
“My office building?”
“Your father built it before his fake death.”
Dominic laughed weakly.
“Of course he did.”
Luca arrived with Evelyn and additional men after the signal stopped.
They combined the ledger halves.
Hundreds of names.
Officials.
Companies.
Hidden accounts.
Project Somnus personnel.
Mara’s testimony connected the final pieces.
Alessandro had spent years creating a shadow organization within Vittorio’s legitimate and criminal businesses.
The insomnia attack served two purposes.
Measure Vittorio’s psychological resistance.
And destabilize him before forcing leadership mistakes that would allow Alessandro’s loyalists to take control.
Elena’s arrival had been engineered because Alessandro believed conflict between Elena and Vittorio would accelerate his decline.
Instead, Elena found the system.
He had expected that too.
What he had not expected was trust.
“He thinks people only cooperate because they’re afraid,” Mara said.
Vittorio looked at Elena.
“That may be his mistake.”
Evelyn examined Vittorio.
“You need a hospital.”
“No.”
“You need sleep.”
“Later.”
Elena folded her arms.
“You heard the doctor.”
Evelyn looked at her.
“I’m a neurologist, technically.”
“You heard the neurologist.”
Vittorio sighed.
“After my father.”
Mara knew the access route to the control center.
They entered Moretti Tower before dawn.
The building had been evacuated.
Luca disabled the audio systems.
No phones.
No radios.
Communication by wired earpieces connected to isolated circuits.
The hidden elevator was behind Vittorio’s private office.
Mara entered a code.
The elevator descended below the parking levels.
Doors opened onto a corridor.
White walls.
No decoration.
Clinical.
Elena’s stomach tightened.
It looked like her mother’s old research center.
Alessandro had rebuilt it underground.
Rooms contained computers.
Sound equipment.
Beds.
Restraints.
Carlo’s expression turned murderous.
Vittorio said, “Record everything.”
Luca activated an isolated body camera.
Evidence.
Not revenge.
Elena noticed the choice.
Four months earlier, perhaps Vittorio would have solved this differently.
Now he wanted Alessandro exposed.
They reached the central control room.
Alessandro waited alone.
Dozens of screens surrounded him.
“You brought everyone,” he said.
Vittorio stepped forward.
“You lost.”
Alessandro smiled.
“No. I proved what I wanted.”
“What?”
“That you are weak.”
Vittorio looked at Elena.
Then his siblings.
His mother.
Carlo.
“No. You proved I’m not you.”
Alessandro’s smile faded.
“Sentiment.”
“Loyalty.”
“Same weakness.”
“Then why are you alone?”
That landed.
Alessandro looked toward Mara.
“You betrayed me.”
Mara stepped beside Elena.
“No. I survived you.”
Alessandro reached for a control.
Luca shouted.
Vittorio moved.
But Alessandro pressed it.
Red lights appeared.
A countdown.
05:00.
“What is that?” Elena asked.
Mara went pale.
“Network release.”
“If it reaches zero?”
“The Somnus signal goes to every compromised system simultaneously.”
“How many?”
Mara whispered, “Thousands.”
Luca ran to the controls.
“Encrypted.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Maybe.”
Vittorio approached his father.
“Give him the key.”
Alessandro smiled.
“No.”
Vittorio punched him.
Once.
Alessandro fell.
Vittorio grabbed his collar.
“The key.”
“You won’t kill me.”
“No.”
Alessandro laughed.
“You finally learned restraint.”
Vittorio let go.
“I don’t need to kill you.”
Police sirens sounded above.
Alessandro’s face changed.
Vittorio smiled.
“I sent the ledger to three federal prosecutors thirty minutes ago.”
“You idiot.”
“And two newspapers.”
“You destroyed the family.”
“No.”
Vittorio looked around.
“I saved what was left of it.”
03:12.
Luca typed furiously.
“Need a biometric confirmation.”
“Whose?”
“System owner.”
Everyone looked at Alessandro.
He smiled.
“No.”
Mara grabbed his hand.
He fought.
Carlo restrained him.
They pressed his thumb to the scanner.
ACCESS DENIED.
“Why?” Elena asked.
Mara stared at the screen.
“Because he isn’t the owner.”
Vittorio frowned.
“Then who is?”
A name appeared.
EVELYN MARLOWE.
Everyone turned.
Evelyn went still.
Alessandro laughed.
“Tell them.”
Elena looked at her mother.
“Mom?”
Evelyn approached the scanner.
“I created the original architecture.”
“You said he stole it.”
“He did.”
“Then why is your biometric still master?”
“Because I built a backdoor he never found.”
She pressed her thumb.
ACCESS GRANTED.
02:08.
Luca opened the shutdown menu.
A password field appeared.
Evelyn froze.
“I don’t remember it.”
Elena stared.
“Eleven years?”
“It was designed to be something Alessandro could never guess.”
“What would you use?”
Evelyn looked at Elena.
Then at Mara.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“My daughters.”
She typed ELENA MARA.
Wrong.
01:31.
Mara said, “Try our birthdays.”
Wrong.
01:04.
Elena remembered the blue doors.
“Mom. When you cannot sleep…”
Evelyn turned.
“Count the blue doors.”
“Seven.”
She entered SEVENBLUEDOORS.
Wrong.
00:42.
Luca cursed.
Vittorio squeezed Elena’s hand.
She suddenly remembered.
Her mother always ended the childhood exercise with one sentence.
Behind the seventh door, you are safe.
“Try YOUARESAFE.”
Evelyn typed.
Wrong.
00:24.
Elena closed her eyes.
How had her mother phrased it?
Not you are safe.
She had said—
“My girls are safe.”
Evelyn gasped.
She typed MYGIRLSSAFE.
Wrong.
00:12.
Mara grabbed Elena’s hand.
Evelyn began crying.
Then Elena remembered the exact bedtime phrase.
“Both my girls are home.”
Evelyn typed:
BOTHMYGIRLSAREHOME
00:03.
ENTER.
The screens went black.
The countdown vanished.
Silence.
Then the control room doors opened.
Federal agents flooded in.
Alessandro did not resist.
He only stared at Vittorio.
“You think this ends with me?”
Vittorio looked at his father.
“No.”
Alessandro smiled.
“Good.”
Vittorio continued.
“It ends with what I choose to become after you.”
Agents led Alessandro away.
Elena leaned against the console.
It was over.
Or almost.
Mara stood several feet away.
Evelyn approached her.
“Mara.”
Mara stepped backward.
“Don’t.”
Evelyn stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
“Eleven years?”
“Your whole life.”
Mara’s face trembled.
“I don’t know how to be your daughter.”
“You don’t have to know today.”
Elena walked beside her sister.
“You can start by being annoying.”
Mara looked at her.
“I can do that.”
“I assumed.”
For the first time, Mara smiled.
Then Carlo entered quickly.
“Boss.”
Vittorio turned.
“What?”
“We found another room.”
His expression made Elena’s relief disappear.
“What room?”
“Behind the control center.”
They followed him.
A steel door stood open.
Inside were hundreds of photographs.
Elena.
Vittorio.
Sofia.
Dominic.
Evelyn.
Mara.
Dates covering decades.
At the center of the wall was one recent photograph.
Taken inside Vittorio’s bedroom.
After Elena had cut open the headboard.
That morning.
Someone had been standing inside the room with them.
On the back was a handwritten message:
ALESSANDRO WAS NEVER IN CONTROL.
Vittorio looked toward Carlo.
“If he wasn’t…”
A light switched on behind them.
Someone said, “He was only following orders.”
May you like
Elena turned.
And Evelyn whispered, “Oh my God.”
