Chapter 3 - THE ROOM BEHIND THE WALL
Luca reached the basement before anyone else.
Carlo followed.
Matteo came next.
Elena should have stayed upstairs.
She did not.
The old service corridor ran behind the wine cellar and beneath Luca’s private office.
Most of it had been sealed after Vittorio’s death.
At least that was what Luca had been told.
The brass key Elena found under Daniel’s shoe fit the first lock.
The black access card opened the second.
That alone told Luca the passage had been updated recently.
Carlo drew his weapon.
Luca looked at Elena.
“Stay behind me.”
She almost laughed.
After the dining room, the concern sounded strangely late.
Still, she obeyed.
The steel door opened.
The smell hit first.
Dust.
Mildew.
Old paper.
Then cigarette smoke.
Fresh.
Someone had been there recently.
A narrow corridor led toward a hidden room directly beneath Luca’s office.
The wall had been cut open.
Wires ran upward.
Listening equipment sat on a folding table.
Carlo swore.
Luca stared.
Microphones.
Recorders.
Copies of meeting schedules.
Names.
Dates.
His home had been under surveillance.
For how long, he could not tell.
Matteo whispered, “Jesus.”
Luca turned on him.
“You knew this door existed.”
“Yes.”
“You knew about this room?”
“No.”
Luca wanted to believe him.
That was the problem.
Belief had already cost him once tonight.
A sound came from deeper inside.
Someone breathing.
Carlo raised his gun.
“Come out.”
Nothing.
Luca stepped around the equipment.
“Elena.”
She stopped.
“Upstairs.”
“No.”
“That was not a suggestion.”
She looked at him.
“You didn’t listen to me upstairs.”
Luca almost snapped.
Then stopped himself.
She was right again.
Carlo moved toward the far partition.
He pulled it open.
A man sat on the floor.
Hands bound.
Mouth covered with tape.
Not Anthony Moretti.
Peter Walsh.
Luca’s night security supervisor.
Carlo rushed forward.
Peter had been missing since the beginning of dinner.
Nobody noticed because Daniel had told staff he was ill.
Carlo removed the tape.
Peter gasped.
“Boss.”
“Who did this?”
“Daniel.”
Daniel, currently restrained upstairs.
Peter shook his head.
“Not alone.”
Luca glanced at Matteo.
His brother’s face tightened.
“Who?”
Peter looked straight at him.
“Mr. Matteo.”
Elena’s stomach dropped.
Matteo stepped backward.
“That’s a lie.”
Peter tried to stand.
Carlo helped him.
“You hit me from behind.”
“I was upstairs all afternoon.”
“No. You weren’t.”
Matteo looked toward Luca.
“You know where I was.”
Luca did.
At least he thought he did.
Matteo had arrived at 6:40.
The dinner began at eight.
Peter disappeared around seven.
Enough time.
Matteo’s voice rose.
“Luca.”
Luca raised one hand.
“Carlo.”
Carlo moved between them.
Matteo stared at his brother.
“You’re doing it again.”
Luca frowned.
“What?”
“Believing the first person who accuses somebody.”
The words hit.
Because Matteo knew exactly where to aim.
Elena watched Luca.
This was the test Daniel had already made him fail once.
Luca looked at Peter.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Peter took a breath.
He had been checking the basement hallway because one of the access sensors briefly went offline.
He entered.
Saw Matteo near the hidden passage.
Asked what he was doing.
Then someone struck Peter from behind.
“Did you see who hit you?”
“No.”
“So you saw Matteo before you were attacked.”
“Yes.”
“That does not mean Matteo attacked you.”
Peter looked confused.
“No.”
Matteo exhaled.
Luca continued.
“What happened when you woke?”
“I heard Daniel talking.”
“To who?”
Peter looked toward the wall.
“A man on the phone.”
“What did he say?”
Peter thought.
“He said, ‘The photograph is gone. Luca doesn’t know what Anthony kept.’”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“What did Anthony keep?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Elena noticed the floor.
Dust covered almost everything.
Except one path.
Footprints led from the equipment table to the back wall.
She crouched.
Luca looked at her.
“What?”
“Someone moved this cabinet.”
Carlo helped pull it aside.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Inside sat a metal lockbox.
Matteo stared.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Luca picked it up.
Old.
Heavy.
Stamped with Vittorio Moretti’s initials.
V.M.
The lock had already been broken.
Inside were three things.
A cassette tape.
A white rose boutonniere, dry and brown with age.
And a hospital bracelet.
Luca lifted the bracelet.
ANTHONY MORETTI.
Date.
Twelve years earlier.
Three days after Vittorio died.
Luca looked at Matteo.
“Our uncle was hospitalized after Dad’s death.”
Matteo frowned.
“But nobody told us.”
Carlo took the bracelet.
“Different hospital.”
“Under his own name?”
“Yes.”
Elena touched the cassette case.
There was handwriting on it.
For Luca.
Luca’s throat tightened.
His father had written those words.
Carlo found an old tape player among the surveillance equipment.
Someone had been prepared.
Luca inserted the cassette.
For several seconds, static.
Then Vittorio Moretti’s voice filled the room.
Older.
Tired.
Alive again.
Luca stopped breathing.
“If you’re hearing this, then I waited too long.”
Matteo closed his eyes.
Vittorio continued.
“Anthony has been moving money through our restaurants for nearly three years. Not ours. Somebody else’s.”
Luca looked at Carlo.
Money laundering.
But for whom?
“I confronted him tonight. He denied it. Then Daniel Whitmore came to see me.”
Everyone looked toward the ceiling as if Daniel could hear through it.
“Daniel is a frightened kid. Don’t blame him for what men twice his age made him carry.”
Luca felt something shift.
The photograph.
Daniel had not been Vittorio’s partner.
Maybe he had been his informant.
Vittorio’s voice continued.
“He told me Anthony is working with the Savino organization.”
Carlo swore softly.
The Savinos had been Moretti rivals for thirty years.
Vittorio continued.
“If I die suddenly, it was not my heart.”
Luca gripped the edge of the table.
Matteo covered his mouth.
“They have a doctor. They have access to my medication. Anthony thinks removing me will force Luca into a war he isn’t ready for.”
Elena looked at Luca.
He had been twenty-six.
Hot-tempered.
Already respected.
But not ready.
Vittorio knew it.
“My sons, if you hear this, do not avenge me blindly.”
Luca closed his eyes.
Vittorio’s voice softened.
“Especially you, Luca.”
A painful laugh escaped Matteo.
“He knew.”
Luca said nothing.
“Anthony will expect anger. He has always understood your anger better than you do.”
The tape crackled.
“Daniel knows where Anthony keeps the accounts. Protect him if you can. He came to me because he wanted out.”
Luca’s eyes hardened.
Then why had Daniel spent two years lying?
Why spy on Luca?
Why enter the office with Matteo?
Why humiliate Elena to retrieve the photograph?
The tape answered only part.
“If Anthony disappears, don’t assume he’s dead.”
Static.
Then one final sentence.
“He has a place beneath St. Gabriel’s.”
The tape ended.
Nobody moved.
Elena was the first to speak.
“St. Gabriel’s?”
Matteo looked at Luca.
Their childhood parish.
A Catholic church ten blocks away.
Moretti baptisms.
Moretti weddings.
Vittorio’s funeral.
Anthony’s empty memorial Mass.
Luca’s wedding to Daniel was supposed to happen there seven days from now.
Carlo stared at him.
“That’s not a coincidence.”
No.
It wasn’t.
Upstairs, a phone began ringing.
Carlo answered his.
Listened.
Then looked at Luca.
“Daniel’s gone.”
Luca stared.
“What?”
“The two men watching him found the window open.”
Carlo’s face darkened.
“One of them says Matteo came upstairs twenty minutes ago and told them you wanted Daniel moved.”
Everyone turned toward Matteo.
He went pale.
“I never left this basement.”
Elena felt cold.
Then there were two Matteos.
Or somebody had been made to look like him.
Luca looked toward the surveillance equipment.
The covered cameras.
The hidden passage.
Someone had spent months studying the house.
Staff routines.
Voices.
Clothing.
Movements.
This was bigger than Daniel.
Bigger than Matteo.
Maybe bigger than Anthony.
Luca turned toward the hospital bracelet.
Twelve years.
A dead father.
An uncle who might still be alive.
And a wedding scheduled at the exact church Vittorio had named before his death.
He looked at Carlo.
“Lock down St. Gabriel’s.”
Then at Matteo.
“You stay with me.”
Matteo nodded.
Luca turned toward Elena.
“You’re leaving Brooklyn tonight.”
Her face changed.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“I found the card. The cameras. The photograph.”
“Exactly.”
“They already know who I am.”
“Exactly.”
She stepped closer.
“You think sending me somewhere alone makes me safer?”
Luca stopped.
Again, she was right.
He hated how often that happened.
Elena lowered her voice.
“You need somebody around you who wasn’t here twelve years ago.”
Luca studied her.
“Why?”
“Because everybody else already has a history.”
Daniel.
Matteo.
Carlo.
The capos.
The servants.
The church.
Family.
Loyalty.
Old debts.
Elena had none.
She was the only person in the house with no inherited reason to lie.
Luca looked at her bruised cheek.
Then said:
“You stay beside Carlo.”
Elena shook her head.
“Beside you.”
Luca nearly smiled despite everything.
“Don’t push it.”
Then another phone rang.
This time Luca’s.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No greeting.
Only Daniel’s voice.
Shaking.
“Luca, don’t go to the church.”
Luca gripped the phone.
“Where are you?”
Daniel ignored the question.
“Your father was wrong about one thing.”
“What?”
A pause.
Then Daniel whispered:
“Anthony wasn’t the brother who betrayed him.”
The line went dead.
May you like
Luca slowly looked at Matteo.
And for the first time in his life, the possibility entered his mind that their father’s killer might not have been their uncle at all.
