Chapter 6 - Behind the Wine Cellar Wall
Daniel refused to connect the USB drive to any network.
“Could be monitored.”
“You think Victor planted it?”
“I think anyone who hides a drive inside a secret safe isn’t expecting it to contain vacation photos.”
They used an isolated laptop in the guest cottage.
The drive contained six folders.
Five were encrypted.
One was not.
Its name was simply:
T.B.
Daniel opened it.
There was a single audio file.
Elena sat beside Luca.
She had insisted on being present.
“If Thomas is on that recording, I hear it.”
Luca had considered arguing.
He had learned that arguing with Elena Bennett usually wasted time.
Daniel pressed play.
Static.
Then a voice.
Elena stopped breathing.
Thomas.
“I’m recording this because I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”
Elena’s hand flew to her mouth.
Mia was asleep upstairs under the supervision of the housekeeper.
For the first time in three years, Elena was hearing her husband alive.
The recording continued.
“I found duplicate freight invoices linked to Harbor Nine. The numbers don’t match the actual shipments. Payments are being routed through Raven Shore Holdings.”
Daniel looked at Luca.
Thomas continued.
“I reported it internally. Celeste Ward told me she’d investigate.”
Luca’s eyes hardened.
“She told me not to speak to anyone else. Two days later Victor Rinaldi came to my office.”
Elena began crying silently.
Thomas’s voice became lower.
“Victor said I had misunderstood the accounts. I haven’t.”
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“If anything happens to me, this isn’t about Luca Moretti. I don’t think he knows.”
Luca closed his eyes briefly.
Thomas continued.
“The transfers seem designed to make it look like Luca authorized them eventually. Someone is building a paper trail that points upward.”
Daniel paused the recording.
“They were setting you up.”
“For what?”
“Depends on what’s in the encrypted folders.”
Elena looked at Luca.
“Keep playing.”
The recording resumed.
“I copied everything I could. Not enough. There’s a master ledger. Victor keeps it somewhere off-system. Celeste has the legal keys to the shell companies.”
A noise sounded in Thomas’s recording.
He stopped speaking.
Then whispered, “Someone’s here.”
The file ended.
Elena broke.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
She bent forward and covered her face.
Luca did not know what to say.
Words like sorry were too small.
He moved closer but did not touch her.
After a moment, Elena looked up.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“He knew something could happen.”
“Elena—”
“And I spent three years believing he left for work angry with me.”
Luca frowned.
“What?”
“The morning he died, we argued.”
Her voice shook.
“I wanted him to take a day off. Mia had a fever. I told him the company cared more about numbers than his family.”
She wiped her face.
“His last words to me were, ‘I’m doing this for you.’”
Luca looked down.
“Elena.”
“I thought he meant his paycheck.”
“He meant this.”
She nodded.
“And now I know.”
Daniel quietly stood.
“I’ll give you a minute.”
He stepped outside.
Elena stared at the frozen audio waveform on the screen.
“Was his death an accident?”
Luca chose every word carefully.
“I’m going to reopen everything.”
“That still isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only responsible one.”
She looked angry.
“Responsible?”
“Yes.”
“You run an empire people are terrified of, and now you want to be responsible?”
The words could have offended him.
They did not.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because you and Mia have already paid for assumptions made by powerful men.”
Elena stared.
Luca continued.
“I won’t add another one.”
Her anger softened.
Not disappeared.
Softened.
Daniel returned.
“I have something.”
He turned the laptop.
“Metadata from the file.”
“What about it?”
“It was copied onto this USB fourteen months ago.”
Elena frowned.
“Thomas died three years ago.”
“Exactly.”
Someone else had accessed Thomas’s files.
Someone had preserved them.
“Can you tell who?” Luca asked.
“Not from this.”
Daniel clicked another screen.
“But I cracked one of the encrypted folders.”
Inside were spreadsheets.
Hundreds of transactions.
Shell companies.
Real estate purchases.
Consulting payments.
Freight invoices.
Daniel scanned them.
Then stopped.
“Oh.”
“What?”
He rotated the screen.
A column marked APPROVAL.
Beside dozens of transfers appeared Luca Moretti’s electronic signature.
Luca stared.
“I didn’t approve those.”
“I believe you.”
“Can you prove it?”
Daniel enlarged the timestamps.
“These signatures were generated using your executive token.”
“My token never leaves my office.”
“Who has access?”
“No one.”
Elena looked toward him.
“Your office.”
Luca understood.
The massive marble desk.
The black leather chair.
The confidential documents.
Mia had climbed into more than a symbol of authority.
She had climbed directly into the center of the mechanism being used to destroy him.
Daniel kept reading.
“Here.”
One transaction had been scheduled but not completed.
Twenty-eight million dollars.
Destination: Raven Shore Holdings.
Execution date:
Three days away.
“If this clears,” Daniel said, “the paper trail makes it look like you approved years of fraudulent payments.”
“And Victor disappears?”
“Probably.”
“Celeste?”
“Depends whether she plans to disappear with him.”
Elena looked at the screen.
“Can you stop it?”
“Yes.”
Luca shook his head.
“No.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You want twenty-eight million dollars transferred?”
“I want them to think it will.”
Understanding appeared on Daniel’s face.
“You’re setting a trap.”
“I’m letting them finish theirs.”
Elena stood.
“You can’t use yourself as bait.”
“I can.”
“And if it goes wrong?”
“It won’t.”
“That’s arrogance.”
“It’s experience.”
She stepped closer.
“Thomas probably thought he had time too.”
That silenced him.
Luca looked at her.
She regretted the words instantly.
But he did not.
He needed to hear them.
“What do you suggest?”
Elena was surprised he asked.
“Stop thinking like the most powerful person in the room.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ask why they kept me close.”
Luca looked at her employment application.
“They thought Thomas left something with you.”
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
“I told you I didn’t know.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Elena frowned.
Then her expression changed.
She sat slowly.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Thomas gave Mia something.”
Luca stared.
“She was a baby.”
“A music box.”
“When?”
“Two days before he died.”
Elena’s eyes widened.
“He came home late. He gave me a wooden music box and said it was for Mia when she was older.”
“Where is it?”
“In storage.”
Daniel was already reaching for his coat.
“Where?”
“A unit in Glen Cove.”
Luca stood.
“We go now.”
None of them noticed the light blink once on the supposedly disconnected security camera outside the cottage.
Someone else had heard every word.
May you like
And whoever it was now knew exactly where Thomas Bennett’s last secret had been hidden.
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