Chương 3
Three months ago, I found transfers from the Moretti Children’s Foundation into companies that do not exist. I thought it was theft. It is worse. The accounts connect to men who are buying protection from people Luca would consider enemies. Rafe knows I found them. He also knows I copied what I could.
Do not confront him with this letter. He has spent his life teaching you that anger is strength because your anger has always been useful to him.
The key opens a box held by Miriam Walsh, not a bank. She will know Elena’s name and Matteo’s birthday. Go only when you are certain you are not followed.
If I am alive when you read this, burn it and come find me.
If I am dead, do not avenge me first.
Save our son.
Luca reached the end and stood completely still.
There was no signature.
Instead, beneath the final line, Sofia had drawn a small crooked lion.
The same lion she used to sketch on Matteo’s lunch notes.
Elena touched the edge of the desk with two fingers.
“Say something.”
Luca folded the letter once, then opened it again.
“How long did you know?”
“That she was afraid? About two weeks before she died.”
“That she named him?”
“The night before.”
“And you said nothing.”
“She told me not to.”
“My wife told you a man planned to murder her, and you obeyed her.”
“She told me you would go to him.”
Luca looked at the doors.
“You don’t know what I would have done.”
“Yes,” Elena said. “I do.”
He crossed the distance between them.
Elena did not retreat until the back of her legs touched the chair.
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know she begged you to stop trusting him.”
The words landed with the precision of a blade.
Luca’s hand closed around the chair back beside Elena, not touching her.
“When?”
“You argued in the upstairs sitting room three nights before she died. I brought tea. You told her Rafe had earned his place before she was born. You told her she was seeing betrayal because she was scared.”
Luca remembered the tea tray.
Not the argument at first. The tray.
One cup had rattled in its saucer because Elena’s hands were unsteady. Sofia had noticed and told her to leave it on the cabinet. After Elena left, Sofia had gone to the window and folded her arms across herself.
She had said, You think loyalty is measured in years. Sometimes years just mean someone had more time to learn where you’re weak.
Luca had laughed.
Not cruelly. That made it worse.
He had walked behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders, and told her she was tired.
Sofia had removed his hands.
He remembered that now.
“She had no proof,” he said.
“She was trying to get it.”
“And you let her do that alone.”
Elena’s face tightened. “You did too.”
For a second, the library became very quiet.
Then Matteo coughed.
Luca was beside him before the second cough. He lifted the boy upright and held a glass of water to his lips. Matteo drank once and turned his face away.
“Cold,” he whispered.
Luca pulled the blanket higher.
Elena approached slowly.
“He should be upstairs.”
“I know where he should be.”
“He’s exhausted.”
“I know.”
The words came sharper than Luca intended.
Matteo’s eyelids fluttered.
Luca lowered his voice. “I know.”
He carried the boy to the library door.
Before opening it, he looked back at Elena.
“You stay here.”
“Luca—”
“You wanted me to read it. I read it. Now you stay where I can find you.”
He stepped into the corridor.
Rafe was gone.
One guard remained at the far end. Another stood near the staircase.
“Where is Mr. DeLuca?”
The nearer guard touched his earpiece. “He took a call, sir. Went to the east office.”
“What call?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca looked down at Matteo.
The boy’s breathing brushed the skin above Luca’s collar.
“Tell Nurse Caldwell to meet me upstairs. Quietly. No one enters the library.”
The guard nodded.
“Not Rafe,” Luca added.
A hesitation.
Small. Almost respectful.
But it was there.
“Understood.”
Luca carried his son up the central staircase beneath the chandelier. The mansion’s polished surfaces reflected them from every angle: black suit, pale child, silver chain, limp stuffed lion. He had built a life in which every room had more witnesses than comfort.
Matteo’s bedroom had once been Sofia’s favorite place in the house. She had painted one wall herself, a soft blue that changed with the afternoon light. Tiny wooden animals stood on shelves Luca had assembled badly while she sat on the floor and laughed at his refusal to read instructions.
After she died, Luca had ordered nothing moved.
The room remained prepared for a mother who would never return.
Nurse Caldwell arrived carrying a medical bag. She was a compact woman in her fifties who treated Luca’s guards, doctors, and reputation with equal indifference. She listened to Matteo’s heart and lungs, checked his temperature, examined his eyes, and asked him questions he answered with nods.
“He needs rest,” she said.
“Does he need the hospital?”
“Not at this moment.”
“At this moment isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one.”
Luca stood beside the bed while she adjusted the monitor.
“Dr. Brennan told me to prepare.”
“He told you the current treatment isn’t doing enough.”
“He told me my son may die.”
Caldwell looked at Matteo before answering.
“He told you there are limits to what anyone can promise.”
Luca hated careful language. Careful language was what people used when truth threatened their employment.
“Was there anything unusual in the cake?”
“I reviewed the ingredients. Nothing outside his dietary plan.”
“Did Elena ask you to?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Eight this morning.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Did Brennan?”
“I don’t know.”
May you like
Luca looked at her.
Caldwell closed the medical bag. “You hire people to monitor people. That does not mean I know which of your employees reports a grocery list to whom.”
