Chapter 4 - The Trap Inside the Duca Mansion
The Duca mansion had been built long before electricity, cameras or modern security.
My grandfather renovated it.
My father fortified it.
I had turned it into something between a home and a fortress.
Vittorio knew the old structure.
I knew everything added afterward.
That difference saved us.
“East corridor,” I told Marco.
He understood instantly.
We moved.
Isabelle carried Lily.
Nero ran beside them.
Marco’s men dragged Renata.
Smoke filled the entrance hall.
Somewhere outside, gunfire cracked through the rain, but our internal shutters had already sealed.
Guests and household staff were being moved toward reinforced safe rooms.
My phone showed security alerts.
South gate breached.
West cameras offline.
Garage compromised.
Exactly the route used fifteen years earlier.
Vittorio loved repeating himself.
The east corridor ended at what appeared to be a decorative wall.
I pressed my thumb to a hidden scanner.
The panel opened.
We stepped into the secure passage.
Isabelle stared.
“This was here the whole time?”
“I built it eight years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because paranoia is occasionally useful.”
Despite everything, she nearly smiled.
Lily did.
It was the first smile I had seen from the child all night.
Then Renata spoke.
“He’ll find it.”
I turned.
“Did you know about this passage?”
“No.”
“Then apparently he won’t.”
Marco tied Renata’s hands to a steel railing inside the security room.
She glared at him.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“I’ve had a difficult evening,” Marco said. “Be more specific.”
The command center contained independent power, internal communications and backup cameras.
I activated them.
The screens came alive.
Men dressed in black moved through the mansion.
Ten.
Maybe twelve.
Professional.
Controlled.
Not random killers.
Vittorio’s people.
Then another camera showed a man entering through the damaged west doors.
Gray hair.
Tall.
Dark overcoat.
He walked with a cane.
My uncle.
Alive.
Older.
But unmistakable.
I felt thirteen again for one dangerous second.
Vittorio used to lift me onto his shoulders.
He taught me poker.
He laughed louder than anyone at family dinners.
Now he stepped across the floor where my mother once danced on Christmas Eve.
A murderer returning to the house he failed to erase.
Lily whispered, “Is that the bad man?”
Nobody answered.
Vittorio looked directly into one of the cameras.
He smiled.
Then held up his phone.
Mine rang.
I answered.
“Hello, Uncle.”
“Lorenzo.”
“You look terrible.”
He laughed.
“There’s my nephew.”
“You killed my parents.”
“You’ve become very sentimental.”
“I have the ledger.”
“I know.”
“And Isabelle.”
He paused.
So he had not known her real name.
Interesting.
“You mean Sofia’s daughter.”
“Stay away from her.”
“I only need what her mother gave her.”
“She gave her enough.”
“Not everything.”
I looked at Isabelle.
Her face changed.
“What does that mean?”
Vittorio continued.
“Sofia stole something from me that night.”
“The pendant?”
“No.”
“What?”
“Ask her daughter.”
I turned toward Isabelle.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Vittorio laughed.
“Then perhaps Sofia hid it better than I thought.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A recording.”
Renata abruptly lifted her head.
There.
A reaction.
Vittorio had revealed something she didn’t expect.
I muted the phone.
“You knew?” I asked Renata.
She said nothing.
Marco leaned toward her.
“What recording?”
Renata looked frightened now.
More frightened than when we found the ledger.
Isabelle suddenly stood.
“My mother had a cassette.”
Everyone turned.
“What?”
“She gave me an old microcassette the night she died.”
“Where is it?”
“I thought it was blank.”
“Where?”
Isabelle’s breathing quickened.
“I kept it inside the pendant case.”
I stared at the pendant around her neck.
She removed it.
The black enamel center had a seam.
She pressed the side.
A tiny compartment opened.
Inside was a memory-sized strip of magnetic tape in a protective insert.
My father’s pendant had the same compartment.
I had never known.
Vittorio’s voice came through my phone.
“Lorenzo?”
I unmuted.
“I’m here.”
“You found it.”
His voice had changed.
He knew.
“Maybe.”
“Give me the tape and the woman. You keep the girl.”
Isabelle went rigid.
I looked at Lily.
Then at the security monitors.
“No.”
A pause.
“Think carefully.”
“I did.”
“You’re surrounded.”
“You said that to my father too?”
Silence.
I had guessed.
The silence confirmed it.
“You called him that night.”
Vittorio exhaled.
“He was stubborn.”
“So am I.”
“Then you’ll die like him.”
I hung up.
Marco looked at me.
“Plan?”
“Get the staff out through the north tunnel.”
“And Vittorio?”
“Let him think we’re trapped.”
Isabelle stared.
“You’re going after him.”
“I’m ending this.”
“No.”
That word again.
I looked at her.
“He killed my family.”
“And he wants you angry.”
“I am angry.”
“That’s exactly the point.”
She came closer.
“For fifteen years, you’ve been surviving a trap. Don’t walk into another one because he finally showed his face.”
Her words landed harder than I wanted.
My father had died trying to protect me.
If I threw myself into gunfire for revenge, I would be insulting the very sacrifice I wanted to avenge.
Marco said, “We have another option.”
“What?”
“Police.”
Renata laughed.
We ignored her.
Marco continued.
“We have the ledger. The photograph. The witness. Possibly a recording.”
“The police won’t arrive before his men reach this room.”
“They don’t need to.”
I understood.
“We make Vittorio confess.”
Marco nodded.
“On camera.”
Isabelle looked at the tape.
“If this recording contains what my mother thought it did, maybe he already confessed once.”
We had an old microcassette reader in the archival equipment room.
My father never threw technology away.
Marco retrieved it.
We inserted the tape.
Static.
Then voices.
My father.
Vittorio.
Fifteen years disappeared.
“Stop this, Vittorio.”
“You should have given me my half.”
“You don’t own half of something you tried to destroy.”
“You always thought you were better.”
“You opened the gates.”
“I opened my future.”
My stomach tightened.
The recording continued.
Vittorio confessed to paying the guards.
Bribing Dr. Serrano.
Creating a false body.
Planning to disappear after the massacre.
Then my father said:
“And Lorenzo?”
A pause.
Vittorio replied:
“The boy dies too.”
Isabelle covered Lily’s ears.
I could not move.
My own uncle had ordered my death.
Sofia must have recorded the conversation.
That was why she ran.
That was why they hunted her.
That was why they hunted Isabelle.
Marco stared at me.
“This is enough.”
“For court?”
“With the ledger and Renata? More than enough.”
Renata looked away.
I walked toward her.
“You can still save yourself.”
She laughed weakly.
“No.”
“Vittorio is here because he thinks you failed.”
That got her attention.
“You think he came to rescue you?”
Silence.
“He blew open the west wing while you were inside.”
Her expression changed.
“He knew where I was.”
“Yes.”
Renata began breathing faster.
“He wouldn’t—”
“He murdered his brother. What exactly makes you feel special?”
That cruelty was deliberate.
And effective.
Renata stared at the security screen showing Vittorio calmly searching my mansion.
“What do you want?”
“The truth.”
She looked at Isabelle.
Then at Lily.
Then at me.
“He promised me we would leave together.”
“Fifteen years ago?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why stay loyal?”
“Because once you’ve helped bury one family, you spend the rest of your life afraid the grave will open.”
There it was.
The truth.
I activated recording.
“Say it again.”
Renata looked at the camera.
For fifteen years she had protected Vittorio.
For fifteen years fear had controlled her.
That night, she finally broke.
She confessed.
The messages.
The payments.
The guards.
The fake body.
The planted clock.
Everything.
When she finished, Marco sent copies of the confession, ledger scans and Sofia’s recording to three separate attorneys and federal investigators.
Vittorio no longer had a secret to protect.
But he still had guns.
The security monitor beeped.
He had found the corridor.
“How?” Marco whispered.
Renata closed her eyes.
“He knows the original foundation plans.”
The outer steel door shook.
Lily screamed.
Isabelle pulled her close.
Vittorio’s voice came through the metal.
“Lorenzo!”
I looked at Marco.
“How long?”
“Maybe four minutes.”
I looked at the emergency tunnel.
“Get Isabelle and Lily out.”
Isabelle shook her head.
“No.”
“You are not arguing with me.”
“Then stop giving stupid orders.”
Even Marco looked surprised.
Isabelle stepped closer.
“He wants the tape.”
“Yes.”
“So give it to him.”
I stared.
Then I understood.
Not the real tape.
A copy.
A trap.
Minutes later, the steel door opened.
Vittorio entered the room.
May you like
And I was standing alone.
At least, that was what he believed.
