Chapter 6 - The Crypt With Two GravesWhen the lights returned, Dominic was gone.
My guards searched the grounds, the surrounding roads, and the nearby buildings. They found no vehicle, no footprints that led beyond the cemetery walls, and no sign that anyone had entered or escaped.
It was as though the man had simply stepped out of the night.
But the empty grave remained.
So did my father's voice on the cassette recorder.
Vittorio had ordered my death.
Not my father's.
Mine.
I sat in the underground warehouse until sunrise, replaying the recording until the batteries began to weaken. Each time, I listened for some indication that the voice could have been fabricated.
I found none.
The recording was eighteen years old. The background noise matched the medical equipment described in my father's hospital records. Even the way he paused to breathe was familiar.
I remembered sitting beside his bed when I was nine, holding his hand while he told me that being a Duca meant protecting the people who depended on us.
He had died two days later.
Or so I had believed.
Nico entered carrying a folder.
“We checked the hospital records. The ambulance arrived at 3:47 a.m. Your father was pronounced dead at 4:19.”
The watch had stopped at the exact minute of his death.
“What happened between 3:47 and 4:19?”
“The official report says cardiac failure. The hospital file lists an attending physician named Dr. Adrian Cole.”
“Find him.”
“I already did. Cole died six years ago.”
“Then find everyone who worked that shift.”
Nico placed the folder on the table.
“There is another problem. Your uncle has announced that you are suffering from a breakdown caused by the recent attacks. He has taken control of the family council and ordered our men not to assist you.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“Of course he has.”
“He's telling everyone that the watch is a fake and that Samuel has manipulated you.”
“Let him talk.”
“Lorenzo, he controls most of the captains. If he convinces them you're unstable, they could turn against you before we discover the truth.”
I looked at the old photograph of my father.
“Then we find the truth first.”
Samuel arrived with Ellie shortly after breakfast. He had barely slept. His granddaughter, however, appeared energetic, sitting at the table with a small notebook and drawing the gears of my father's watch.
I placed the cassette recorder beside her.
“Can you tell me anything about this?”
She turned it over.
“It's very old.”
“Can you open it?”
“Maybe.”
Samuel gently took the recorder from her.
“Ellie, don't touch that.”
She frowned.
“You always say that when you don't know what something does.”
Nico coughed to hide a laugh.
I leaned back.
“She's right.”
Samuel sighed.
Then he opened the recorder's battery compartment.
Inside, beneath the worn plastic cover, was a narrow strip of paper.
Not a recording label.
A message.
Samuel unfolded it with shaking fingers.
THE SECOND GRAVE IS NOT IN THE CEMETERY.
Below the sentence was an address.
An old hospital on the outskirts of Philadelphia, closed after a chemical fire fourteen years earlier.
I recognized the building.
The St. Catherine Medical Annex.
It had once treated members of my family who couldn't risk being seen in public hospitals. My father had visited it regularly during his final year.
“Why would he hide something there?” Nico asked.
Samuel studied the address.
“Because the building had a private morgue.”
We arrived at the hospital shortly before noon.
The entrance was chained shut, and weeds grew through the cracked pavement. One wing had partially collapsed. The air inside smelled of mold and rust.
I brought four men. Two stayed near the entrance while Nico, Samuel, Ellie, and I descended into the basement.
The morgue contained six metal drawers.
Five stood open and empty.
The sixth was locked.
Ellie walked past us and stopped beside the door.
“There's a ticking sound.”
I listened.
At first, I heard nothing.
Then it came again.
A tiny, uneven click.
Samuel removed the brass key from my father's watch and inserted it into a narrow slot beneath the drawer's handle.
The lock opened.
Inside was no body.
There was a metal case containing a leather-bound book, several sealed envelopes, and an old identification card.
The name on the card was ANTONIO DUCA.
The photograph was my father, but the date of issue was eighteen years after his supposed death.
My hands went cold.
The card was legitimate. The seal belonged to a private medical network used by the family.
“Someone used my father's identity long after he died.”
Samuel opened the ledger.
Page after page contained names, payments, and coded entries. Several were marked with a black circle.
Nico leaned over his shoulder.
“These are transfers through shell companies. Most of them still exist.”
“How much money?”
He turned several pages.
“Enough to buy judges, police commanders, and half the waterfront.”
I looked at the envelopes.
One was addressed to Isabella Duca.
My mother.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Isabella, if you receive this, it means Dominic has found a way to reach you again. Do not go to him. Do not tell Vittorio. Most importantly, do not tell Lorenzo what happened in the hospital.
I read the last sentence twice.
Then I opened the following envelope.
There was another letter, addressed to my father.
But the handwriting was my mother's.
Antonio, I did what you asked. I kept Lorenzo away from the room. I told them you were alone.
I thought I was saving our son.
But when I returned, the bed was empty.
Tell me the truth. Did they take you, or did you leave us?
I stared at the page.
If my mother believed my father had disappeared from the hospital, then perhaps the death certificate had been a lie.
Perhaps the funeral had buried someone else.
And perhaps the man who had been ruling my family for eighteen years wasn't the only Duca who had survived that night.
A metallic bang sounded behind us.
The morgue door slammed shut.
A voice emerged from the corridor.
“Thank you for finding the ledger, Lorenzo.”
I raised my pistol.
The lights flickered on.
Vittorio Duca stood outside the glass partition, flanked by six armed men.
He looked disappointed, almost sorrowful.
“I was hoping you'd remain ignorant a little longer.”
He glanced at Ellie.
Then at Samuel.
Finally, his eyes settled on the watch.
“Give me the watch, nephew.”
I stepped in front of Ellie.
“No.”
Vittorio sighed.
“Then I'm afraid you've inherited your father's fate.”
He lifted one hand.
The men behind him raised their weapons.
And from the drawer behind me, something began to knock.
Three slow knocks.
May you like
Then three more.
As though someone trapped inside the metal compartment was asking to be released.
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