Chapter 3 - The Man Inside My WallsI ordered the entire hospital floor secured.
Two guards stood outside Maria's room. Another team watched the emergency exits, while Vincent reviewed the access records from the previous hour.
Someone had used his credentials to enter the restricted area.
“Could your access code have been stolen?” I asked.
“Possibly,” he replied. “But only three people knew the secondary authorization.”
“Who?”
“Me, you, and Matteo.”
That left two possibilities.
I trusted neither.
Lily sat beside her mother's bed, drawing with a pencil a nurse had found for her. Every few minutes, she glanced at Maria to make sure she was still breathing.
I approached her quietly.
“May I see what you're drawing?”
She showed me three stick figures beneath a yellow sun.
One was a woman in a blue dress. Another was a little girl. The third was a large man in a black suit.
“Who's that?”
“You.”
“Why am I so tall?”
“Because you're scary.”
I almost laughed.
“Fair enough.”
She pointed to the woman.
“That's Mommy. When she gets better, I'm going to draw us in a house with a garden.”
“What about me?”
She considered the question.
“You can visit.”
It was the first time anyone had invited me into a future that didn't involve money, power, or violence.
I folded the drawing carefully and slipped it into my coat pocket.
Then Maria woke.
She asked Lily to fetch a glass of water, and when the child left the room, she revealed what she had been hiding.
Alessandro had discovered that Salvatore was responsible for several murders, including the killing of Matteo's father. Matteo had learned the truth shortly before Alessandro's death.
“He believed your brother had been helping Salvatore conceal the murder,” Maria explained. “He thought Alessandro was protecting the man who destroyed his family.”
“My brother was trying to expose Salvatore.”
“I know. But Matteo didn't understand that until it was too late.”
“Why didn't you tell him?”
“I tried. Someone threatened to kill Lily when she was born.”
I stared at her.
“Who?”
“I received a message with a photograph of my apartment. It said that if I spoke to anyone in the Vescari family, my daughter would disappear.”
Before I could respond, Vincent entered.
“We found something.”
He placed a small security photograph on the table.
It showed a man wearing a baseball cap standing beside a black sedan across from Maria's apartment.
Vincent enlarged the image.
The man was Matteo.
“He's been watching the building for three weeks,” Vincent said.
“Did he know who lived there?”
“Apparently.”
Maria's face went white.
“He found us.”
I reached for the photograph.
“Then we're going to find him.”
My phone rang again.
This time, Matteo didn't bother with greetings.
“Your brother left you something, Dominic. Something that belongs to me.”
“What is it?”
“The truth.”
“Then tell me.”
He laughed softly.
“Come to the old estate tonight. Bring Maria's daughter. If you arrive with an army, I'll disappear, and you'll never know what Alessandro was trying to tell you.”
The call ended.
I looked at Vincent.
“Prepare two teams. Nobody moves without my order.”
He nodded.
Then he hesitated.
“Boss, before we leave, there's something you need to know.”
“What?”
“Someone accessed your private office last night.”
“Who?”
He placed another photograph on the table.
The image showed a man entering my office at 2:14 a.m.
He wore my security chief's uniform.
But when Vincent turned the photograph over, he revealed the timestamp from a second camera.
The man had entered using Vincent's face and access credentials.
It was an unusually good disguise.
Good enough to fool a camera.
Good enough to frame the person I trusted most.
Vincent looked genuinely sick.
“Someone is trying to make us destroy each other.”
I slipped the photograph into my pocket.
“Then we stop playing by their rules.”
That evening, I moved Maria and Lily to a private residence protected by my most reliable men.
Before leaving, I promised Lily that I would return.
She held out her drawing.
“You forgot this.”
I already had it in my pocket, but I accepted it again.
“Thank you.”
She studied my face.
“Are you going somewhere dangerous?”
I didn't answer quickly enough.
She wrapped her arms around my waist.
“Please come back.”
I placed a hand on her head.
“I will.”
Then I walked toward the waiting cars.
May you like
For the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of dying.
I was afraid of breaking a promise to a six-year-old girl.
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