Chapter 12 - One Hour to Midnight
Dante returned to the security room with rain dripping from his hair and a pistol in his hand.
He watched the recording twice.
The second time, he stopped it on Teresa's face.
“She knew this was coming.”
Miguel shook his head.
“No. She knew Lorenzo might use her to force a trade.”
“What's the difference?”
“The difference is that your mother hid something from him.”
Miguel pulled the original ledger from his coat.
He opened the back cover and ran his fingers along the stitching.
“There.”
A thin strip of paper had been sewn into the lining.
He pulled it free.
It contained a series of numbers, followed by a handwritten sentence.
THE BOOK IS NOT THE PROOF.
Dante stared at it.
“What does that mean?”
“The ledger lists the transactions,” Miguel said. “But the transactions were authorized through coded account numbers. Without the original transfer records, Lorenzo can claim the entries were fabricated.”
“Where are the records?”
Miguel looked toward me.
“Isabella hid them.”
“Where?”
“In the only place Lorenzo never thought to search.”
I felt a chill.
“The old sea wall.”
Miguel nodded.
“The chapel.”
“But we were there,” Dante said. “We found the key.”
“The key opens the record vault. It doesn't reveal the second archive.”
Nico entered the room, dragging Lorenzo's abandoned coat behind him.
“What's the second archive?”
Miguel held up the paper.
“The names of the people who received the money.”
Dante looked at the clock.
“We have fifty minutes.”
“No,” I said.
All three men turned toward me.
“You are not going to hand over that ledger to Lorenzo.”
Dante's voice softened.
“Mara, Teresa is in danger.”
“And if you give him the book, he will destroy the evidence and continue doing whatever he wants.”
“He'll kill her.”
“Then we find another way.”
Miguel stepped forward.
“She is right.”
Dante glared at him.
“Don't.”
“Dante, if we hand over the original ledger, Lorenzo will have no reason to keep Teresa alive. He'll kill her and destroy the book.”
Dante looked at the screen.
His jaw tightened.
“Then what do you suggest?”
Miguel placed the notebook on the desk.
“We give him what he thinks he wants.”
Nico smiled faintly.
“A fake ledger.”
“Not a fake,” Miguel replied. “A copy with a hidden page. Lorenzo will see enough to believe it's real. Meanwhile, we retrieve the original transfer records and send them to the authorities.”
“Which authorities?” I asked. “Russo is the police.”
“Not every officer is corrupt.”
Nico nodded.
“There's a federal investigator named Elena Ruiz. Miguel contacted her before he disappeared.”
Dante looked at him.
“You contacted the federal government?”
“I contacted someone who could investigate the accounts without asking your permission.”
Dante gave a bitter laugh.
“Seven years away, and you still know how to irritate me.”
“It's a gift.”
Nico spread a map across the desk.
Elena Ruiz was an investigator who had spent years tracking money laundering through shell companies. Miguel had passed her fragments of the Moretti ledger, but she had been unable to build a case without the original records.
“If we get her the documents,” Nico said, “she can freeze the accounts and issue warrants before Lorenzo gets to the border.”
“Assuming she's not compromised,” Dante replied.
“She's not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she arrested one of Russo's men two years ago. He was found dead in his cell before trial.”
Dante studied the map.
“Where are the transfer records?”
Miguel pointed to a building near the coast.
“An old customs office beneath the sea wall. Isabella used it as a safe deposit archive. The entrance is concealed beneath the chapel floor.”
“Then why didn't we find it?”
“Because the entrance is underwater at high tide.”
I looked at the clock.
“We have less than an hour before Lorenzo expects you.”
Miguel nodded.
“Which is why we need to move now.”
I took Sophie's hand.
“She's coming with me.”
Dante shook his head.
“No.”
“Miguel and I spent three years believing we were protecting her by keeping her outside the truth. Look where that got us. Sophie will stay with me, and we'll stay where we can see what's happening.”
“This isn't safe.”
“Neither is leaving her with people who keep disappearing into tunnels.”
Dante almost smiled.
Then his expression turned serious.
“We'll take Bruno.”
At the sound of his name, the massive dog appeared in the doorway, one shoulder bandaged, his tail moving cautiously.
Sophie ran toward him.
“Bruno!”
The dog lowered his head so she could hug his neck.
For the first time since the shooting, my daughter laughed.
It lasted only a second.
But it reminded me of everything we were trying to save.
We left the mansion in two vehicles.
Nico drove the first with Dante, while Miguel drove the second with me, Sophie, and Bruno. Teresa's photograph remained frozen on the security-room monitors behind us.
The road to the coast ran through dark woods and abandoned service buildings. Rainwater streamed across the asphalt. The sea appeared between the trees, black and restless beneath the storm clouds.
As we approached the chapel, Miguel slowed the car.
“There.”
A narrow line of light shone beneath the ruined building.
Someone had already entered.
Dante parked near the sea wall, and the four of us moved toward the chapel while Bruno stayed close to Sophie.
The bell hung above the stone steps, unmoving in the wind.
Miguel unlocked the iron door beneath the altar.
A narrow staircase descended toward the water.
At the bottom, we found a steel gate.
Beyond it lay a chamber filled with metal cabinets, shelves, and sealed document boxes. The walls were streaked with salt, and the floor was wet with seawater.
Miguel inserted the brass key.
The gate opened.
Inside, a single lamp illuminated a table.
On it lay a thick folder stamped with the seal of the Moretti family.
Dante opened it.
The first page contained a list of account numbers.
The second showed payments to Detective Russo.
The third recorded transfers to a company owned by Victor Shaw.
Then Dante reached the final page.
His face went white.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned the paper toward me.
It was a birth record.
Sophie's birth record.
Her name was written in black ink.
Beneath it was Isabella Moretti's name as her mother.
And beside the name of the father was a line that had been deliberately crossed out.
Someone had written a second name beneath the ink.
Dante Moretti.
For a long moment, nobody moved.
Then Nico spoke.
“That can't be right.”
Miguel stared at the record.
“It was changed after Isabella died.”
I looked at Dante.
He was staring at the paper as if it had reached out and struck him.
“I never knew,” he whispered.
“How could you not know?” I asked.
“Because I never had a relationship with Isabella's child. She was supposed to marry a man from another family. I believed the baby had died with her.”
I looked at the page again.
Then at Sophie.
The room seemed to tilt.
My daughter was not merely Isabella's heir.
According to the record, she was Dante's daughter.
But the page beneath the birth record carried a different stamp.
PATERNITY DISPUTED.
And in the margin, someone had written:
VERIFY BEFORE TRANSFER.
Miguel took the paper from Dante.
“It's a trap.”
“How do you know?” Dante demanded.
“Because Isabella told me the truth.”
“What truth?”
Miguel looked at me.
“I can't tell you here.”
Dante seized his shirt.
“Then where?”
Miguel pointed toward the stairs.
“Somewhere we aren't being watched.”
A soft click sounded behind us.
We turned.
A small camera had been concealed inside the lamp above the table.
Its red light blinked.
Someone had been watching the entire time.
A speaker crackled.
Lorenzo's voice echoed through the chamber.
“Very touching. The family reunion, the long-lost father, the little girl with the valuable name.”
The gate slammed shut.
A second door sealed the stairs.
Water began pouring through a pipe in the ceiling.
Sophie screamed.
Dante raised his pistol toward the camera.
Lorenzo laughed.
“You have thirty minutes to bring me the original ledger. After that, the tide will take care of the rest.”
The water rose around our shoes.
Miguel grabbed the birth record.
Nico lunged toward the gate.
Dante turned to me.
And for the first time, I saw genuine terror in his eyes.
“Get Sophie above the waterline,” he shouted. “Now!”
The pipe roared.
May you like
The lights flickered.
Then the steel floor beneath the table began to sink.
