Chapter 14 - NINE MINUTES TO THE TRUTHThe screens counted down.
08:47.
08:46.
08:45.
Luca stared at the numbers.
“How do we stop it?”
My mother shook her head.
“You can't.”
Matteo smiled.
“The files are already uploaded.”
Daniel checked his phone.
“There's a data transfer server under the house.”
“Can you shut it down?”
“Maybe.”
“How long?”
“Five minutes.”
“We have eight.”
Matteo laughed.
“You still don't understand.”
He pressed another button.
A second countdown appeared.
SYSTEM PURGE: 06:00.
“If you destroy the server,” he said, “the evidence disappears forever.”
Luca looked at my mother.
“Then what do we do?”
She whispered,
“Don't destroy it.”
She looked toward me.
“Let it run.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because the file contains more than Matteo thinks.”
She turned toward Daniel.
“Your father inserted a second archive.”
Daniel blinked.
“Where?”
“Under the original ledger.”
Daniel looked at Luca.
“Boss, the encrypted file.”
Luca understood.
“The one we couldn't open.”
“Yes.”
My mother nodded.
“It opens when the purge begins.”
Daniel ran.
Matteo's smile disappeared.
“What did you do?”
My mother looked at him.
“What I should have done twelve years ago.”
Luca stepped toward Matteo.
“You murdered my father.”
Matteo pulled a gun from a guard who was lying unconscious.
Daniel shouted.
Luca moved.
The gun fired.
Glass shattered.
I ducked.
Vanessa pulled me behind the wall.
Another shot.
Then another.
Security rushed in.
Matteo ran.
Luca chased him.
I stayed with my mother.
She touched my face.
“You've changed.”
“I had to.”
“I know.”
Bruno appeared from the hallway.
He barked and ran toward the stairs.
My mother followed.
“Why is he going downstairs?”
“He knows something.”
We followed.
The basement server room was open.
Daniel was standing before a computer.
“It worked.”
“What?”
“The second archive.”
A video appeared.
Vivian Moretti.
She was sitting alone.
Older than I remembered from the photographs.
She looked directly into the camera.
“If this recording is playing, then Matteo has failed.”
Luca stared.
His mother's voice filled the room.
“Luca, I'm sorry.”
She explained everything.
Her husband had discovered the consortium.
Matteo ordered him killed.
Vivian pretended to cooperate to protect Luca.
She helped forge her own death records.
She sent Emma's mother into hiding.
She hid the ledger.
And she used Bruno as the final safeguard because everyone underestimated him.
Then came the revelation.
“The ledger is not the evidence.”
Luca leaned closer.
“The real evidence is beneath Bruno's kennel.”
He looked at me.
We both understood.
Vivian continued.
“Your father recorded the murder.”
A video file opened.
Grainy footage.
A basement.
Luca's father.
Emma's father.
Vivian.
Matteo.
Frank.
The murder was all there.
Every word.
Every threat.
Every shot.
No room for denial.
Then another person entered the frame.
Vanessa.
She was younger.
Crying.
And she said:
“Please don't hurt them.”
Matteo grabbed her.
“You're family.”
The video ended.
The server room was silent.
Vanessa stood frozen.
“I tried to stop him.”
Luca nodded.
“I know.”
Then a scream came from upstairs.
Daniel looked at the monitor.
“Boss.”
Matteo had reached the garden.
He was holding one of the guests at gunpoint.
And beside him stood Anthony.
Anthony wasn't helping him.
He was fighting him.
The two men struggled.
Then Anthony tore the gun away.
Matteo fell.
Police sirens sounded outside.
Luca exhaled.
For the first time in hours, nobody was chasing us.
Then my mother looked at Bruno.
“There's one thing left.”
“What?”
She smiled sadly.
“The dog has to choose where it goes.”
I laughed through my tears.
“Bruno is a dog.”
She shook her head.
“Your father never believed that.”
She knelt beside him.
Bruno immediately pressed against her.
Then he turned.
He walked toward me.
And stopped.
Beside my feet.
My mother smiled.
“That's his answer.”
But before anyone could speak, my phone vibrated.
A new message.
No number.
No name.
May you like
Only six words.
MATTEO WASN'T THE ONE WATCHING YOU.
