Chapter 3 - THE ROOM BENEATH THE OLD HOUSE
The old DeLuca house had been empty for five years.
Not abandoned.
Maintained.
Preserved.
A monument nobody admitted was one.
Adrian had grown up there.
So had Luca.
Their father died there.
Their mother refused to sell.
The basement door still required the family ring.
Not literally.
The locking mechanism had been built decades earlier with a circular pressure plate.
Adrian pressed the black onyx ring against it.
Click.
Marco stared.
“You never mentioned that.”
“I forgot.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Fair.
Adrian pushed the door open.
Dust.
Old concrete.
Rows of filing cabinets.
One metal desk.
And a wall covered with photographs.
Luca.
Dozens.
Taken after the fire.
St. Agnes.
Rehabilitation.
Physical therapy.
Walking with a cane.
Sitting beside windows.
Alive.
Adrian felt something in him crack.
His brother had recovered.
His father had watched.
His mother had watched.
And Adrian had been allowed to mourn a lie.
On the desk sat a recorder.
One cassette inside.
ADRIAN.
He pressed play.
Antonio’s voice.
“Son.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“I hope you never hear this.”
Classic Antonio.
“Because if you do, then I failed to bring Luca home.”
Marco remained silent.
Antonio explained the fire.
The suspicion around Vincent.
The fake dental identification.
Then:
“Luca refused to come back.”
Adrian opened his eyes.
That was new.
Why?
Antonio continued.
“He remembered enough to know someone else was involved.”
Not Vincent alone.
Another person.
Someone Luca would not name until he was certain.
“He believed that person was closer to you than to me.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Who?
Marco?
His mother?
One of his own men?
Then Antonio said:
“I asked him if he believed you were involved.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
“He said no.”
Relief came before anger.
“Then he said something worse.”
The tape crackled.
“He said you were being protected by the person who betrayed him.”
Adrian stared at the recorder.
Protected.
Not targeted.
Why?
Antonio continued:
“Luca believed the fire was designed to remove him because he found something that would eventually transfer power to you.”
Marco looked at Adrian.
“What power?”
Adrian did not know.
Then the tape clicked.
Finished.
But beneath the recorder sat a folder.
Corporate voting trusts.
Family property.
Shipping companies.
One document named Luca as controlling beneficiary of an old DeLuca family holding.
If Luca died, control passed to Adrian.
If Luca lived, it did not.
Someone benefited politically from Luca appearing dead.
But not Adrian.
Because Adrian had not known the transfer existed.
Then Marco found another item.
A child’s drawing.
Crayon.
Yellow raincoat.
Stuffed rabbit.
Signed:
SOPHIE.
Dated eight months earlier.
Adrian stared.
Claire and Sophie had been in this basement.
Recently.
On the back, Claire wrote:
Luca showed us where your father hid the recordings.
He remembers more every month.
He also remembers who locked the warehouse doors.
One name followed.
MARCELLA DELUCA.
Adrian’s aunt.
May you like
His father’s younger sister.
And the woman currently serving as chair of the DeLuca charitable foundation.
