Chapter 5 - The Dead Man in the Camera
For three seconds, Elias forgot how to breathe.
Then the old instincts returned.
"Lock down the building," he ordered. "Nobody leaves the estate, nobody touches the servers, and nobody speaks to the press."
Marco nodded and hurried away.
Elias replayed the footage.
The man on-screen had Antonio's broad shoulders, silver hair, and distinctive limp. He wore the same black ring Elias had inherited, except the one in the footage was on his left hand.
Elias enlarged the image.
The ring had a small crack across its crest.
His father's ring had never been cracked.
"That's not him," Maya whispered.
Elias turned.
She was staring at the tablet with a look of absolute terror.
"You recognize the man?"
"I recognize the walk."
"Who is he?"
Maya pressed a trembling hand against her mouth.
"My mother had a photograph of him. She burned it before she died."
"Why?"
"Because she said he was the last person to see my father alive."
Elias sat down slowly.
"Name."
"I don't know."
He studied her face. She wasn't withholding a name now. She was remembering something she had spent years trying to forget.
"He wore a scar," she said. "Across his left cheek. My mother said he had been inside our apartment when I was a baby."
Elias looked at the footage again.
The man's face was partially hidden by the camera angle, but when he turned toward the desk, a thin pale line caught the light.
A scar.
"Marco!" Elias shouted.
His lieutenant returned almost immediately.
"Find the identity of every person who had access to my father's private security system. Start with the people who were at the funeral."
"All of them?"
"Especially the ones who cried."
Marco left.
Maya pulled the blanket tighter around herself.
"You need to let me go."
Elias looked at her.
"Someone tried to kill you."
"And someone has been watching you. If they know I have that letter, they'll come for both of us."
"Then they'll find out what happens when they come for a Conti."
"That's exactly what I'm afraid of!"
Her voice cracked.
"I've spent my whole life running from men who believe violence can solve everything. I don't want to become another reason you hurt someone."
Elias didn't answer.
Instead, he removed his signet ring and set it on the table.
Maya stared at it.
"Your father's letter said to protect you from the man wearing that ring," she whispered.
Elias felt his blood turn cold.
He turned the ring over.
Inside the band, nearly invisible beneath years of wear, were two engraved letters.
E.C.
His own initials.
But the ring had been given to him before his father supposedly died.
And now Elias remembered something that made his hands go numb.
May you like
His father had never worn a ring on his right hand.
The man who raised Elias Conti had been wearing a counterfeit ring for years.
