Chapter 3 - THE MAID SELECTED TO TAKE THE BLAME
Luca Moretti was thirty six and had spent his entire life waiting behind Alessandro.
He managed the family’s legal shipping companies, represented Blackwater Holdings at public events, and smiled whenever journalists called him the civilized Moretti.
If Alessandro died without a recognized heir, Luca would receive control of the legitimate companies and influence over the criminal organization built by their fathers.
Enzo had trained both men.
He taught Alessandro to shoot, negotiate, and identify surveillance.
He taught Luca how to wait.
“Where is Luca?” Alessandro asked.
Enzo answered carefully.
“At the harbor office.”
“Call him.”
“My phone is outside.”
“You carried it into the room.”
Enzo looked toward his coat.
Alessandro’s expression hardened.
“Place it on the floor.”
Enzo obeyed.
Ada collected the device using a clean cloth.
Three missed calls from Luca appeared on the screen.
The most recent had arrived seconds after Alessandro used the contaminated inhaler.
Sofia looked toward her cleaning cart.
Something about it bothered her.
The cart normally carried blue cloths on the top shelf and white cloths below. That afternoon, the arrangement had been reversed.
Her supervisor Marta was obsessive about supply order.
Sofia opened the schedule application on her phone.
Her original assignment showed the east guest wing.
A revised schedule placed her in the west study at four thirty.
The change carried Marta’s account credentials.
“Marta never told me to clean this room,” Sofia said.
Enzo shrugged.
“Household schedules change.”
“She was supposed to be off today.”
Sofia scrolled farther.
The change occurred at three fourteen.
Security records showed Marta had left the property at noon to visit her sister in Queens.
Someone used her account after she departed.
Alessandro looked toward Enzo.
“You control staff credentials.”
“I control emergency access.”
“You created a reason for Sofia’s chemicals to be near my body.”
“I did not alter the schedule.”
“Then unlock the system and prove it.”
Enzo did not move.
Ada’s scanner produced another analog image.
Luca’s ring appeared beside the medicine drawer. A black leather glove covered his hand.
Enzo wore an identical pair.
The two men had coordinated the attack.
But Alessandro wanted evidence stronger than matching gloves and a reflection.
He had survived too many conspiracies built from partial truths.
“Why frame Sofia?” he asked.
Enzo looked toward the frightened young woman.
“She has debt. No family influence. A child hidden inside the house. Nobody important would question the story.”
Emma frowned.
“My mama is important.”
Enzo’s face tightened.
Alessandro looked at the child.
“Yes, she is.”
The words surprised Sofia.
Enzo laughed once.
“A five year old gives you medicine and suddenly you forget how this world works.”
“No,” Alessandro said. “She reminded me.”
Ada finished stabilizing his breathing enough to move him into the leather chair.
He still could not stand safely.
Sofia cleared the nearest glass only after Ada documented its position. Emma remained beside her, clutching the rabbit backpack.
Alessandro called the old wall telephone using a private line Enzo could not access.
Gabriel Russo answered.
Gabriel had served Alessandro’s father before retiring from daily security work. He lived inside a cottage near the estate greenhouse.
“Bring no radio,” Alessandro said. “Come through the library passage.”
Enzo stared at him.
“You still trust Gabriel?”
“I trust no one. That is why I am verifying.”
Gabriel arrived six minutes later.
He was seventy, broad shouldered despite age, and visibly alarmed by Alessandro’s condition.
He saw Enzo beside the locked door.
“What happened?”
“Someone replaced my inhaler.”
Gabriel’s eyes moved immediately toward Enzo.
That reaction was too fast to be surprise.
Alessandro noticed.
“What do you know?”
Gabriel lowered his face.
“Your father warned me that Enzo blamed the Moretti family for his brother’s death.”
Enzo’s composure broke.
“My brother was murdered.”
Gabriel looked toward him.
“Paolo died from poisoned narcotics supplied through a Vale warehouse.”
“Alessandro’s father ordered it.”
“No. Vittorio Moretti did.”
Vittorio was Luca’s father.
He died three years earlier and left his son under Alessandro’s protection.
Enzo had spent twenty years believing Alessandro’s father killed Paolo.
Luca may have learned the truth and used the old hatred to turn Enzo.
Ada opened a secure medical archive.
Paolo Vale’s hospital file showed he had been admitted after using contaminated drugs. William Moretti paid for treatment and ordered the supplier found.
The supplier’s company belonged to Vittorio.
Enzo stared at the record.
“You expect me to believe a file your family controlled?”
“No,” Alessandro said. “I expect independent investigators to verify it.”
The answer unsettled him.
Enzo had expected rage.
He had prepared for punishment.
He had not prepared for Alessandro to choose proof.
Emma tugged Sofia’s apron.
“Mama, the man in the vent said Mr. Enzo would be king.”
Everyone looked toward her.
Enzo’s face became pale.
“What exactly did you hear?” Alessandro asked.
“The other man said Luca gets the buildings, but Enzo gets the men.”
Luca planned to inherit the legal empire.
Enzo would command the criminal crews.
Each believed the other needed him.
Sofia opened Emma’s rabbit backpack to find her missing shoe.
Inside, beneath the crackers and coloring book, lay a folded piece of paper she had never placed there.
It contained a copied schedule assigning Sofia to the west study.
At the bottom was a handwritten instruction.
Make certain the child remains downstairs until sunset.
Someone had known Emma was inside Blackwater House.
May you like
The babysitter had not cancelled by accident.
Continue to the next part: Sofia discovers that Emma was deliberately brought into the mansion as leverage, while Alessandro sets a trap that forces Luca and Enzo to reveal which one planned to sacrifice the other.
