Chapter 4 - THE SECOND FATHERMatteo read the sentence until the words stopped resembling English.
The second killed the emergency lights before they had fully switched on.
Matteo grabbed Elena and pulled her behind the stone wall outside the guest room.
“Stay down.”
“What’s happening?”
“They cut the power.”
“I thought you had generators.”
“I do.”
Another shot cracked through the darkness.
Matteo drew his pistol.
The DeLuca estate had been designed to withstand attacks. Reinforced shutters. Independent electricity. Underground communications.
Whoever had entered knew exactly which systems to disable.
That meant they had plans.
Or help.
“Luca?”
No answer.
Matteo touched his earpiece.
Static.
Jammed.
Elena’s breathing quickened.
“He found us.”
“Listen to me.”
Matteo turned her face toward his.
“You’re not leaving this hallway unless I say so.”
“You can’t fight everyone by yourself.”
“I don’t intend to.”
He pressed a hidden panel beside the molding.
A narrow section of wall opened.
Elena stared.
“Inside.”
“What is that?”
“Safe room.”
“I’m not hiding while—”
“Inside.”
The tone ended the argument.
Elena stepped through.
Matteo was about to shut the panel when she caught his wrist.
“Matteo.”
He looked at her.
“If you find Victor…”
“Yes?”
“Don’t kill him.”
Matteo almost smiled.
“Interesting request from someone he nearly murdered.”
“He knows too much.”
Her grip tightened.
“We need him alive.”
Matteo pulled free.
“Then he should hope he doesn’t shoot first.”
The panel closed.
Matteo moved.
He knew every hallway in darkness.
At the stairs, he heard boots below.
Not his guards.
Too heavy.
Too careless.
A shadow crossed the foyer.
Matteo fired once.
The intruder dropped.
Another man answered with three rounds.
Marble exploded beside Matteo’s shoulder.
He moved behind a pillar.
“Mr. DeLuca!”
The voice came from the kitchen.
Luca.
“Status?”
“Three inside. Maybe four.”
“How?”
“Service tunnel.”
Impossible.
The tunnel was unknown outside Matteo’s inner circle.
Someone had betrayed him.
Matteo descended.
Luca appeared near the dining room holding a handgun.
Blood ran down his forehead.
“You hit?”
“Glass.”
“Where are the guards?”
“Two injured. Russo’s missing.”
Matteo’s gaze sharpened.
Anthony Russo had supervised estate security for seven years.
“Missing how?”
“His post was empty.”
There was the answer.
Footsteps.
Matteo and Luca separated.
A masked intruder entered the foyer.
Matteo hit him from the side before he could raise his weapon.
The gun slid away.
Matteo slammed him against the wall.
“Who opened the tunnel?”
Silence.
Matteo ripped off the mask.
Young.
Maybe twenty-five.
Scared despite himself.
“Russo?”
The man’s eyes flickered.
Enough.
Luca saw it too.
“Where is he?”
The intruder spat blood.
“Already gone.”
“Who sent you?”
A smile.
“The man wearing blue.”
Suddenly the intruder reached inside his coat.
Matteo shoved him away.
Luca fired.
The attacker collapsed.
Matteo looked down.
Not a gun.
A detonator.
“Move!”
The explosion came from the west wing.
Windows shattered.
Heat rolled through the mansion.
The alarm began screaming.
“Elena.”
Matteo ran.
Smoke poured from the upstairs corridor.
The explosion had occurred close to the safe room.
He reached the hidden panel.
“Open!”
Nothing.
He entered the emergency code.
The wall moved six inches and jammed.
“Elena!”
A hand appeared through the gap.
“I’m here!”
Matteo pushed.
Metal groaned.
Luca joined him.
Together they forced the panel open enough for Elena to squeeze through.
Smoke filled the room behind her.
She coughed violently.
Matteo grabbed her.
“I told you not to leave.”
“I didn’t exactly have somewhere to go.”
Despite everything, Luca almost laughed.
Then Elena looked toward the burning corridor.
“They weren’t trying to kill me.”
Matteo stared.
“They detonated an explosive twenty feet from you.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“They knew the safe room could survive that.”
“How?”
“Because Victor’s people weren’t aiming for me.”
Matteo followed her gaze.
His private study.
The explosion had destroyed the door.
His father’s records were inside.
Matteo ran toward it.
Flames had spread across one wall.
He crossed through smoke, grabbed the fire extinguisher and fought his way to the desk.
A painting had fallen.
Behind it stood a steel safe.
Open.
Empty.
Matteo froze.
Someone had known the combination.
Luca entered behind him.
“What was in there?”
“Family records.”
“Anything important?”
“My father’s notebooks.”
Elena appeared in the doorway.
“They came for Antonio’s files.”
Matteo turned.
“You said Sloane wanted the drive.”
“He wants everything connected to Project Cerulean.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Matteo looked around the burning room.
The attack hadn’t been revenge.
It had been evidence collection.
Whoever Victor Sloane was, he had spent two decades erasing something.
And Elena had accidentally found it.
By dawn, the mansion looked like a crime scene from a war.
One guard had been shot in the shoulder.
Another suffered smoke inhalation.
Russo was gone.
Police were given a carefully sanitized explanation involving attempted burglary.
Matteo trusted exactly three people with the truth.
Luca.
Dr. Romano.
And now Elena.
They relocated to an unused penthouse above one of Matteo’s hotels.
Elena sat on the couch wearing borrowed clothes.
Matteo placed coffee in front of her.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
She wrapped both hands around the cup.
“Does this happen often?”
“Explosions?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Usually people trying to hurt me are less theatrical.”
Elena gave him a tired look.
“Your life is insane.”
“You arrived bleeding at my gate carrying my dead father’s necklace.”
“Fair point.”
For the first time, Matteo noticed the corners of her mouth turning upward.
It disappeared quickly.
But he had seen it.
His phone rang.
Restaurant manager.
Matteo answered.
“Talk.”
“We checked the office.”
“And?”
“The safe was opened.”
Matteo stood.
“The package?”
“Still here.”
That surprised him.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. Whoever broke in opened the wrong safe.”
Matteo had two.
One visible.
One hidden behind a wine cabinet.
Sloane had found only the decoy.
“Bring the package to me.”
“I’ll send someone.”
“No. You personally bring it with four guards.”
“Yes, sir.”
Matteo ended the call.
Elena exhaled.
“So we still have the drive.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“You told me you mailed it.”
“I did.”
“But we don’t know whether anyone intercepted and replaced it.”
Her confidence faded.
Forty minutes later, the envelope arrived.
Matteo opened it.
Inside was a flash drive.
Elena recognized it.
“That’s mine.”
They connected it to an offline laptop.
Encrypted folders filled the screen.
Elena entered a password.
PROJECT CERULEAN opened.
Hundreds of files.
Payment records.
Photographs.
Ship manifests.
Names.
Matteo searched for Antonio DeLuca.
Fourteen results appeared.
He opened the oldest.
A scanned handwritten document appeared.
Antonio’s signature sat at the bottom.
Matteo read.
Then stopped.
“What?” Elena asked.
He read it again.
Antonio DeLuca had not been working with Victor Sloane.
He had been investigating him.
Twenty-three years earlier, Antonio had discovered an operation moving stolen weapons, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and trafficked people through legitimate cargo routes.
He planned to expose it.
Someone inside his organization betrayed him.
Matteo scrolled.
Another document.
A list of confidential informants.
One name had been highlighted.
MATTEO DELUCA stared at it.
His own name.
He would have been nine years old.
“That makes no sense.”
Elena leaned closer.
“Maybe not you.”
“There is no other Matteo.”
Then she pointed.
“Look.”
Beside his name was a date.
Thirty-four years ago.
Nine years before Matteo was born.
Matteo’s heart stopped.
Someone else had carried his name.
A hidden relative.
Or an identity.
He opened the next page.
A photograph appeared.
Two men stood beside a fishing boat.
Matteo recognized it immediately.
The photograph from his childhood.
Except this copy had not been damaged.
The second man’s face was visible.
Matteo stared at him.
Older now.
Gray hair now.
But unmistakable.
Victor Sloane.
On his right hand gleamed the blue ring.
And beneath the photograph someone had written:
ANTONIO DELUCA AND MATTEO SLOANE — BROTHERS.
Elena whispered, “Matteo…”
He didn’t answer.
May you like
Because below that sentence was another.
If Antonio dies, his son must never learn who his real father is.
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