Chapter 5 – The Raven Society
The silver pin lay in the center of Alessandro's desk.
A black raven.
Its wings spread wide.
Its eyes crafted from tiny pieces of polished obsidian.
To anyone else, it looked like an expensive piece of jewelry.
To Alessandro...
It was a ghost from his childhood.
He hadn't seen that symbol in twenty-five years.
Not since the night his father died.
Marco closed the office door.
"You recognized it immediately."
Alessandro nodded.
"When I was twenty-one, my father was found dead in his study."
"I remember reading about it."
"The newspapers called it a heart attack."
Marco waited.
"It wasn't."
Silence settled over the room.
"My father was healthy."
"He exercised every morning."
"He had no history of heart disease."
"Then one evening..."
"He drank a glass of wine."
"And died before midnight."
Marco slowly looked toward the laboratory report lying on the desk.
"A poison?"
Alessandro nodded.
"We never proved it."
"There was no evidence."
"No witnesses."
"No suspects."
He gently touched the raven pin.
"But I found one of these beneath his desk."
"You never told the police?"
"I did."
"What happened?"
"They said it belonged to a collector."
Marco frowned.
"You didn't believe them."
"No."
"I think they wanted the investigation to disappear."
Meanwhile, Sophia sat beside Emma in the estate's private garden.
The little girl was feeding breadcrumbs to a family of sparrows.
She looked far too happy for a child whose life had nearly been taken the night before.
Sophia envied that innocence.
She wished she could protect it forever.
Emma suddenly looked toward the old stone fountain.
"Mommy?"
"Yes?"
"The bad men weren't angry."
Sophia frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"They were scared."
Sophia felt a chill.
"How can you tell?"
Emma shrugged.
"Their eyes."
"They kept looking behind them."
"As if someone was watching them."
Sophia stared at her daughter.
Three years old.
Yet she noticed details most adults missed.
Back inside the mansion, Marco had already begun investigating the raven emblem.
Within an hour, an elderly historian arrived at the estate.
Professor Harold Bennett had spent decades studying secret societies tied to old European banking families.
He adjusted his glasses as Marco placed the silver pin before him.
The old man's face immediately lost color.
"Where did you get this?"
Marco exchanged a glance with Alessandro.
"Can you identify it?"
Professor Bennett hesitated.
"I wish I couldn't."
He picked up the pin carefully.
"This symbol belonged to a private organization."
"What organization?"
"The Raven Society."
Neither Alessandro nor Marco spoke.
The professor continued.
"They officially disappeared over thirty years ago."
"Officially?"
"They were never officially acknowledged."
"They had no headquarters."
"No public records."
"No membership lists."
"So what did they do?"
The professor lowered his voice.
"They protected powerful people."
"From what?"
"Justice."
Alessandro folded his arms.
"You mean they bribed judges?"
The professor gave a bitter smile.
"If only it were that simple."
"They controlled investigations."
"Influenced elections."
"Destroyed evidence."
"Silenced witnesses."
Marco asked quietly,
"And murder?"
The old man looked directly at him.
"When necessary."
Sophia entered the room carrying Emma.
The professor immediately smiled at the little girl.
Emma smiled back.
Then her expression suddenly changed.
She tilted her head.
"You smell funny."
Everyone looked at her.
The professor blinked.
"Excuse me?"
Emma pointed toward his leather briefcase.
"It smells like Daddy's medicine."
The room froze.
Professor Bennett looked confused.
"My briefcase?"
Emma nodded.
Marco immediately opened it.
Inside were books...
Old documents...
A notebook...
And a sealed brown envelope.
The professor frowned.
"I've never seen that before."
Marco carefully removed it.
No name.
No address.
Only a wax seal.
He broke it open.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Typed.
No signature.
Only one sentence.
STOP DIGGING... OR THE CHILD DIES NEXT.
Sophia gasped.
Marco reached for his radio.
"Lock down the estate!"
Security guards immediately rushed through the halls.
Every exit was sealed.
Professor Bennett looked horrified.
"I swear I didn't bring that."
Alessandro believed him.
Someone had slipped the envelope into the briefcase.
Someone already inside the estate.
Hours later, Marco reviewed every surveillance recording from that morning.
Nothing.
No suspicious movement.
No stranger approaching the professor.
Then one frame caught his attention.
A kitchen employee accidentally bumped into Professor Bennett as he entered the mansion.
Only for a second.
Long enough...
To slip something into the briefcase.
Marco zoomed in.
The employee's face became clearer.
He recognized him immediately.
"The pastry chef."
Marco's heartbeat quickened.
He called security.
"Bring Ethan Collins to my office."
Silence answered.
Then a nervous voice came over the radio.
"Sir..."
"We can't."
"Why not?"
"He's gone."
"What do you mean gone?"
"He never came back after breakfast."
Marco rushed to the employee records.
The hiring documents.
The identification.
The emergency contacts.
Everything.
Every single document was fake.
Even the fingerprints belonged to someone who had died eight years earlier.
The pastry chef had never existed.
He had spent six weeks inside the Duca estate...
Waiting.
Watching.
Preparing.
And now...
He had vanished without a trace.
As Marco stared at the empty personnel file, his phone rang.
The caller ID displayed only one word.
UNKNOWN.
He answered cautiously.
A distorted voice spoke.
"You found the wrong servant."
Click.
The line went dead.
Marco slowly lowered the phone.
Then looked toward Alessandro.
May you like
"We're not hunting one killer anymore."
"We're hunting an organization."
