Chapter 2 - The Message Behind the Photograph
Lucas did not lower his pistol.
“Who sold him?”
Gabriel’s smile faded.
Before he could answer, Marco’s gun fired.
The bullet struck Gabriel’s shoulder and spun him into the elevator wall.
Lucas crossed the room and kicked the weapon away.
Marco restrained Gabriel while Hannah remained behind the desk, both hands wrapped around the pistol.
The attack had lasted less than a minute.
The office looked as though a storm had passed through it.
Broken glass covered the carpet.
A dead man lay beside the doorway.
The city continued glowing outside as if nothing had changed.
Lucas knelt beside Gabriel.
“Say my uncle’s name.”
Gabriel laughed weakly.
“You already know it.”
Lucas struck him.
Hannah flinched.
Gabriel spat blood onto the floor.
“Salvatore gave Kodra the warehouse address.”
“He told Michael there were stolen weapons inside.”
“He told him to go alone because someone in your crew was leaking information.”
Lucas’s expression remained controlled.
Only the muscle in his jaw moved.
“Why would Salvatore kill the son he helped raise?”
“Because Michael found the ledger.”
“What ledger?”
Gabriel looked toward Hannah.
“The one he hid inside her locket.”
Lucas stood and returned to the desk.
The etched numbers alone were not enough.
He removed Michael’s photograph and held it beneath the desk lamp.
A faint line appeared along the back.
The photograph had been attached to a second layer of paper.
Lucas separated them carefully.
A handwritten message appeared.
Hannah recognized Michael’s writing immediately.
Hannah,
If Lucas finds this, tell him the first lie began with our father’s funeral.
Do not trust the man who carried the casket.
Lucas read the message twice.
“Salvatore carried the front left corner.”
Marco looked toward Gabriel.
“So did your father.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
His father, Carlo Moretti, had served Salvatore for thirty years.
Lucas placed the etched sequence into his computer.
Nothing happened.
Hannah studied the numbers.
“Maybe they are letters.”
“Q-D-V-I-C,” Marco said.
“That means nothing.”
Hannah looked at the photograph.
Michael had taken it during a Cape Cod trip.
They stood near an old lighthouse.
He spent twenty minutes adjusting the camera position.
At the time, she thought he wanted the ocean in the background.
Now she remembered his obsession with the lighthouse windows.
“The numbers might be floors or windows.”
Lucas enlarged the image.
Five windows were visible along the tower.
Some were lit.
Others dark.
The pattern matched the numbers when converted into positions.
Lucas entered the sequence again, using the window order.
A hidden file opened.
Michael appeared on-screen.
He sat inside the Boston apartment Hannah remembered.
A bruise covered his cheek.
“If this recording is playing, then either I am dead or Salvatore believes I am.”
Hannah’s heart stopped.
Lucas leaned closer.
Michael continued.
“The weapons war with Kodra is staged.”
“Salvatore is supplying both sides.”
“He murdered our father after Antonio discovered the port accounts.”
“He plans to kill Lucas once the family businesses transfer.”
Lucas’s hand tightened around the desk.
Michael looked toward the camera.
“Hannah, I am sorry.”
“You deserved the truth.”
“I chose your safety over your consent.”
“If I survive, I will spend the rest of my life regretting that.”
A siren began sounding inside the penthouse.
Marco checked the security panel.
“Fire alarm.”
Smoke entered beneath the office door.
Gabriel smiled from the floor.
“This building was never meant to hold you.”
Lucas took the locket and the computer drive.
He pulled Hannah toward a private stairwell.
Marco dragged Gabriel behind them.
As they descended, an explosion shook the upper floors.
The penthouse windows burst outward.
Hannah looked back toward the flames.
Michael’s final words repeated inside her mind.
If I survive.
Not if I survived.
If I survive.
May you like
The recording had been created after the warehouse ambush.
Michael Valentasi might still be alive.
