Chapter 5 - The Man With the Silver Key.
Marco did not reach for his weapon.
That saved him from three guards doing the same.
He raised both hands instead.
"I don't know what she's trying to say."
Mia stepped behind Lorenzo.
Her fingers clutched the back of his jacket.
Lorenzo kept his eyes on Marco.
"Take off the badge."
Marco removed the security badge and placed it on the hood of the electric cart.
The silver initials caught the service-lane light.
M.B.
Mia pointed at it again.
Then she pointed toward the black button in Lorenzo's hand.
The button also carried a silver M.
But the designs were not identical.
The letter on Marco's badge was narrow and modern.
The letter on the button curved at the edges like an old family crest.
Serena noticed first.
"That's not his."
Lorenzo looked closer.
She was right.
Marco exhaled.
"Matteo's jackets use custom buttons."
Elena spoke from behind them.
"Mia isn't pointing at Marco."
Everyone looked at her.
Elena crouched beside her daughter.
"Show me."
Mia touched the button.
Then she touched Marco's badge.
Then she drew an invisible line between them with her finger.
"Security," Elena whispered.
Mia nodded.
Lorenzo looked at Marco.
"She saw someone wearing security clothing."
Marco's relief disappeared as quickly as it came.
"Then we have a bigger problem."
"Why?"
"Because none of my men wear custom buttons."
Lorenzo turned the object over.
A faint maker's mark was stamped on the back.
Bellori Roma.
Marco knew the name.
"Private tailoring house."
"Matteo uses them?"
"So does Don Romano."
Serena closed her eyes briefly.
Lorenzo looked at her.
"Your father's security staff?"
"Some of them wear formal jackets from Bellori."
The circle widened again.
Matteo.
Salvatore.
Someone impersonating estate security.
Or someone using the similarities to make one side suspect the other.
Lorenzo hated mysteries built from too many plausible enemies.
Those usually meant the architect understood him personally.
"Elena," he said.
"Take Mia upstairs with two guards."
She shook her head immediately.
"No."
"You're safer inside."
"She was taken from inside."
Lorenzo could not argue with that.
"Then stay with me."
Elena looked surprised.
"Both of you."
Serena folded her arms.
"And me?"
"You stay where I can see you too."
Her face tightened.
"So I'm a prisoner."
"Tonight, everyone is."
They moved to the old breakfast room because it had one entrance, no service passage, and windows too narrow for anyone to use discreetly.
Marco placed two guards outside and one across the garden.
Mia sat beside Elena on a leather bench.
Someone brought her hot chocolate in a sealed bottle from the kitchen pantry.
Mia refused it.
Lorenzo noticed.
He also noticed the way Elena thanked the server and set it aside without opening it.
Trust had become contagious in reverse.
At one thirty in the morning, Marco received the first useful call.
Matteo Duca was not in Manhattan.
His driver had lied.
The car had been found parked behind an abandoned restaurant in Yonkers.
Matteo's phone was off.
Serena leaned against the wall.
"That doesn't look good."
"No," Lorenzo said.
"It looks designed."
"Meaning?"
"If Matteo wanted to disappear, he wouldn't leave his car where a traffic camera could catch it."
Marco nodded.
"He'd switch vehicles underground."
"Exactly."
Elena looked between them.
"Then why leave the car?"
Lorenzo answered without looking at her.
"So I would find it."
His phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No voice came through.
Only breathing.
Then a distorted recording played.
"You're losing more than your hearing."
The call ended.
Serena stared at him.
"Who was that?"
"Someone who wants me looking in the wrong direction."
The phone vibrated again.
This time a photograph arrived.
Matteo was sitting in a chair in what looked like a storage room.
His hands were bound in front of him.
A newspaper dated that morning lay across his knees.
Serena whispered.
"He's alive."
Lorenzo zoomed in.
Behind Matteo stood a metal shelf.
On it rested several wooden wine crates.
One carried the Duca crest.
Another carried the Romano crest.
The message beneath the photograph contained four words.
ASK WHO FILLS THE GLASSES.
Marco looked at Lorenzo.
"Could be the catering company."
Serena's face changed.
"Or the cellar manager."
Celeste Moretti.
The household manager who had left the estate early.
The woman with the third silver key.
Lorenzo called her.
Straight to voicemail.
Marco tried her sister.
No answer.
Then Elena spoke.
"Celeste didn't leave because her sister was sick."
Lorenzo turned.
"How do you know?"
"Her sister is in Florida."
"Since when?"
"Two weeks ago."
Marco's face darkened.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't know Celeste said she was going there."
Lorenzo thought of the unlocked wine cellar.
The silver key.
The staged server.
The missing camera footage.
"Find Celeste."
Marco nodded.
"Quietly?"
"No."
Lorenzo's voice remained calm.
"I want whoever is protecting her to know we're looking."
Serena stared at him.
"Why?"
"Because frightened people make mistakes."
At two twelve, one of those mistakes arrived.
A black sedan approached the east gate and stopped outside the property.
The driver left an envelope with the guard and drove away before anyone could follow.
The envelope was addressed to Lorenzo in Celeste's handwriting.
Inside were three items.
A medical appointment card from Dr. Nathan Hart.
A copy of Serena's engagement agreement.
And a handwritten note.
Lorenzo read the note twice.
Then he handed it to Serena.
Her face drained of color.
The note contained only one sentence.
IF HE MARRIES HER WHILE MEDICALLY IMPAIRED, READ SECTION NINE.
Serena opened the engagement agreement with shaking hands.
She flipped to section nine.
Lorenzo had read the document before signing.
At least he believed he had.
The page now in Serena's hands was not the page he remembered.
A new paragraph had been inserted beneath the incapacity clause.
If Lorenzo were declared unable to manage certain business or family assets after marriage, temporary voting authority would transfer to his legal spouse until a review board restored him.
The spouse would be Serena.
The review board included two Duca trustees.
And one Romano representative.
Lorenzo looked at Serena.
"Did you know?"
"No."
"Don't answer too fast."
"I didn't know."
"Your signature is on it."
"So is yours."
"I never signed that page."
She stared at the signature.
Then at him.
"Neither did I."
Mia suddenly climbed off the bench.
She walked to Lorenzo and tapped the medical appointment card.
Then she pointed at Serena.
Then she made the same dropping motion over an imaginary glass.
Lorenzo looked down at the doctor's name.
Nathan Hart.
The hearing specialist.
Serena's voice became barely audible.
"He gave me the drops."
May you like
Lorenzo looked at her.
"Then Dr. Hart just became the first person we're going to ask about section nine."
