Chapter 4 - WHAT SOFIA WAS TRYING TO SAY
Dante wanted Carlo questioned immediately.
Clara stopped him.
“You don't know what happened.”
“I know he stole from my wife.”
“No. You know Sofia found missing money.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
Dante stared.
“You enjoy disagreeing with me.”
“I enjoy accuracy.”
Leo, sitting nearby, said:
“She does.”
Dante looked betrayed.
Clara smiled.
The foundation records revealed $18 million transferred over seven years to clinics and education programs.
Several clinics didn't exist.
But Carlo hadn't personally received the money.
The accounts led to a financial administrator named Helen Ward.
Helen had disappeared four years earlier.
One year after Sofia died.
Officially, Sofia's death had been simple.
A highway accident during heavy rain.
No conspiracy.
No suspicious brake lines.
No hidden poison.
Clara refused to turn every tragedy into murder just because the Moretti name made people expect blood.
Then Leo remembered something.
“Mom was angry before the car.”
Dante knelt.
“At whom?”
Leo covered his ears.
Dante stopped immediately.
Clara didn't ask again.
Later, Leo drew.
A piano.
A road.
A red umbrella.
And three circles.
Clara studied them.
“What are those?”
“Three knocks.”
Dante frowned.
“What?”
Leo tapped the table.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Then paused.
Again.
Three knocks.
Clara recognized rhythm.
Not random.
A musical interval pattern.
3-3-2.
She went back through Sofia's tapes.
Several began with the same rhythm.
3-3-2.
It wasn't a code for money.
It was a cataloging system.
The missing tape was filed under another project.
They found it inside a box labeled RHYTHM DEVELOPMENT.
Sofia's voice returned.
“I was wrong about Carlo.”
Dante closed his eyes.
Clara glanced at him.
Accuracy mattered.
Sofia continued.
“Carlo isn't stealing from the foundation. He's covering for someone.”
Then a man's voice entered the recording.
Carlo.
“I was trying to protect Dante.”
“From what?”
“From finding out where his money really goes.”
Silence.
Then Carlo said:
“Your husband isn't controlling the Moretti organization anymore.”
Dante went completely still.
The tape ended.
Clara stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
His expression became cold.
“I don't know.”
But Clara knew something from the way he said it.
Dante was frightened.
Not of losing money.
Of discovering that the empire everyone feared him for—
May you like
might no longer belong to him at all.
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