Chapter 3 - THE SON IN ROME
Matteo called Luca.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
The security team in Rome didn't answer either.
They flew immediately.
Private aircraft.
No passenger lists.
No records.
Leah had never been on a private plane.
Maya asked whether it belonged to Batman.
Matteo said no.
Maya looked disappointed.
When they reached Rome, Matteo's villa was empty.
Front door open.
Security monitors dark.
Luca's phone on the kitchen floor.
Blood beside it.
Matteo stopped being frightening.
For thirty seconds, he became a father.
“Luca!”
Nothing.
Then Leah heard music.
Upstairs.
A piano.
One note.
Again.
Again.
Again.
They followed it.
Luca was tied to a chair.
Alive.
A speaker beside him played the repeated note.
Matteo cut him free.
“Dad?”
“Who did this?”
“I don't know.”
Luca looked at Leah.
Then froze.
“You.”
Leah stepped backward.
“What?”
“I've seen you.”
“Where?”
“Mom's files.”
Matteo went still.
Luca's mother had died five years earlier.
Or so Matteo believed.
Luca led them to a hidden safe.
Inside were photographs of Leah's mother.
Dozens.
And one photograph of Leah as a baby.
Held by Matteo's late wife.
On the back:
IF ELENA FAILS, PROTECT BOTH GIRLS.
Leah stared.
“Elena is my mom.”
Matteo looked at the photograph.
“So why did my wife know her?”
Nobody had an answer.
Until Luca opened the final file.
A birth certificate.
Maya Bennett.
Father:
SALVATORE RINALDI.
Matteo sat down.
Leah couldn't understand why.
Then she did.
Maya wasn't only her sister.
She was Matteo's niece.
May you like
And someone had just hidden a tracking device on the last surviving child of Salvatore Rinaldi.
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