Chapter 3 - THE SON MY FATHER NEVER NAMED
The bomb technician dismantled the device inside the grandfather clock forty minutes later.
It wasn’t designed to destroy the house.
That would have been simpler.
It was connected to the mansion’s ventilation controls.
At midnight, when the clock struck twelve, the cylinder would have released a chemical agent into the west wing.
My bedroom.
My private study.
The security command room.
Whoever planned my death did not want chaos.
They wanted precision.
“Could it kill everyone in the wing?” I asked.
The technician nodded.
“Depending on concentration.”
“How long?”
“Minutes.”
I looked toward Marco’s locked room.
Fifteen years of loyalty had just become evidence.
Elena stood behind me with Sofia sleeping against her shoulder.
“You should take her away from here.”
Elena gave me a tired look.
“To where?”
“I have properties.”
“Marco knew your properties.”
That silenced me.
“Then I’ll arrange somewhere he doesn’t know.”
“You still don’t understand.”
“What?”
She shifted Sofia carefully.
“If a man who stood beside you for fifteen years can betray you, I don’t know which of your men is safe.”
Neither did I.
I hated that.
Sofia stirred.
Her fingers found the chain around my neck again.
The watch.
She opened her eyes.
“Clock sings inside.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She pointed at my father’s watch.
“Your little clock.”
“It doesn’t work.”
The watch had been broken for seven years.
It stopped the night my father died.
11:47 p.m.
I had never repaired it.
Sofia frowned.
“It sings.”
Children sometimes describe things incorrectly.
Sometimes adults stop listening because of that.
I held the watch to my ear.
Nothing.
Then I shook it.
A faint click came from inside.
Not mechanical.
Loose.
Elena heard it.
“There’s something in there.”
I opened the rear casing.
A second plate sat beneath the normal mechanism.
I had owned this watch for seven years and never noticed.
Marco had.
Maybe that was why he needed the grandfather clock.
The button we found had been a marker.
A clue.
A key.
I pressed the tiny engraved S.
The plate released.
Inside was a folded piece of microfilm and a miniature brass key.
Sofia smiled proudly.
“Told you.”
I looked at Elena.
“Your daughter is becoming inconveniently useful.”
“She gets that from me.”
For the first time that day, I laughed.
Briefly.
Then I inserted the microfilm into an old document reader in my study.
The first image showed financial ledgers.
The second showed property transfers.
The third showed a birth certificate.
I stopped breathing.
MATTEO SALVATORE MORETTI.
Date of birth: September 18, 1981.
Mother: Isabella Conti.
Father: Salvatore Moretti.
My father.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Marco had been born September 18, 1981.
Marco Bianchi.
Same date.
My chair felt suddenly too small.
Elena whispered, “Marco?”
“No.”
But the answer was obviously yes.
My oldest friend was my father’s illegitimate son.
My half brother.
I thought about every memory.
Marco spending holidays at our house.
My father paying his education.
My father insisting Marco train beside me.
The two of us fighting as teenagers.
My father laughing and saying, “You boys will either kill each other or protect each other forever.”
I had thought it was affection.
Now I heard confession.
The door opened.
My attorney, Carlo Ventresca, entered.
He had served my father for thirty years.
White hair.
Perfect suit.
A man I called Uncle Carlo though we shared no blood.
“I came as soon as I heard.”
I looked at him.
“Did you know?”
He stopped.
“Know what?”
I turned the birth certificate toward him.
His face collapsed.
That was all I needed.
“You knew.”
“Alessandro—”
“You knew Marco was my brother.”
“Yes.”
My hand tightened around the desk.
“For how long?”
“Since he was born.”
Elena quietly lifted Sofia and moved toward the door.
“No.”
She stopped.
“Stay.”
Carlo looked at her.
“This is family business.”
I stood.
“She stays.”
His eyebrows rose.
That was probably the first time a maid had been included in a Moretti family secret.
I did not care.
“How did Marco become a Bianchi?”
“Your father arranged it.”
“Why?”
“Isabella Conti was married.”
“To?”
“Giovanni Bianchi.”
Marco’s legal father.
A man who died when Marco was six.
“Did Giovanni know?”
“Yes.”
My stomach twisted.
“And Marco?”
Carlo looked away.
“When he was twenty-one.”
That meant Marco had known for seventeen years.
Longer than he had worked beside me.
“And nobody told me.”
“Your father made us swear.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted to avoid a succession war.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That worked.”
Carlo sat.
“Marco was furious when he learned the truth.”
“Obviously.”
“He believed Salvatore had denied him his name.”
“Did my father?”
“Yes.”
I looked at him sharply.
Carlo continued.
“But he never denied him care. Education. Money. Protection.”
“That’s supposed to make it better?”
“No.”
He looked tired.
“I’m telling you why Marco’s resentment survived.”
I stared at the microfilm.
“Did my father plan to acknowledge him?”
Carlo hesitated.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night he died.”
Everything stopped.
“What?”
“Salvatore called Marco and me to the study.”
I could barely breathe.
“He planned to revise the family structure. Not make Marco boss. But publicly recognize him and divide legitimate holdings between you.”
“And then?”
Carlo looked toward the watch.
“He died before midnight.”
11:47.
Thirteen minutes before a planned confession.
My skin went cold.
“How did my father die?”
The official answer: heart failure.
He had collapsed alone in the study.
Dr. Vittorio Leone declared it natural.
I had accepted it.
Why wouldn’t I?
My father was sixty-seven.
He smoked.
He drank.
He lived under stress.
Carlo whispered, “I’m no longer sure.”
A knock came.
A guard entered.
“Boss, Marco is asking for Elena.”
Every instinct sharpened.
“Why?”
“He says he’ll only speak if she comes.”
Elena’s face lost color.
“No.”
I looked at the guard.
“Tell him no.”
The guard hesitated.
“He said if she doesn’t come in five minutes, you’ll never find the second device.”
My blood cooled.
“What second device?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Elena looked at Sofia.
Then at me.
“I’ll go.”
“No.”
“You need to know.”
“He threatened you.”
“Yes.”
“Which is why you’re not getting near him.”
She stepped closer.
“If Sofia hadn’t heard him, you would be dead tonight.”
I said nothing.
Elena continued.
“If I can get him talking, let me.”
I hated the idea.
I hated more that she was right.
We moved Marco to an interrogation room behind reinforced glass.
Elena sat opposite him.
I listened from the next room.
Marco looked exhausted.
But when Elena entered, something in his expression softened.
“I told you to keep Sofia away from the garden.”
“You threatened my daughter.”
“I was trying to keep her alive.”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“By helping murder Alessandro?”
Marco closed his eyes.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
He looked toward the hidden camera.
He knew I was listening.
“I was never going to let the gas reach the servants’ wing.”
“How generous.”
“Elena.”
“Where’s the second device?”
Marco leaned forward.
“In Sofia’s room.”
I moved before he finished.
Then Marco shouted toward the glass:
“Don’t open her music box!”
I stopped.
My blood ran cold.
May you like
Sofia’s music box had been given to her three days earlier.
By Carlo Ventresca.
