Chapter 3 - Monitor Four
The man speaking to the stranger was my cousin, Luca Rossi.
For years, Luca had been the kind of relative nobody noticed.
He wasn't powerful enough to threaten me.
He wasn't reckless enough to embarrass the family.
He handled logistics, business permits, construction contracts, and the hundred ordinary tasks that kept extraordinary amounts of money moving.
Elena liked him.
Matteo called him Uncle Luca even though technically he was a second cousin.
He had been at my wedding.
He had carried Matteo on his shoulders at his fifth birthday.
And on security footage from seven months before the bombing, Luca stood beside a man wearing red shoelaces and a jacket marked with a silver bird.
I watched the clip twenty-three times.
No audio.
Thirty-seven seconds.
Luca approached.
The stranger handed him something small.
Luca slipped it into his pocket.
They separated.
That was all.
It proved nothing.
In my world, proving nothing was often enough to get a man buried.
But Matteo was watching me now.
That changed everything.
At seven sharp, Clara arrived.
She entered Matteo's room carrying two paper bags.
“What is that?” he asked.
His voice was still weak from disuse.
But he was speaking.
Every word felt miraculous.
“Breakfast.”
“We have breakfast.”
“You have expensive breakfast.”
She unpacked pancakes shaped like badly drawn dinosaurs.
“These are superior.”
Matteo stared at them.
Then he smiled.
I was watching through Monitor Four.
Again.
Clara glanced subtly toward the camera.
I frowned.
There was no way she could know.
The lens was concealed inside a smoke detector housing.
She sat beside Matteo.
“Your dad downstairs?”
Matteo nodded.
“Watching?”
My hand stopped over my coffee.
Matteo whispered, “Probably.”
Clara looked directly at the smoke detector.
Then she waved.
I nearly choked.
An hour later, I met her in the hallway.
“How?”
“How what?”
“You found the camera.”
She shrugged.
“It's the only smoke detector in the room with no manufacturer label.”
“That was your clue?”
“And it clicks when the infrared switches.”
“You can hear that?”
“No.”
She smiled slightly.
“But now I know it does.”
I stared at her.
She had tricked me.
“You're very comfortable lying to me.”
“I prefer testing theories.”
“Do you object to the cameras?”
“I object to pretending they aren't there.”
“They keep Matteo safe.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
She stepped closer.
“Who keeps him safe from thinking his father trusts a machine more than him?”
That irritated me because it was accurate.
“I don't have time for philosophy.”
“Good. Neither does he.”
Then she walked past me.
I turned.
“Clara.”
She stopped.
“Why did you disappear for two years?”
Her shoulders stiffened.
First time I had seen genuine fear in her.
“I told you. Personal reasons.”
“That wasn't an answer.”
“It was the only one you're getting.”
“For now.”
She faced me.
“Are you threatening me?”
“No.”
“Yes, you are.”
I lowered my voice.
“Someone tried to kill my family. My son remembers details. You arrive, and within four days he speaks for the first time in a year.”
“And that makes me suspicious?”
“Everything makes me suspicious.”
Clara studied me for several seconds.
Then she said, “That's probably why you're alive.”
She left.
Her answer should have satisfied me.
It didn't.
I assigned Dominic to look deeper into her history without telling him why.
That afternoon, Matteo asked to go outside.
Clara came downstairs to find me.
“He wants the garden.”
“No.”
She crossed her arms.
“You heard me.”
“There are stairs.”
“We have ramps.”
“Storm damage.”
“The east terrace is clear.”
“Security risk.”
“Your estate has more armed guards than a small embassy.”
“No.”
She stared.
“What exactly are you afraid of?”
“Everything.”
That answer surprised both of us.
I looked away.
Clara's expression softened.
“He can't spend his childhood behind reinforced glass.”
“He almost died outside these walls.”
“He almost died inside an armored vehicle surrounded by guards.”
I turned sharply.
She continued before I could respond.
“You cannot make risk disappear.”
“I can reduce it.”
“And if reducing it removes everything that feels like living?”
I hated her questions.
Mostly because Matteo had stopped asking me any.
Twenty minutes later, six guards surrounded the east garden while Matteo rolled his chair into the sunlight.
His face changed.
Warm autumn light touched his skin.
Wind moved his hair.
He tilted his head back.
For a moment he looked like the boy from before.
Then Clara picked up a fallen leaf and dropped it on his head.
Matteo glared.
She added another.
“What are you doing?”
“Improving you.”
He laughed.
A real laugh.
I stood behind the glass doors listening to something I had thought was gone forever.
Dominic appeared beside me.
“You should go out there.”
“I am watching.”
“That's not the same thing.”
Everyone had apparently decided to become Clara.
“What did you find on her?”
His expression changed.
“That's why I'm here.”
I looked at him.
“The two-year gap isn't empty.”
“What happened?”
“She worked privately for someone.”
“Who?”
“That's the problem.”
Dominic handed me a file.
The first page contained a photograph.
Clara.
Two years younger.
Standing beside a hospital bed.
A teenage girl lay under blankets.
Behind them stood a man whose face I recognized immediately.
Dr. Samuel Hayes.
Elena's neurologist.
The physician who had treated my wife secretly during the six months before she died.
May you like
A man who disappeared three days after the bombing.
And suddenly Clara's presence in my house stopped looking like coincidence.
