Chapter 5 - What Titan Was Protecting
They entered through an old maintenance tunnel beneath the east garden.
The estate was silent.
Too silent.
Victor’s team secured the lower floor.
Grace found the dogs in the courtyard.
All six were alive.
Sedated.
She dropped beside Titan.
His breathing was slow but steady.
“Hey, big guy.”
His eyelid moved.
Grace stroked his head.
“You’re okay.”
Luca watched her.
Something tightened in his chest.
He had spent his entire adult life believing affection created vulnerabilities.
Grace seemed to prove the opposite.
Caring made her brave.
Victor’s voice came through Luca’s earpiece.
“Edwin’s gone.”
Matteo too.
But they had left something behind.
A fire had started in the hidden room.
It was extinguished quickly.
The remaining papers were damaged.
Grace returned to Titan.
The dog was waking.
He stood unsteadily.
Then, strangely, began pulling toward the fountain.
“Titan?”
He scratched at a stone near the fountain base.
Grace remembered the photograph.
Isabella.
Evelyn.
The dog.
All standing here.
“Luca.”
Together they removed a loose marble panel.
Inside was a waterproof container.
A final cassette.
And a notebook.
Isabella’s diary.
The final pages answered the question Luca had carried for twenty years.
Isabella had discovered Edwin was manipulating her medication.
Not enough to kill her immediately.
Enough to weaken her.
She had stopped taking it.
But the damage had already begun.
She knew she might die.
She wrote that Matteo had ordered the financial theft.
But Edwin had escalated it.
Edwin wanted control.
And when Isabella threatened to expose them, Edwin had acted independently.
Matteo had discovered what Edwin was doing too late.
Luca stared.
“Matteo didn’t kill her.”
“No,” Grace said.
“But he protected the man who did.”
That distinction mattered little.
Victor found something else.
A recent transaction.
Edwin had been moving money again.
Matteo had returned because he discovered it.
The two conspirators were no longer partners.
They were enemies.
Then Luca’s phone rang.
Matteo.
Luca answered.
“Where are you?”
Matteo sounded exhausted.
“You found Isabella’s diary.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know.”
“You protected Edwin.”
“I protected the family.”
“You protected yourself.”
Silence.
Then Matteo said something unexpected.
“Edwin has Grace’s father.”
Grace froze.
Daniel.
Matteo continued.
“He followed you to the farmhouse.”
Grace grabbed the phone.
“Where?”
“Old Moretti shipping warehouse. Pier fourteen.”
Luca looked at Victor.
It could be a trap.
Probably was.
But Daniel was missing.
Grace headed for the door.
Luca caught her hand.
“You are not going there alone.”
She looked down at his hand around hers.
Then up at him.
“Why do you care so much?”
Luca had no prepared answer.
That was unusual.
Finally he said, “Because you walked into my house and everything that had been dead in it started waking up.”
Grace stared at him.
The words landed somewhere neither of them was ready to examine.
Titan pushed his head between them.
Grace laughed despite herself.
Luca looked down.
“Terrible timing.”
Titan wagged his tail.
Then Victor entered.
“We found Daniel’s car.”
“Where?”
“Pier fourteen.”
Grace’s smile disappeared.
Victor continued.
“And there’s something else.”
He showed Luca security footage from a road camera.
Edwin’s vehicle entered the warehouse district.
Ten minutes later Matteo’s vehicle followed.
Luca frowned.
“Why would Matteo go after him?”
Victor enlarged the final frame.
Matteo was not alone.
In the passenger seat sat someone Luca recognized.
His father’s former attorney.
A man everyone believed had died fifteen years earlier.
Luca stared at the screen.
Grace whispered, “How many dead people are actually alive in this family?”
Luca looked toward the dark windows.
Apparently, one more secret was waiting.
May you like
And this one had been hiding longer than all the others.
---
