Chapter 4 - The Man Inside the Walls
Gabriel doubled my security.
I hated it.
Two armed men outside my room.
One followed me to breakfast.
Another waited outside the bathroom.
“I can’t live like this,” I told Gabriel.
“You can if the alternative is dying.”
“I had a life before this house.”
He looked at me.
“Someone entered that life and stole your mother’s photograph.”
That ended the argument.
Vincent remained missing.
Every piece of evidence pointed toward him.
His financial records showed large payments to Keller.
His administrator credentials had been used to erase security footage.
His escape through the wine-cellar tunnel made him look guiltier still.
Then Carmine found him.
Vincent was unconscious inside an abandoned Falcone warehouse in Brooklyn.
His hands were bound.
He had been missing for three days.
Doctors determined he had been drugged before Gabriel’s lockdown.
Someone else had used the tunnel.
Someone else had used Vincent’s credentials.
When Vincent woke, he swore he had never paid Keller.
His bank accounts had been manipulated.
Gabriel believed nothing without evidence.
Neither did I.
But one detail bothered me.
“Why escape through the tunnel,” I asked Carmine, “if you already erased the cameras?”
He stared at me.
“You think whoever did this wanted us to find the tunnel.”
“Yes.”
Vincent was being framed.
That meant the real traitor was still close.
I returned to my room that evening.
The guard outside was missing.
I stopped.
The door was open.
I had left it closed.
Every instinct told me to run.
Then I heard something inside.
My mother’s voice.
“Sofia?”
I froze.
Impossible.
“Sofia, sweetheart?”
It came again.
A recording.
I stepped backward.
A hand covered my mouth.
Someone dragged me into the dark room.
I kicked.
An arm locked around my chest.
“Stop looking into Meridian,” a man whispered.
I bit his hand.
He cursed.
I slammed my heel down.
His grip loosened.
I ran toward the door.
He caught my uniform.
Fabric tore.
Then another figure appeared in the hallway.
Gabriel.
He hit the attacker once with his good arm.
It was enough.
The man stumbled.
Guards arrived seconds later.
They pinned him down.
Gabriel stood between us, breathing hard.
His injured shoulder had started bleeding through the bandage.
“You tore your wound,” I said.
He ignored me.
“Who sent you?”
The attacker smiled.
Gabriel’s expression became terrifying.
I touched his arm.
“Don’t.”
He looked at me.
“If you hurt him, we may never know who sent him.”
That stopped him.
Carmine arrived.
The attacker was one of the estate’s temporary security contractors.
His name was Evan Pike.
He had been hired after the shooting.
By the head of security.
Daniel Mercer.
Mercer had served Gabriel for nine years.
When Carmine went looking for him, Mercer was gone.
His office safe was open.
Inside were forged access cards, copies of Vincent’s passwords and a duplicate of Matteo Rinaldi’s gold ring.
The mystery of the hallway footage was solved.
Mercer had impersonated Matteo.
But why?
Carmine searched his computer.
One encrypted folder contained photographs of Meridian.
Another contained my mother.
Pictures taken years apart.
Lucia leaving the factory.
Lucia outside our apartment.
Lucia entering a hospital.
Then one final photograph.
Her funeral.
I sat down.
Gabriel stood beside me.
Someone had watched my mother for years.
Mercer had also stored audio recordings.
In one, a male voice said:
“Lucia kept copies. Find them before the girl does.”
The girl.
Me.
Gabriel ordered every box from my apartment brought to the estate.
We searched until morning.
Nothing.
Then I remembered my mother’s sewing machine.
She had refused to throw it away even after Meridian closed.
It sat in storage.
Carmine retrieved it.
Inside the wooden base was a hidden compartment.
My mother had left a ledger.
Names.
Payments.
Chemical shipments.
And photographs.
Victor Rinaldi appeared repeatedly.
So did Daniel Mercer.
But Mercer had been only nineteen when Meridian closed.
A courier.
A nobody.
The final page contained one name written in red.
MATTEO RINALDI KNOWS EVERYTHING.
Carmine stared.
Gabriel said nothing for a long time.
His godfather.
His father’s oldest friend.
The man who had attended every Falcone funeral and wedding for three decades.
Gabriel ordered Matteo brought in.
The old man arrived without resistance.
When Gabriel placed Lucia’s ledger in front of him, Matteo closed his eyes.
“You knew,” Gabriel said.
“Yes.”
“About Victor?”
“Yes.”
“About the chemicals?”
“Yes.”
“About Lucia?”
Matteo looked at me.
“Yes.”
I felt sick.
“Did you kill my mother?”
“No.”
“Did your brother?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Matteo looked toward Gabriel.
“Your father.”
The room stopped.
Gabriel’s expression emptied.
“My father protected Lucia.”
“No,” Matteo said. “Your father protected the family.”
He explained.
Salvatore Falcone discovered Victor Rinaldi’s illegal operation.
But exposing everything would have implicated Falcone shipping companies.
So Salvatore buried part of the evidence.
Lucia refused to remain silent.
He had her watched.
Threatened.
But Matteo claimed Salvatore never ordered her death.
My mother’s later illness had been natural—or perhaps caused by years of chemical exposure.
Then Matteo said something worse.
“Daniel Mercer wasn’t working for me.”
“Who was he working for?” Carmine asked.
Matteo looked at Gabriel.
“Someone who believes your father stole an empire that belonged to him.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
Before Matteo could answer, the lights died.
Gunfire erupted downstairs.
Carmine shoved me behind a stone column.
Emergency lights flashed red.
Men shouted.
Gabriel drew a pistol.
Then the doors opened.
Daniel Mercer walked inside with six armed men.
But he wasn’t leading them.
The man behind him was older.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
He looked at Gabriel almost affectionately.
Gabriel lowered his weapon half an inch.
Shock crossed his face.
“Uncle?”
The stranger smiled.
And I finally understood why Gabriel had never suspected him.
Because according to every Falcone family record, Salvatore Falcone’s older brother, Antonio, had been dead for twenty-seven years.
Yet Antonio Falcone was standing in front of us.
May you like
Alive.
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