Chapter 2 - Whispers in the Walls
Word Count: ~3,500 words
The estate’s private medical wing was heavily guarded. Two of Matteo's personal enforcers stood outside Elena’s room, while Sophie slept in an adjacent room, finally exhausted into peace after seeing her mother alive.
Matteo stood by the window, watching the rain lash against the glass. The Valenti syndicate was slipping through his fingers. For months, there had been rumors of a mole—someone leaking transport routes, offshore bank accounts, and safehouse locations to the rival Leone family.
He had suspected Celeste’s faction, but he had never imagined they would stoop to kidnapping his staff’s child or locking a loyal maid in a subterranean tomb.
A soft knock came at the door. It was Silvio, his underboss and oldest friend.
"The medic says she's stabilized, boss," Silvio said, walking in with a glass of scotch. "Dehydrated, severe exposure, but she'll make a full recovery. She's a tough girl."
Matteo took the glass but didn't drink. "What did the security team find on the cameras, Silvio?"
Silvio rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. "That’s the thing, Matteo. The security feed for the western wing was wiped. Not just turned off—completely erased from the mainframe. Only three people have the bypass codes for that level of deletion."
"Me, you, and Celeste," Matteo muttered.
"And Celeste was at a charity gala on Tuesday night," Silvio pointed out. "She has a dozen high-society witnesses who can swear she was miles away when Elena disappeared."
"Elena said something before she passed out," Matteo said, turning away from the window. "She told me there are papers under the floorboards in the nursery. Sophie's room."
Silvio’s brow furrowed. "What kind of papers would a maid have that would get her locked in a dungeon?"
"Let’s go find out."
The nursery was located on the third floor of the east wing. It was a bright, cheerful room, a stark contrast to the grim reality of the rest of the Valenti estate.
Matteo locked the door behind them. He knelt by the small white bed, looking at the polished oak floorboards. He knocked on them until he heard a hollow sound near the closet. Using a pocket knife, he pried up the loose board.
Deep inside the recess lay a thick, yellowed envelope sealed with red wax bearing the old Valenti crest—but not his father’s crest. This was his grandfather’s personal seal, one that hadn’t been used in forty years.
Matteo broke the seal and pulled out the documents. As he scanned the elegant, cursive handwriting and the official DNA test results attached to the back, his breath hitched.
Silvio leaned over. "What is it?"
Matteo’s grip tightened on the paper, wrinkling the edges. "My father didn't adopt Sophie's mother, Elena, out of charity, Silvio. Elena isn't just the maid's daughter. She is my father's daughter. My half-sister."
Silvio gasped. "Which means..."
"Which means Sophie is my niece," Matteo said, his eyes burning with a sudden, lethal fire. "And more importantly... according to my grandfather’s original will, if my father had a legitimate or bloodline daughter, fifty percent of the Valenti dynasty’s offshore trust—the trust Celeste has been trying to access for five years—belongs to Elena."
"Celeste found out," Silvio realized, his voice hushed. "If Elena dies, the money reverts entirely to Celeste as the surviving widow. She didn't want to just fire Elena. She wanted her to disappear. Permanently."
"And she used someone inside my inner circle to do it," Matteo said, looking directly at Silvio. "Because Celeste doesn't know how to bypass the security mainframe. But her lover does."
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Before Silvio could react, Matteo drew his gun and aimed it directly at Silvio’s chest.
"You have five seconds to tell me how much Celeste is paying you, Silvio. Or I’ll find out from your corpse."
