Chapter 4: The Key Nora Left Behind
Matteo pressed the elevator button, but Lena caught his wrist.
“The message says to bring you.
That means you’re staying where I can see you.”
“You think I arranged this?”
“I think my sister trusted you and never came home.”
The hotel manager stepped from the stairwell.
His name badge read VICTOR HALE, and his face looked ten years older than it had at dinner.
“Sophie wasn’t taken,” he said.
“Not yet.”
Lena grabbed his jacket.
“Where is she?”
“With my wife in the laundry office.
I saw a man waiting beside the school gate.
He had Miss Vitali’s driver’s badge.”
“Take me to her.”
Victor led them down two flights and unlocked a windowless office.
Sophie rushed out from behind a desk and wrapped both arms around Lena.
“Aunt Lena, that man said you were sick.”
“I’m here.” Lena dropped to her knees.
“Look at me, sweetheart.
I’m right here.”
Sophie touched Matteo’s coat, still draped over Lena’s arm.
“Are they taking you away like they took Mommy?”
Lena’s mouth opened, but no sound came.
Her shoulders folded, and the coat slipped to the floor.
Matteo knelt beside them.
“No one is taking your aunt anywhere.”
“You can’t promise that,” Lena whispered.
“I can promise she won’t face them alone.”
Victor’s wife, Ruth, placed a paper cup of water in Lena’s hand.
“Drink.
Then listen to my husband.”
Victor removed his name badge.
A small brass key had been taped behind it.
“Nora gave me this the night she disappeared,” he said.
“She told me to keep it until someone asked about the black ledger.”
“You knew her?” Lena demanded.
“She found hotel invoices I was ordered to approve.
I told her to forget them.” Victor looked at Sophie.
“She said forgetting was how powerful people stayed powerful.”
“Why did you fire me tonight?”
“Alisandre pays my son’s medical bills.
She said they would stop if I disobeyed.”
Matteo rose.
“And the recording?”
“I erased the dining-room file.” Victor held up the key.
“But the hotel system makes a hidden backup before deletion.
Nora taught me where.”
They crossed to the staff lockers.
Victor opened locker 317 and removed a flash drive, a photograph, and a sealed envelope.
Lena picked up the photograph.
Nora stood beside a smiling young man whose eyes looked painfully like Matteo’s.
“Who is he?”
Matteo took one step back.
“My younger brother, Gabriel.”
Sophie leaned over Lena’s arm.
“That’s my daddy.”
Matteo stared at the little girl.
Lena tore open the envelope.
Inside was a laboratory report and a letter addressed to Matteo Duca.
Her fingers shook over the first line.
Matteo read it aloud.
“If anything happens to me, protect Gabriel’s daughter from the Vitalis—and from your father.”
A sound came from the doorway.
Ruth stood there with her phone raised.
May you like
“Someone just locked the building from the outside.”
Then smoke began curling beneath the laundry-room door.
