Chapter 2 - The Sound of Treason
For forty-five minutes, the only sounds in the subterranean room were the soft snip of surgical scissors, the gentle hum of the ventilation fan, and Emma softly singing her nursery rhymes to her stuffed rabbit in the corner.
I tied off the final knot, cleaned the surrounding skin with saline, and taped a heavy sterile dressing over Lorenzo's side. His color was slowly returning, though his skin remained cold and clammy from the blood loss.
Lorenzo sat up slowly, leaning his back against the wall, his chest bound tightly in white gauze. He looked toward the corner where Emma was fast asleep on a pile of wool blankets, her thumb resting peacefully in her mouth.
"She is very quiet," Lorenzo remarked softly, his voice regaining its deep, quiet resonance.
"She learned to be quiet when we lived in the temporary housing shelters in Bergamo," I said, setting the bloody medical tools into the sink. "Noise brought trouble."
Lorenzo’s dark brows pulled together slightly. "A child should not have to learn that."
"A child learns what her life demands," I replied, wiping my hands. "Now, what is your plan, Mr. Duca? We cannot stay in this cellar forever. By morning, the estate staff will notice I am missing from the kitchen, and Beatrice’s men will search every inch of the grounds."
Lorenzo pointed his chin toward the heavy oak desk holding the antique communications console. "That radio system is wired directly into a private receiver inside the Duca security headquarters in downtown Milan. My cousin, Matteo, controls the garrison there. If I can reach him, he will bring forty armored vehicles to this estate within twenty minutes."
I walked over to the desk, flipping the heavy copper power switch on the console.
A low, amber light glowed behind the glass vacuum tubes, followed by a soft, static hiss.
"The line is active," I said, stepping back.
Lorenzo swung his legs off the table, wincing slightly as he pressed one hand against his wrapped ribs, and walked slowly to the desk. He picked up the heavy bakelite microphone, adjusted the frequency dial to a private channel, and pressed the talk switch.
"Matteo," Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a low, commanding register. "This is Lorenzo. Frequency Omega Seven."
Static filled the room for three long seconds.
Then, a clear, crisp voice crackled through the speaker. But it was not Matteo.
It was Beatrice Duca’s voice.
"Oh, Lorenzo," his stepmother’s smooth, icy laugh echoed through the small underground room, bouncing off the stone walls like a ghost. "Did you really think your father built this storm room without giving me the master monitoring codes?"
Lorenzo’s face turned completely to stone. He did not speak.
"Matteo is currently sitting in a holding cell at the central police station, my dear stepson," Beatrice continued smoothly, her tone filled with supreme satisfaction. "I filed a formal report three hours ago claiming he embezzled forty million euros from the family accounts. You are bleeding out in a ditch somewhere on the estate, and by nine o'clock this morning, the board of directors will unanimously vote me as the sole managing director of the Duca Trust."
Lorenzo held the microphone close to his lips. "You paid Marco."
"I paid everyone, Lorenzo," Beatrice purred. "Security, the local police captain, the board members, even your personal driver. You were always so much like your father—so rigid, so bound by old concepts of honor and family loyalty. You never understood that loyalty is simply a commodity with a fluctuating market price."
I stood beside the desk, my heart hammering against my ribs as I listened to the woman upstairs casually discuss the murder of the man standing beside me.
Then, my eyes fell on the side of the vintage radio console.
Mounted on the aluminum chassis was a small, military-grade reel-to-reel magnetic tape recording system, its two spools slowly spinning in synchronization with the incoming signal, a small red light glowing brightly beside the microphone jack: RECORDING ACTIVE.
I tapped Lorenzo’s arm, pointing directly to the spinning tape reel and then to the active line indicator.
Lorenzo’s dark eyes flicked to the recording deck, and a slow, lethal smile touched the corners of his mouth.
"You have made a mistake, Beatrice," Lorenzo said quietly into the microphone, keeping his tone weak and breathless, playing the part of a dying man.
"A mistake?" Beatrice laughed aloud, the sound perfectly clear and uncompressed on the magnetic tape. "My only mistake was not having Marco put a bullet through your forehead instead of your ribs. But it doesn't matter. The blood loss will finish you before dawn. Enjoy my father-in-law's cellar, Lorenzo. It will make a lovely final resting place."
The line went dead with a loud, sharp click.
Lorenzo immediately reached out, pressed the stop button on the recording deck, and pulled the small aluminum tape spool from the spindle.
He looked up at me, his eyes burning with a dangerous, brilliant fire.
"She just confessed to corporate treason, police bribery, and attempted murder on a master-grade encrypted audio recording," Lorenzo murmured.
"Which means nothing if we can't get that tape to someone who isn't on her payroll," I reminded him quietly.
Lorenzo looked at the tape in his hand, then turned his gaze toward the narrow stone staircase leading back up into the dark, rain-soaked world above.
"There is one man in Chicago who does not take Beatrice’s money," Lorenzo said softly. "Federal Prosecutor David Vance. But his office is twenty miles away, and every road out of this estate is blocked by armed men."
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I looked at Emma sleeping peacefully in the corner, then looked at Lorenzo’s bandaged side.
"Then we aren't going by the roads," I said.
