Chapter 12 - His Brother’s Office
The penthouse floor of Rinaldi headquarters was empty when they arrived.
Too empty.
Carlo’s assistant had gone home. The cleaning crew had been dismissed. Security cameras on the executive level had been disabled ten minutes earlier.
Marco swore.
“Inside access.”
They found Alessia’s phone on Carlo’s desk.
Beside it sat her mother’s ring and the missing flash drive.
Alessia stared.
“This is staged.”
Valerio agreed.
A hidden speaker clicked on.
Veronica’s voice filled the office.
“Finally.”
Valerio looked toward the ceiling.
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere your men are not.”
Alessia picked up the flash drive.
“You wanted the trust appendix. Why give this back?”
“Because you’ve already seen enough to ruin Cesare.”
Everyone froze.
Valerio said, “So C is Cesare.”
Veronica laughed.
“No.”
The speaker went silent.
Then the private office door opened.
Carlo stumbled out with blood on his shirt.
Valerio caught him before he fell.
“Carlo.”
“Not mine,” Carlo gasped.
The blood belonged to one of his security men, found unconscious in the stairwell.
Carlo had been locked inside his private bathroom for nearly an hour.
“Veronica was here?” Alessia asked.
Carlo nodded.
“With Cesare?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Carlo looked at Sofia, who had arrived behind them.
His face twisted.
“Mom.”
The room went dead still.
Sofia stepped forward. “What did you say?”
Carlo pointed toward the desk.
“She used your access card.”
Sofia’s hand went to her necklace.
“My card is in my purse.”
Marco checked.
It was there.
Then he held the card to the light.
The embedded chip had been replaced.
A duplicate existed.
Alessia’s flash drive contained the missing ledgers. One encrypted folder had been added.
Nathan’s laptop opened it using a password hidden in the file metadata.
The folder contained video.
Old security footage.
Date: the night of Alessia’s car crash.
The camera showed the Rinaldi garage.
A man approached Alessia’s car.
He wore gloves.
He bent beneath the hood.
Then he turned toward the camera.
May you like
It was not Cesare.
It was Valerio’s late father, Vittorio Rinaldi.
