Chapter 4 - The Rabbit on the Floor
They did not return to the kitchen.
Alessandro moved everyone to the private security room beneath the west wing, a place few employees knew existed. The walls were lined with screens showing every camera feed across the estate. Gates. Hallways. Garages. Gardens. Even the wine cellar.
Sophia sat with Emma on a leather chair, refusing to let go of her daughter.
Emma had stopped crying.
That almost frightened Sophia more.
The child simply held the torn rabbit and watched the adults with solemn eyes, as though she had learned too early that grown-ups could be dangerous.
Alessandro inserted Marco’s flash drive into an offline computer.
“No internet connection,” he told Matteo. “No network. Nothing leaves this room.”
Matteo nodded.
Dr. Royce stood behind them, arms folded.
The drive opened.
Four files appeared.
A video.
An audio recording.
A scanned document.
And a folder labeled: IF I DON’T WAKE UP.
Sophia covered her mouth.
Alessandro looked at her.
“Do you want to step outside?”
“No.” Her voice shook, but her eyes were fierce. “That was my husband.”
Alessandro clicked the video.
The screen filled with shaky footage.
Marco Alvarez appeared in a storage aisle wearing a night security jacket. He looked tired, nervous, and very much alive.
“Meu amor,” he whispered to the camera, speaking first in Portuguese before switching to English. “Sophia, if you see this, I’m sorry. I didn’t know who else to trust.”
Sophia made a broken sound.
Emma looked up. “Daddy?”
Sophia pulled her close. “Yes, baby.”
Marco’s face moved in the bluish warehouse light.
“I work at Duca Logistics Warehouse 12. Tonight I saw Mr. Raffaele Duca and Mrs. Beatrice Duca with two men I don’t know. They were moving sealed medical crates through private inventory. Not recorded. Not declared.”
Alessandro’s hand tightened on the desk.
Marco continued.
“They argued about Lorenzo Duca’s original will. I heard Mrs. Beatrice say Alessandro would never sign away voting control unless he was scared or dead.”
Matteo whispered, “God help us.”
The video shook as Marco turned the camera toward stacked crates. One was open. Inside were files, medical vials, and legal documents packed together.
Marco zoomed in on a folder.
DUCA FAMILY TRUST — ORIGINAL EXECUTED COPY.
Alessandro stopped breathing.
His father’s trust documents had disappeared after Lorenzo’s death.
The version presented to the board gave Alessandro control of the company, but left certain family assets under Beatrice’s management. Alessandro had never liked it, but the lawyers insisted it was valid.
Now he knew there had been another version.
Marco’s whisper grew frantic.
“I took copies. If they know, they’ll kill me. Sophia, take Emma and run. Don’t trust the job offer. Don’t trust—”
A noise sounded in the video.
Marco froze.
Then a woman’s voice echoed faintly.
“Mr. Alvarez?”
Beatrice.
Sophia began to cry silently.
Marco hid the camera. The view became half darkness, half concrete floor.
Footsteps approached.
Then Beatrice’s voice again, soft as velvet.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The video ended.
No one moved.
Alessandro clicked the audio file next.
Marco’s voice returned, this time weak and breathless.
“Sophia… I feel strange. I drank what they gave me. I thought it was medicine. Emma said it smelled bad. She cried. I should have listened.”
Sophia bent over Emma, shaking.
Alessandro stopped the audio.
He could not make her hear more.
Not yet.
He opened the scanned document.
It was a copy of Lorenzo Duca’s true trust amendment.
Alessandro read the first page.
Then the second.
Then the third.
By the end, his face had changed completely.
Matteo saw it.
“What is it, sir?”
Alessandro looked up.
“My father left Beatrice nothing.”
Dr. Royce’s eyebrows lifted.
“Nothing?”
“He removed her from every family trust six months before he died. He discovered financial theft.”
Raffaele had not just been greedy.
Beatrice had not just wanted influence.
They had stolen an empire piece by piece, then erased the man who found out.
And now they had tried to erase Alessandro too.
A security guard rushed into the room.
“Sir, we found Lady Beatrice.”
Alessandro stood.
“Where?”
The guard swallowed.
“She’s in the east drawing room.”
“Alone?”
“No, sir.”
The guard’s eyes flicked toward Sophia.
“She has Mrs. Alvarez’s personnel file, Emma’s birth certificate, and a phone connected to the police.”
Sophia stood so fast Emma cried out.
“What?”
The guard’s voice dropped.
“She’s accusing Mrs. Alvarez of poisoning your coffee.”
Sophia stared at Alessandro.
Alessandro’s eyes turned black with fury.
May you like
Beatrice had failed to take the child.
So now she would destroy the mother.
