Chapter 6 - The Father in the Walls
Matteo did not breathe.
Lorenzo’s voice was older than he remembered, but not weaker.
The same measured rhythm.
The same quiet certainty that had terrified rooms into silence.
“You’re dead,” Matteo said.
A soft chuckle came through the speakers.
“A surprisingly useful condition.”
Isabella looked toward the ceiling.
“Where are you?”
“Still asking questions you know I won’t answer, Isabella.”
Her jaw tightened.
Matteo stepped toward a camera.
“You attacked my house.”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“Competitors.”
“Celeste?”
“An employee who forgot who employed her.”
Celeste stared at the nearest camera.
“I never worked for you.”
“Everyone in Bellini House worked for me.”
Celeste’s face turned rigid.
“You killed my sister.”
“No. Your sister died giving birth.”
“You took her child.”
Lorenzo paused.
“Which one?”
The words destroyed her.
Celeste staggered backward.
Elena caught her before she fell.
“What does that mean?” Celeste whispered.
Lorenzo ignored her.
“Matteo, you have made the predictable error of confusing family history with moral truth. Your mother sees victims. I built survival.”
“You trafficked children.”
“I prevented dynasties from collapsing.”
“You rewrote identities.”
“I protected assets from chaos.”
Matteo looked at Sofia.
“She is not an asset.”
“No.”
Lorenzo’s voice softened.
“She is extraordinary.”
Elena stood.
“If you ever come near my daughter—”
“Your daughter?”
Elena froze.
Lorenzo laughed quietly.
“That is the problem with lies repeated lovingly. Eventually, they become religion.”
Elena’s face drained.
Matteo shouted, “Enough.”
The monitors came back on.
One image.
A man seated in a dark room.
His face was hidden.
Silver hair.
Dark suit.
A hand resting on a cane.
Lorenzo.
Alive.
Matteo stared.
“Show your face.”
“In time.”
“Coward.”
“Anger was always your weakest trait.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know your resting heart rate.”
The image changed.
Medical charts.
Matteo’s name.
Bloodwork.
Scans.
Psychological evaluations.
Dates spanning thirty years.
Gabriel whispered, “Jesus.”
“You monitored me.”
“Of course.”
Matteo’s hands curled.
Lorenzo continued.
“You were never merely my son. You were proof the program could produce what it promised.”
“What did it promise?”
“A stable heir.”
Matteo stared.
“You experimented on me?”
“Not in the primitive way you’re imagining.”
Isabella whispered, “Don’t listen.”
Lorenzo laughed.
“She always preferred emotion to facts.”
Matteo turned to Isabella.
“Tell me.”
She looked away.
“TELL ME.”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“You were conceived naturally.”
Matteo waited.
“But during pregnancy, Lorenzo arranged fetal genetic screening. They discovered markers they believed correlated with certain conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“Cardiac disease. Addiction risk. Mood instability.”
Matteo’s stomach twisted.
“Believed?”
“The science was incomplete.”
“What did they do?”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“They administered experimental gene-targeted therapies.”
Elena whispered, “Before he was born?”
“Yes.”
Matteo stared at his own hands.
Lorenzo’s voice returned.
“And he lived.”
Matteo looked up.
“So I’m your experiment.”
“No. You are my success.”
Matteo grabbed a metal chair and hurled it into the monitor.
The screen shattered.
Sofia screamed.
Matteo stopped instantly.
He turned.
The little girl had buried her face against Elena.
Matteo’s anger vanished into shame.
He stepped back.
“I’m sorry.”
Sofia peeked out.
“Are you mad?”
“Yes.”
“At me?”
“No.”
She looked at the broken screen.
“Good.”
Even Elena smiled faintly.
Then the emergency lights flashed.
Isabella rushed to a console.
“He’s locking the level.”
Gabriel checked the elevator.
The doors would not open.
David swore.
Lorenzo’s voice came from another speaker.
“There is one reason I allowed you to find this place.”
Matteo looked up.
“What?”
“To choose.”
A metal cabinet unlocked.
Inside were two syringes.
A sealed case.
And a tablet.
Isabella whispered, “No.”
Lorenzo continued.
“Within six hours, authorities will receive documentation showing that you have embezzled from your own companies, bribed foreign officials, and suffered a psychiatric breakdown.”
Gabriel said, “Fabricated.”
“Convincingly.”
“Why?”
“To activate the Heir Protocol.”
Matteo looked at Sofia.
“What do you want?”
“Bring Sofia to me.”
“No.”
“In return, I erase the evidence and return the Bellini network to you.”
Matteo laughed coldly.
“You think I care about your network?”
“You will when the federal government freezes every account, every property, every salary, every medical insurance policy connected to Bellini Holdings.”
Matteo stopped.
Thousands of employees.
Families.
Pensions.
Lorenzo knew exactly where to apply pressure.
“You built hostages into the company.”
“I built responsibility.”
Matteo stared at the camera.
“If I refuse?”
“Then the Bellini name dies, your employees lose everything, Elena becomes an accused kidnapper, and Sofia enters state custody.”
Elena went pale.
Lorenzo continued.
“And once she is in custody, others will reach her before I do.”
Silence.
Matteo asked, “Where are you?”
“Make the choice first.”
The screens changed.
A timer appeared.
05:59:59.
Counting down.
Sofia tugged Matteo’s sleeve.
He looked down.
She held out her teddy bear.
“You look sad.”
Matteo stared at it.
She pushed it toward him.
“You can hold Mr. Buttons.”
Elena’s eyes filled with tears.
Matteo took the bear.
Something hard pressed against his palm through the fabric.
He looked at Sofia.
“What’s inside?”
She shrugged.
“Mommy said never open him.”
Elena’s face changed.
“I never said that.”
Sofia looked confused.
“Yes, you did.”
“No, baby.”
“You said if the bad people came, give Mr. Buttons to the man with the black ring.”
Everyone looked at Matteo’s hand.
He wore the Bellini family signet ring.
Elena whispered, “I never told her that.”
Matteo tore a seam in the teddy bear.
Inside was a tiny silver flash drive.
Gabriel stared.
“Someone planted that on her.”
Isabella whispered, “Or someone prepared her.”
Matteo inserted the drive into an isolated terminal.
One file appeared.
A video.
The timestamp was from two days earlier.
Sofia appeared asleep in Elena’s room.
A figure entered.
Leaned over her.
Whispered something.
Then slipped the drive into the bear.
The figure turned toward the camera.
Celeste screamed.
May you like
It was Helena Vale.
The woman Elena had watched die six years earlier.
