LOGINSofia found Lorenzo still hunched over the security footage, in the study again that evening, as his eyes also scrutinized the folder from the day before that had Dante's man, the traitor, still sitting untouched beside Adrian Moretti's photograph which has been pushed to the corner of the desk like it could wait. "You should eat something," she said. "I already did.” "Ohh…right." His eyes stayed fixed on the monitor as it cycled silently through the feeds from the gate, the garden and the long gravel drive. "Marco's spiraling," Sofia said, taking the seat across from him and folding her hands. " He's not, he's just thorough." "I know, Lorenzo but then there's a difference between thorough and obsessed." Her voice had an edge to it now. "I watched him send four separate messages to a contact in Milan this morning requesting satellite coverage of the estate. Satellite coverage! Lorenzo, for just one man who stood near a tree line for ninety seconds." "Would you rather he did no
By morning, the villa had taken on a completely new face. There were new cameras everywhere on the outer wall in places that hadn't held cameras the day before, they were mounted at sharper angles that previously held blind spots nobody saw angles until last night. Two additional guards were stationed on the perimeter as they walked in slow, overlapping steps instead of one. The main gate, which had once opened for family cars without as much as a glance from the men stationed there, now required a code, radio call, and visual confirmation from two separate posts before it was allowed to move an inch.Lorenzo stood at the study window with an untouched cup of coffee as he watched the tree line where the figure had vanished the night before over and over again. It remained green and still exactly the way it always had been and the sight of it alone made the back of his neck prickle.Marco entered without knocking, he was clutching an ipad in one hand while dark circles carved deep u
At the top of the folder was titled, Priority One and without wasting further time, Lorenzo opened the file. Inside it was a single sheet of paper that had a photograph clipped to it's corner. A name typed beneath it in plain black ink.Marco read it over his shoulder and went very still."That's not possible.""It is," Sofia said quietly.Lorenzo said nothing at all because the man in the photograph wasn't a stranger or one of the men who had walked into the tunnels expecting Lorenzo not to walk out alive. He wasn't hired muscle or a rival executive circling for scraps. This one was Dante's man.Lorenzo could still remember him standing at his father's shoulder in a dozen boardrooms, the way his voice explained logistics contracts during their business dinners like family business still echoed in his head. His father had trusted him with numbers most executives never saw."He's been feeding information to Moretti for past seven years," Sofia said. "There were wire transfers routed t
"Now."Thar single word seemed lingered deep and hard in the room, as it hung between the three of them like the beginning of a war waiting for the “open fire" signal.Marco was the first to move. He walked to the study door and shut the door, turning the lock with a quiet click before pulling the curtains of the windows overlooking the garden. Outside, the glimmering sunlight still bathed the family villa, as Matteo's happy giggles drifted faintly through the glass. Marco allowed himself to listen to the sound for a little moment, letting the sound reminding him of the every reason none of them could afford to fail. When he turned back, the warmth from the dining room was gone, its atmosphere shifting to that of a command room.Lorenzo remained standing behind the desk, as he let his eyes rest on Adrian Moretti's photograph. The expression in his face was calm but Sofia recognized the look immediately. She had seen it years ago, a couple of times inside boardrooms where billion-dol
The study fell into complete silence as Lorenzo continued staring at the forged signature as though he was willing the paper itself to suddenly reveal the hand that had written it. The elegant curves, the deliberate pressure of the pen, even the slight flourish beneath the final letter were identical to his own.It was perfect, painfully so. He lowered the document onto the desk with extraordinary care.Then, without looking up, he asked a single question."Who did this?"he asked, the calmness in his voice unsettling Marco far more than when Lorenzo had shouted."I want names."Marco stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Sofia."And you'll have them, just relax."Sofia reached for the laptop resting beside the folders and turned it toward them, the screen illuminated the dimly lit study, she clicked on it and a photograph appeared.A man in an expensive charcoal suit was climbing out of a black sedan, surrounded by security personnel as he entered a private building through a rear entran
The warmth that had filled the dining room moments earlier vanished with that single sentence."…someone has been destroying your empire."No one spoke.Lorenzo's eyes remained fixed on Sofia, as he searched her face for even the tiniest hint that she might be exaggerating or perhaps the long months of isolation had sharpened her suspicions more than the facts deserved. Instead, he found something far more unsettling.The certainty of all of it was etched strongly on her face. She held his gaze without blinking, and that alone told him all that he needed to know. Sofia had never been a woman who spoke carelessly. If she had chosen those words, then she must also have chosen them after exhausting every possibility that they might be wrong.Around the table, the easy laughter that Matteo had inspired only moments before faded into an uneasy silence.Marco was the first to notice the subtle change in Lorenzo's expression.His smile had disappeared and was now replaced by the calm, unread
The discovery of the graduation clipping still stayed with the house way after the conversation had ended. The following morning, nobody really said much about it and yet its presence was still felt, it lingered in the pauses between conversations over breakfast and even followed Lorenzo through t
By the time they started the drive back from the Observatory, the sky was slowly turning gold and nobody spoke much causing the silence inside the car to be quite unfamiliar. A lot had happened in too little time, and everyone seemed to be carrying their own version of it.Matteo had fallen asleep
Andre slowly walked to the far side of the observatory, his footsteps tapping softly against the dust-covered floor and for a moment, nobody seemed to pay much attention to him.Matteo was still standing beside Lorenzo, earnestly talking about his dinosaur, Bruno and explaining very seriously how t
Ricci raised his gun toward the corridor while Marco instinctively moved in front of Isabella and Matteo on instinct, his face hardening beneath the emergency lights. Lorenzo just remained still, watching and waiting for the voice to have a face. “Why do you always survive things you shouldn’t h







