Chapter 3 - The Woman Behind the Voice
The woman called again at midnight.
“You found the symbol.”
I was standing alone in my study.
“How do you know?”
“I know everything about your house.”
“Where is Isabella?”
“Alive.”
My chest loosened slightly.
“Let me speak to her.”
“No.”
“Then give me proof.”
A short silence.
Then came a recording.
Isabella's voice.
“Luca, if you hear this, don't come looking for me.”
My heart twisted.
The recording continued.
“This isn't your fault.”
I knew immediately it wasn't live.
It had been recorded.
But it was enough to make me realize she was still fighting.
The woman returned.
“She asked me to give you a message.”
“What message?”
“She said she hopes you remember the first promise you ever made her.”
I closed my eyes.
Our wedding day.
She had asked me one question.
What happens when you're afraid?
I had answered:
“I'll still come for you.”
I had forgotten.
Until now.
I spent the next morning investigating the symbol.
My father's archives were sealed.
Most of them had been untouched since his death.
Marco and I opened a secure room beneath the main headquarters.
Inside were boxes.
Ledgers.
Photographs.
Letters.
One photograph stopped me.
My father stood beside a woman.
I didn't recognize her.
Marco looked closer.
“That's Isabella's mother.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“She worked for him.”
I grabbed the photograph.
On the back was a date.
Twenty-two years ago.
Before Isabella and I had met.
Before I had even finished school.
I kept digging.
The records showed that Isabella's mother had been an accountant for a company secretly controlled by my father.
She had discovered suspicious financial transfers.
She confronted him.
Then she disappeared from the company.
Three years later, she married Isabella's father.
Six years after that, Isabella's father vanished.
I stared at the documents.
My entire understanding of Isabella's family was wrong.
Marco found another folder.
Inside was a handwritten confession.
It had been written by my father.
He admitted that he had once been involved with a covert financial network.
A group called The Circle.
They controlled contracts, politicians, port authorities, and criminal organizations across several cities.
My father tried to leave.
The Circle refused.
They threatened his family.
So he made a deal.
He would help them disappear.
In exchange, they would leave us alone.
But someone betrayed him.
The betrayal had come from inside his own organization.
A person named Elena Rinaldi.
Thomas Rinaldi's mother.
The same family.
My blood ran cold.
Elena had survived.
Her son had continued the work.
And Isabella's mother had been the one who uncovered it.
The woman calling me was Elena Rinaldi.
I found her old address.
It was abandoned.
But a neighbor remembered her.
“She had a daughter.”
I froze.
“Name?”
“Clara.”
Clara Rinaldi.
The florist's woman.
The silver bracelet.
I now understood who had taken Isabella.
But I didn't understand why.
We found Clara's apartment.
Empty.
The walls were covered with photographs.
Isabella.
Me.
My father.
Elena.
My mother.
There were photographs of me as a child.
Some taken through windows.
One showed my father carrying me.
Another showed Isabella's mother.
The apartment was a museum of obsession.
In the center was a single table.
A tape recorder rested on it.
I pressed play.
Clara's voice filled the room.
“My mother blamed your father.”
A pause.
“She blamed your family.”
Another pause.
“But she was wrong about one thing.”
The tape clicked.
“She thought the Rossi family destroyed ours.”
Then:
“My father destroyed himself.”
Clara explained that her family had spent years trying to recover money from The Circle.
But my father had hidden the evidence.
The final records were never found.
The Circle had been dismantled publicly.
But its money survived.
Someone had inherited it.
And that person was using Isabella to force me to recover it.
The tape ended.
Then another recording started.
Isabella.
“Luca, please listen.”
Her voice shook.
“I found something before I left the house.”
I leaned closer.
“There is a safe beneath the floor in my mother's old house.”
I froze.
“The code is something only you would know.”
She gave a number.
Our wedding date.
She had known I would find it.
The recording ended.
We returned to the townhouse.
Under the floorboards, there was indeed a safe.
Inside was a small black ledger.
But there was also something else.
A photograph.
My father.
Standing beside Isabella's father.
They were shaking hands.
Behind them stood Elena Rinaldi.
And a fourth man.
I stared at the fourth face.
My hands went numb.
It was my uncle, Matteo Rossi.
The man who had spent years teaching me how to protect my family.
The man who had told me never to trust outsiders.
The man who had attended my wedding.
He had been there from the beginning.
I returned to the mansion.
Matteo was waiting.
“You found it.”
I pointed the photograph at him.
“You took Isabella.”
He didn't deny it.
“No.”
I stared.
“You didn't?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
He smiled sadly.
“Someone you never considered.”
Before I could ask, the lights went out.
A gunshot exploded downstairs.
Marco shouted.
We ran toward the hall.
And there, standing beneath the chandelier, was Isabella.
Alive.
May you like
But holding a gun.
Pointed directly at me.
