Chapter 5 - THE MAN INSIDE THE WALLS
The photograph of Emma changed the investigation from a search into a siege. Detective Moretti
ordered every vehicle on the estate inspected, every outbuilding cleared, and every employee
temporarily confined to verified areas. Alessandro’s private security was replaced by police teams
until each guard could be cleared. Motion sensors were placed along the perimeter, drones swept the
surrounding woods, and thermal cameras watched the grounds after sunset. Still, the most frightening
possibility remained that the photographer had not been outside the wall at all. The angle suggested
someone could have taken the picture from the abandoned orangery on the eastern side of the estate,
a building supposedly locked for years.
Moretti, Alessandro, and two officers searched the orangery just before dusk. Dust covered the tiled
floor, but a narrow path had been disturbed near the rear windows. Behind stacks of broken planters
they found a folding chair, bottled water, food wrappers, and a rifle case without a rifle. More
alarming was a set of printed floor plans of the main house, marked with times and arrows. Emma’s
bedroom was circled in red. A service tunnel dating back to the nineteenth century connected the
orangery basement to a storage room beneath the main villa. Alessandro had known of the tunnel as a
childhood curiosity, but it had been bricked up when he was a teenager. Someone had reopened it from
the inside.
The discovery meant Matteo had likely remained on the property after the police arrived. He had not
fled down the service road; he had disappeared beneath the house. For hours, officers searched
cellars and maintenance passages. Eventually they found a hidden room behind old wine racks. Inside
were surveillance monitors wired into the estate’s internal camera network, allowing Matteo to watch
hallways, kitchens, entrances, and several bedrooms. Alessandro stared at footage of his own life
moving across the screens and felt violated in a way money could not repair. Matteo had turned the
Romano estate into a theater and himself into the invisible audience.
A hard drive in the hidden room contained years of recordings. Some were mundane. Others were
devastating. One clip showed Sofia entering Vittorio’s old study months earlier and removing a small
metal box from behind a bookshelf. Another showed Isabella meeting Matteo in the laundry corridor
the night before Sofia died. Their conversation had no audio, but Isabella’s body language was
unmistakably angry. A later clip captured Matteo following Sofia out of the house. His car left
twelve minutes after hers. He returned two hours later in different clothes. The timing placed him
near the road where Sofia’s car went over the embankment.
Most crucially, the system recorded the morning of the poisoned breakfast from an angle no one knew
existed. Isabella entered the breakfast room alone and opened the packet Matteo had delivered. She
sprinkled a pale powder into the butter and stirred it carefully. Ten minutes later, after she left,
Matteo emerged from the service passage behind a wall panel. He carried an identical packet. He
removed the butter dish, scraped away the top layer, added another powder, and replaced the surface
so neatly that no one would notice. Then he wiped the counter and vanished. The footage proved
Isabella had participated in the sabotage but had not knowingly administered the toxin.
Alessandro watched the video twice. Relief was not the emotion he expected. Isabella had not tried
to kill him, but she had intended to drug him without consent. The distinction mattered legally and
morally, yet it did not restore what had been broken. Moretti seemed to understand. She told him
evidence could answer what happened; it could not tell him what to feel. That choice belonged to
him. Alessandro found the comment almost cruel in its simplicity. For years, he had solved problems
by gathering facts until a decision became obvious. Now the facts only made the human truth more
complicated.
A sound from the lower corridor interrupted them. One officer shouted. Another radioed that a motion
sensor in the tunnel had triggered. Moretti drew her weapon and ordered Alessandro back, but he
followed as officers moved toward the basement. The service passage was narrow, damp, and lit by
bare emergency bulbs. Footsteps echoed ahead. Then the lights went out. Darkness swallowed the
corridor. A shot cracked through the tunnel, deafening in the confined space. An officer went down
with a shoulder wound. Moretti returned fire toward a muzzle flash while Alessandro pulled the
injured man behind a stone support.
Matteo’s voice came from the darkness. He called Alessandro by the childhood nickname only
Vittorio’s inner circle had used. “Sandro,” he said, almost gently. “Your father should have
listened.” Alessandro’s rage surged, but Moretti gripped his arm before he could move. Matteo spoke
again, saying Vittorio had been stubborn, Sofia had been foolish, and Emma was merely “unfinished
business.” That phrase stripped away the last restraint Alessandro felt. He shouted that if Matteo
came near the child, there would be no money, no border, and no Bellini powerful enough to protect
him.
Matteo laughed. Then a metal door slammed somewhere ahead. Police rushed forward and found the
tunnel empty. A secondary exit opened beyond the estate wall into a drainage channel hidden by ivy.
Matteo had prepared multiple escape routes years earlier. But he had made one mistake. In the
darkness, he dropped a small leather pouch. Inside was a satellite phone and a key card for a
private airfield outside Pisa. Moretti immediately contacted aviation authorities. Flight records
showed a charter jet filed for departure that night under a shell company linked to Carlo Bellini.
They reached the airfield forty minutes before the scheduled takeoff. Carlo was not there, but
police arrested two Bellini associates and seized suitcases containing cash, forged passports, and a
portable safe. Inside the safe was a list of people Carlo intended to evacuate from Europe. Matteo’s
name appeared beside the code “final cleanup.” Moretti interpreted it as proof Carlo planned to
eliminate Matteo once Alessandro and Emma were dead. The alliance between the two men was already
collapsing.
Near midnight, Matteo called Alessandro directly using another untraceable phone. His voice sounded
different now—less confident, more desperate. He said Carlo had betrayed him and offered a trade. He
would give Alessandro evidence proving exactly how Vittorio was murdered and where Carlo was hiding.
In return, he wanted money, immunity, and safe passage. Alessandro told him immunity was not his to
give. Matteo paused. Then he said something that made Alessandro’s blood go cold. “Maybe not. But
the little girl is yours to save.” In the background, faint but unmistakable, a child began to cry.
May you like
Alessandro turned toward the guest room where Emma was supposed to be sleeping. He ran. The bed was
empty. Rosie lay on the floor beside an open window.
