Part 2: The Secret Behind Matteo’s Last Message
Part 2: The Secret Behind Matteo’s Last Message
Six months after the truth came out, the Duca estate no longer felt like the same place.
The silence that had surrounded the mansion for three years was gone.
Not because the house had become louder.
But because Aleandro Duca had finally learned the difference between silence and peace.
For years, silence had been a prison.
It had hidden conversations from him.
It had allowed enemies to stand beside him while pretending to be loyal.
It had turned every smile into a question and every gesture into a possible lie.
But now, every morning, when sunlight entered through the tall windows overlooking Oyster Bay, Aleandro heard something he had forgotten existed.
Life.
The sound of footsteps on marble floors.
The sound of coffee being poured into a cup.
The sound of birds outside the garden.
And sometimes, the sound he valued more than anything else.
A small voice calling his name.
“Uncle Aleandro.”
Every morning at exactly 7:15, Emma entered his study without knocking.
The security team had orders never to stop her.
Marco Bellini had personally given those instructions.
“No one touches that door when she is coming,” he had told every guard.
Because everyone in the estate knew something that Aleandro himself had only recently understood.
The smallest person in the house had been the bravest.
Emma had not carried a weapon.
She had not commanded an army.
She had not threatened anyone.
She had simply seen the truth and refused to ignore it.
One morning, she climbed onto the leather chair beside Aleandro and placed her gray rabbit on his desk.
The rabbit was older now.
The green stitches on its ear had been repaired twice more.
Aleandro looked at it and smiled.
“Still carrying him everywhere?”
Emma nodded seriously.
“He saved you.”
Aleandro looked at her.
The little girl had said it so confidently that he almost laughed.
“Your rabbit saved me?”
Emma nodded again.
“He helped me find the bad thing.”
Aleandro leaned back.
He had heard that sentence many times.
But there was something about the way she said it that made him pause.
“What bad thing?”
Emma looked toward the window.
Then she lowered her voice.
“The thing before the doctor.”
Aleandro stopped moving.
For six months, everyone had believed they knew the entire story.
Victor Hail had been exposed.
The Rossi family had collapsed.
The bombing that killed Matteo had been connected to Cedar Ridge Demolition.
The case had become one of the biggest scandals New York had seen in decades.
But there was one question Aleandro had never answered.
Who actually ordered the explosion?
Victor had helped destroy his hearing.
The Rossis had benefited from Matteo’s death.
But someone else had planned it.
Someone who knew exactly where Matteo would be.
Someone who knew Aleandro would survive.
That person was still free.
“Emma,” Aleandro said carefully.
“What did you see?”
The little girl hugged the rabbit.
“I saw the doctor talking.”
“Victor?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Aleandro slowly placed his pen down.
“Who?”
Emma looked toward the hallway.
Then she pointed.
“Someone who came before.”
A cold feeling moved through him.
Before Victor.
Before the treatment.
Before the explosion.
That night, Aleandro opened every file connected to Matteo’s death.
For the first time in months, he did not look at the documents like a businessman.
He looked at them like a brother.
Matteo had been thirty-two years old.
Young.
Funny.
Careless in the way only happy people could be.
He had trusted everyone.
That was his greatest strength.
And his greatest weakness.
At 2:00 in the morning, Marco found Aleandro still sitting in the study.
“You should sleep,” Marco said.
Aleandro looked up.
“I slept for three years.”
Marco understood immediately.
He closed the door.
“What did you find?”
Aleandro pushed a folder across the desk.
A restaurant security report.
Marco frowned.
“This was cleared.”
“Yes.”
“By who?”
Aleandro looked at him.
“That is the problem.”
Marco opened the file.
His expression changed after ten seconds.
“There are missing pages.”
Aleandro nodded.
“Exactly.”
Someone had removed information from the original investigation.
Not hidden it.
Not altered it.
Removed it.
The question was why.
The next morning, Aleandro made a call that he had not made in years.
A call to someone outside his world.
A retired FBI investigator named Daniel Reeves.
Reeves had investigated organized crime in New York for thirty years.
He had been one of the few men who never feared the Duca name.
When he arrived at the estate, he looked older than Aleandro remembered.
But his eyes were still sharp.
“I heard you could hear again,” Reeves said.
Aleandro smiled slightly.
“I heard you still ask too many questions.”
Reeves laughed.
“Good. The old Aleandro is back.”
They sat in the study for three hours.
When Reeves finished reading the files, he leaned back.
“There is something strange.”
“What?”
“The bomb was not meant to kill Matteo.”
Aleandro stared at him.
“What did you say?”
Reeves tapped the report.
“If someone wanted your brother dead, they would have placed it differently.”
The room became silent.
“The explosion was designed to injure someone sitting in a specific position.”
Aleandro felt his hands tighten.
“Me.”
Reeves nodded.
“Yes.”
The truth hit harder than any bullet.
The explosion was never about Matteo.
Matteo was only the person who died because he was standing beside him.
Someone had wanted Aleandro alive.
But broken.
Weak.
Unable to lead.
Unable to hear.
Unable to defend himself.
For three years, Aleandro had believed someone had taken his brother away.
Now he understood something worse.
Someone had tried to take him too.
That evening, Emma found him sitting alone.
She climbed into the chair beside him.
“You are sad.”
Aleandro looked at her.
Children always noticed things adults ignored.
“Yes.”
“Because of Matteo?”
He nodded.
Emma thought for a moment.
Then she reached into her pocket.
She pulled out a small folded piece of paper.
Aleandro frowned.
“What is that?”
Emma handed it to him.
“I found it.”
His heart stopped.
The handwriting was familiar.
Too familiar.
He opened the paper slowly.
Only one sentence was written.
Aleandro, if you are reading this, it means they failed to stop me. Do not trust the person who saved your life.
His breathing changed.
Because he knew the handwriting.
It belonged to Matteo.
For three years, everyone had believed Matteo died before he could reveal the truth.
But he had left one final warning.
A warning that changed everything.
Aleandro looked at Emma.
“Where did you find this?”
Emma pointed toward the old family photograph on the shelf.
“Behind the picture.”
Aleandro stood immediately.
The photograph.
The one of him and Matteo.
The one he had looked at every day.
The one he thought contained only memories.
Behind it was a hidden compartment.
And inside that compartment was something nobody had discovered.
A small black notebook.
Matteo’s notebook.
The final pages were filled with names.
Dates.
Payments.
Meetings.
And at the very bottom of the last page was a name that made Aleandro freeze.
A name he never expected to see.
A name belonging to someone who had been beside him for twenty years.
Someone everyone trusted.
Someone who had cried beside his hospital bed.
Someone who had told him his hearing was gone forever.
Aleandro slowly closed the notebook.
The room felt colder.
Because the truth he had spent months searching for was finally in his hands.
And it was far worse than he imagined.
The person who destroyed his life had never been outside the family.
They had always been inside.
And tomorrow morning, Aleandro Duca would finally confront the person who had been pretending to save him all along.
