Chapter 9 - The Brother Luca Buried Without a Body

Matteo Moretti had been dead for nine years.

Officially.

A boat fire in Marseille.

No body.

Only blood on the deck and enough witnesses to make grief seem efficient.

Luca had believed it.

That was the mistake.

The photograph did not lie.

Matteo stood beside Vittorio Bellini outside a private bank in Geneva.

Alive.

Older.

Lean.

Smiling.

Luca stared at the image for a long time.

Then asked Tomas one question.

“How long?”

“Since the fire.”

Belini whispered, “My father hid him?”

Tomas nodded.

“Matteo had debts. Anger. Ambition. Vittorio offered him a future.”

Marco looked disgusted.

“He betrayed the family.”

Luca said nothing.

Emma watched him.

A murdered father.

A missing brother.

A hidden archive.

A dead accountant.

A mother who had not died.

Every answer seemed designed to damage something.

“Where is Matteo now?” Luca asked.

Tomas pushed forward a bank schedule.

“Tomorrow. Geneva.”

Luca took the page.

Emma caught his wrist.

“No.”

Everyone looked at her.

Luca’s eyes narrowed.

“No?”

“You are not walking into another trap because someone put your brother’s face on paper.”

“I wasn’t planning to walk.”

“That is not the reassuring part.”

Marco almost smiled.

Luca did not.

But he listened.

They went to Geneva with evidence, not weapons.

Moretti lawyers.

Two Swiss investigators Ferrante trusted.

Copies of Antonio’s confession.

Copies of Vittorio’s ledgers.

And Emma.

Matteo arrived exactly on time.

No guards.

No fear.

He looked at Luca and smiled.

“Little brother.”

Luca’s face did not move.

“You look disappointingly alive.”

Matteo laughed.

Emma hated him instantly.

They met in a private conference room above the bank.

Matteo looked at Emma.

“So you’re the Keeper.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

“Do you know what you own?”

“I know what I don’t want.”

“That will change.”

Luca sat opposite him.

“Why Vittorio?”

Matteo leaned back.

“Because Father chose you.”

There it was.

Not ideology.

Not history.

Not principle.

Jealousy.

Small enough to destroy a family.

“Father chose responsibility,” Luca said.

“He chose you.”

“And you sold him to Bellini?”

Matteo’s smile disappeared.

“I did not poison him.”

“No.”

Luca placed the doctor’s confession on the table.

“You only told Vittorio where he would be.”

Matteo looked down.

Tiny reaction.

Enough.

Emma saw it.

So did Luca.

“You knew,” Luca said.

Matteo stayed silent.

“You knew Vittorio planned something.”

Still silence.

“You helped kill him.”

“No.”

The first crack.

Luca leaned forward.

“No?”

“I gave Vittorio his schedule. That is all.”

“Why?”

“To scare him.”

Luca almost laughed.

“You are fifty and still lying like you are twenty.”

Matteo’s face hardened.

Then Emma placed Daniel Carter’s file beside Antonio’s.

“My father died too.”

Matteo looked at her.

“I know.”

“How?”

Silence.

There.

The mistake.

Emma’s pulse changed.

“You were there.”

Matteo looked toward Luca.

Wrong direction.

Luca understood.

“Daniel’s death.”

Matteo stood.

Swiss investigators entered.

He stopped.

Emma did not.

“You were there.”

Matteo’s jaw tightened.

“Vittorio wanted the key.”

“And my father refused.”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“I held him.”

The words were quiet.

More terrible for it.

Emma stopped breathing.

Luca stood.

For one second Marco thought he might kill his brother.

He did not.

That was the difference Antonio had wanted.

Luca looked at the investigators.

“Take him.”

Matteo laughed bitterly.

“You think this ends it?”

Luca looked at him.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Matteo turned toward Emma.

“Vittorio has Marianne’s original ledger.”

Emma frowned.

“What ledger?”

“The one Daniel used to track every payment after the archive was stolen.”

Luca’s eyes sharpened.

“Where?”

Matteo smiled.

“Back in New York.”

Marco swore.

Matteo continued.

“Vittorio never fled Sicily.”

Belini went pale.

“He went to the Grand Aurelia.”

Emma understood.

The hotel.

The place where everything started.

“The restaurant?” she asked.

Matteo nodded.

“Below it.”

Luca’s face hardened.

The Meridian Room had been built over the original Moretti bank vault.

A room nobody used anymore.

A room only two people still knew how to open.

Luca.

And his brother.

Matteo smiled.

“You have forty-eight hours before Vittorio burns the ledger.”

Emma looked at Luca.

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He was already moving.

This time, they knew exactly where the war ended.