Chapter 4 - The Signature Beneath the Crown

Gabriel Serra looked twenty years older when Luca placed the receipt before him.

"You told me my father met his driver alone that night."

"That's what the hotel gave us."

"Then why is Belini receiving documents in his suite?"

Serra adjusted his glasses.

"She was representing her father. She may have delivered papers."

"Which papers?"

"I don't know."

"That's becoming a pattern."

Luca let him leave with an instruction to preserve every remaining file and answer future questions through an independent lawyer.

Emma expected anger.

What she saw instead was calculation.

Luca called Matteo.

"Find the attending physician from the crash, the original body identification, and every witness who saw the remains. No private pressure. I want statements that can stand in court."

The answers came slowly.

Alessandro's car had caught fire on the waterfront road.

A driver died at the scene.

The second occupant was presumed to be Alessandro because his signet ring and identification were recovered from the wreck.

The damaged remains were identified through a dental chart.

Emma read the summary twice.

"You never saw your father's body?"

"The coroner said I shouldn't."

"And the driver?"

"Vittorio Greco. They told me the fire made identification difficult. His family buried an empty casket."

Emma looked at him.

"Did anyone compare DNA?"

"No."

The admission hung between them.

The same system Luca used to verify every business contract had failed at the moment he most needed certainty.

That afternoon, Emma visited her former interpreting supervisor, Ana Vega, by video call from her apartment.

Ana had been the person who informed her of the accusation in Barcelona.

For two years Emma had avoided contacting her.

This time, she asked a direct question.

"Who reported that I leaked the negotiations?"

Ana's expression tightened.

"A compliance contractor. They sent an incident report."

"Did anyone hear me disclose anything?"

"No. The report claimed you copied restricted notes."

"Taking shorthand is how interpreting works."

"I know."

Ana closed her eyes briefly.

"I argued against removing you. They threatened to cancel the conference's entire interpreting contract."

Emma swallowed.

"Who signed the threat?"

"Nabil Farouk."

After the call, Luca offered to pay Emma for the work she had lost.

She refused.

"I don't want compensation for something we haven't proved. I want the record corrected."

"That's harder."

"Then help me do the harder thing."

He considered her.

"All right."

Matteo arrived before nightfall with a photograph taken at the wreck site.

Emma studied it from a distance.

No graphic detail. Just twisted metal, investigators and a charred road barrier.

"Look at the car door," Matteo said.

Luca frowned.

"It's open."

"The official report says both doors were jammed shut."

"Maybe firefighters opened it."

"They did. The left door. This is the right. The photograph was taken before the rescue crew arrived."

Emma moved closer.

"Someone got out."

Matteo nodded.

"Or someone was taken out."

Luca called the retired paramedic listed on the dispatch sheet.

The woman remembered a conscious man sitting in the back of an unmarked vehicle beyond the barrier.

"He had burns on his hand," she said. "I thought he'd been rescued already."

"Could you describe him?"

"Dark hair. Older. He kept saying a name."

Luca's grip tightened around the phone.

"Which name?"

"Lu."

Emma watched all the color drain from Luca's face.

Then the paramedic added something stranger.

"A man in a black coat told me the patient was being taken to a private hospital. I never found a transfer record."

"Did you recognize that man?" Luca asked.

"Not then. I did later, on television."

"Who was he?"

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The answer came quietly.

"Nabil Farouk."