first.

So did Bellandi.

There was a confrontation at the warehouse.

Luca was shot.

But he did not die.

Evelyn looked up.

Adrian had gone pale.

“What?”

She handed him the letter.

He read faster.

Luca survived.

Lorenzo and Francesca hid him.

Victor believed his older son had drowned after fleeing the dock.

For eight months, Luca recovered under another name.

Then he prepared to testify.

Before he could, someone found him.

This time he truly disappeared.

No body.

No witness.

Only blood inside an abandoned farmhouse.

Adrian lowered the letter.

“Who found him?”

Francesca’s face hardened.

“We never proved it.”

A door slammed somewhere outside the room.

Adrian immediately killed the light.

Footsteps approached.

Francesca whispered, “We were followed.”

The handle moved.

Adrian pushed Evelyn behind a concrete divider.

The door opened.

A man entered.

Not one of the strangers from Calder Maritime.

This man wore a gray suit and carried no visible weapon.

He looked about seventy.

Francesca made a sound that was almost a gasp.

“Matteo.”

Bellandi smiled.

“Hello, Francesca.”

Adrian stepped in front of Evelyn.

Bellandi’s gaze moved to him.

“You have your brother’s worst habit.”

“What habit?”

“Believing evidence matters more than power.”

Evelyn held her phone behind her back and quietly started recording.

Adrian noticed.

Bellandi did not.

“You killed Luca?” Adrian asked.

Bellandi sighed.

“Your father killed Luca the first time.”

“The first time?”

“He shot him on the dock.”

“And the farmhouse?”

Bellandi’s eyes shifted toward Francesca.

“That was more complicated.”

Francesca went rigid.

Evelyn saw it.

So did Adrian.

“What aren’t you telling us?” Evelyn asked.

Bellandi smiled again.

“Ask the widow.”

Francesca stared at the floor.

“Francesca?”

Her voice was barely audible.

“Luca contacted Victor.”

Adrian looked stunned.

“Why?”

“He believed his father could still be persuaded to confess.”

“He went back?”

“Yes.”

“He told me he could save you.”

Adrian’s face changed.

“Me?”

“Victor was preparing to bring you into the business.

Luca thought exposing everything would free you before your father turned you into him.”

Bellandi chuckled.

“How noble.”

Adrian lunged toward him.

Bellandi raised both hands.

“Careful.

If I don’t leave this facility in fifteen minutes, copies of certain documents go to people who won’t care whether Evelyn Hart is innocent.”

Evelyn stepped from behind Adrian.

“What do you want?”

“The box.”

“No.”

Bellandi looked amused.

“You’re Lorenzo’s granddaughter.”

“Yes.”

“Then you inherited his stubbornness.”

“And apparently his habit of recording conversations.”

Bellandi’s smile vanished.

Evelyn raised her phone.

“You just admitted Victor Calder shot Luca.”

“That proves nothing.”

“Maybe not alone.”

A new voice came through the doorway.

“But it helps.”

Federal agents entered.

Bellandi turned.

For the first time, fear appeared on his face.

Adrian looked at Evelyn.

She shook her head.

“I didn’t call them.”

Francesca had.

Before entering the storage facility, she had sent their location and copies of Lorenzo’s letter to a federal prosecutor who had been quietly reopening cold cases connected to Calder Maritime.

The agents detained Bellandi.

But the confrontation did not end there.

Because when investigators examined the microfilm, they discovered the scratched-out fifth figure in the dock photograph.

It was not a gangster.

It was a federal investigator.

The same investigator who had been scheduled to receive Luca’s evidence.

He had betrayed them.

And according to records hidden