Married To The Underworld

The Missing Page

By noon, Luca had three versions of the attack and trusted none of them.

The Arconti Tower security log blamed a failed alarm. The Bellandi chatter intercepted by Matteo's people described a recovery operation. A police report, filed before the first patrol car reached the scene, named Elena Rossi as a suspected embezzler fleeing after the murder of Adrian Keller.

Someone had written the official story before the blood dried.

Luca stood at the head of the safehouse war-room table while Rafael moved images across the central screen. Parking footage showed six Bellandi soldiers entering the tower. Elevator records showed none of them reaching the compliance floor.

"They had internal access," Rafael said.

"Arconti access," Matteo corrected from the opposite side of the table. Luca's younger brother looked as if he had dressed for a party and arrived at an execution. "Bianca will call it a systems breach, offer condolences, and donate to the widow before lunch."

"Keller wasn't married," Luca said.

Matteo lifted one shoulder. "Then she will find someone photogenic to comfort."

Luca ignored the provocation. "Who ordered the road attack?"

"Bellandi vehicles, Bellandi weapons, Bellandi men," Rafael said. "But they knew the loading-bay route."

Only seven people had known Luca planned to use it.

One was dead.

One was Elena.

The remaining five belonged to his family.

A guard entered and placed a black archival case beside Luca. "The estate records you requested."

Luca opened it.

Inside lay photographed pages from a ledger the Moretti family had pretended not to keep. The original was older than Luca, written in codes that changed whenever too many people learned them. Debts, favors, names, and negotiated silences. Not ORPHEUS, but close enough to recognize the same philosophy.

Nothing disappeared. It only changed owners.

Elena's printed page rested beneath glass at the center of the table. Luca placed archive images beside it in sequence.

ORPHEUS-15 carried a Bellandi authentication mark.

ORPHEUS-16 carried an Arconti foundation seal.

Elena's page was ORPHEUS-17.

The next visible Moretti record began with ORPHEUS-18.

"There should be a transition page," Luca said.

Matteo leaned closer. "Seventeen to eighteen."

"No. A page authorizing seventeen. The handoff before Elena's transfer."

Rafael enlarged the lower margin of the printed sheet. A faint indentation crossed the paper, the pressure mark of whatever had rested above it when the original ledger was written.

Luca recognized the pattern before the software clarified it.

A circle divided by a vertical blade. Three dots beneath.

Vittorio Moretti's private seal.

The room seemed to narrow.

Matteo stopped smiling. "Father authorized the missing page."

"Or someone used his seal."

"You don't believe that."

Luca did not answer.

His phone vibrated once against the table. The encrypted line belonged to only one caller.

He dismissed the guards. Rafael stayed. Matteo stayed because he had never respected dismissal when family secrets were involved.

Luca accepted the call.

Vittorio's face appeared on the wall screen from the library at the Moretti estate. Age had silvered his hair but had not softened him. He sat beneath the portrait of Luca's grandfather, positioned with the deliberate symbolism of a man who believed history was another weapon.

"Bring Elena Rossi to the estate," Vittorio said.

No greeting. No question about the attack.

Luca kept his expression blank. "Why?"

"Because she possesses material that belongs to us."

"The transfer originated inside Arconti."

"Everything of consequence in Vespera originates in more than one place. Bring her before sunset."

Matteo looked at the seal on the screen, then at Luca.

"She is under threat," Luca said.

"Which is why she should be placed under proper authority."

"Yours."

"Ours."

The correction carried a warning. Vittorio still spoke as if Luca's command existed only on loan.

"Keller was murdered," Luca said. "Bellandi men entered the tower through a private route. Two police units tried to intercept us. You are asking for the witness, not the killers."

Vittorio's gaze hardened. "Do not confuse curiosity with judgment. The girl is a liability."

The girl.

Elena would have taken the phrase apart with one cold question and made Vittorio defend every hidden assumption inside it.

Luca thought of her standing in the stairwell with blood on her sleeve and fear disciplined into anger. He thought of the rules she had forced him to sign that morning. An unlocked door. Independent communication. No touch without consent.

Simple boundaries, yet no one in Luca's family had ever treated boundaries as anything but obstacles.

"She is no longer in my custody," Luca said.

Rafael's eyes shifted toward him.

Matteo became very still.

Vittorio studied Luca through the screen. "Where is she?"

"Moved after the road attack. Compartmentalized route. Rafael does not have the final location."

The lie was clean because it used methods Vittorio had taught him. Luca could almost hear the old lessons: offer one verifiable detail, hide the important fact inside procedure, and never rush to fill a silence.

"You expect me to believe you surrendered control?" Vittorio asked.

"I expect you to understand why no single person should have her location."

Silence stretched between them.

Luca had refused his father before. He had delayed orders, redirected violence, and allowed certain businesses to die quietly rather than preserve them. But he had never lied about possession of a person Vittorio considered family property.

This was not disobedience.

It was treason.

"Find her," Vittorio said at last. "Then remember which name protects yours."

The screen went dark.

Matteo released a low breath. "That was almost inspiring. Stupid, but inspiring."

"You heard nothing," Luca said.

"I heard our father ask for a woman before asking who murdered a compliance officer. I also heard you lie to him for the first time since we were boys."

"You heard nothing."

Matteo's expression lost its humor. "Then tell me why his seal is on the missing page."

Luca closed the archival case. "Not until we know the seal is genuine."

Rafael's phone rang.

He listened without speaking, then looked at Luca. "We have a problem upstairs."

"Elena?"

"Secure. Still working with Maya."

"Then what?"

"The room search you ordered after the tower breach. One of the guards checked your quarters."

Luca's quarters had been sealed before Elena arrived. The mattress had been replaced that morning, part of a standard security sweep after any compromised route.

"What did he find?" Luca asked.

Rafael placed a photograph on the screen.

A single ledger sheet lay on black linen. The upper edge had been torn from a bound sequence. In the lower corner, Vittorio's seal cut through a column of red figures.

ORPHEUS-17 AUTHORIZATION.

"It was under your mattress," Rafael said. "Placed there after Miss Rossi entered the safehouse."