Chapter 5 - The Trap Closes
Before Vivien could finish her sentence, Matteo moved with terrifying speed.
In a single fluid motion, he crossed the floor, his hand shooting out to grip Vivien firmly by the upper arm, pinning her against the mahogany bookcase near the corner of the room. The glass behind her rattled dangerously.
“Don’t even think about it, Vivien,” Matteo growled, his face inches from hers. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Let go of me, you old fool!” Vivien hissed, struggling against his iron grip, though her attempts were entirely useless against Matteo’s decades of security training. “Alessandro, you can’t touch me! The police will want a warrant, they’ll want forensic proof, they’ll want years of court battles! You’re a Duca, but public scandals destroy dynasties just as fast as bullets! Do you really want a murder trial dragging our family name through every headline in the country?”
“Who said anything about a trial, Vivien?” I asked quietly.
I walked over to the marble table, picked up the micro-cassette recorder, and pocketed it. Then I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my encrypted satellite phone.
“You think because you controlled the estate finances and manipulated the vehicle maintenance logs that you operated in a vacuum?” I looked at her with a chilling composure. “Isabella wasn’t the only one who suspected you, Vivien. She was just the one brave enough to confront you without proof first. While you were busy stealing from my trusts, you made one fatal mistake.”
Vivien’s eyes narrowed, her bravado faltering slightly. “What mistake?”
“You underestimated how thoroughly my father trained me to look at people,” I said. “Two weeks before Isabella died, she came to me in private. She didn't have the tape yet—she only had a gut feeling that numbers were missing from the philanthropic accounts. She asked me to run a shadow audit through an independent firm in Zurich.”
I tapped the screen of my phone, bringing up a secure, encrypted document loaded with financial cross-references, bank routing numbers, and signed authorization slips.
“The audit report landed on my desk three days after the funeral,” I continued, walking slowly toward her until I stood just feet away. “Every single offshore account you set up under dummy corporations? They’re all mapped. Every unauthorized wire transfer from the Duca family foundation to your personal holdings in the Cayman Islands? Fully documented. And your mother Evelyn—who you thought was blissfully unaware of your lifestyle—actually signed as a secondary guarantor on your primary shell company three years ago because you used her name to bypass regulatory flags.”
Vivien’s face drained of what little color remained. The arrogant, untouchable mask shattered completely, replaced by a deep, shivering terror.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head frantically. “No, that’s... that’s impossible. I encrypted those files—”.
“You encrypted them against standard domestic investigators,” I interrupted coldly. “Not against an international forensic accountant hired by a man whose family built its empire on tracking every cent that moved through the Mediterranean shipping lanes.”
I pressed a button on my phone, putting the call through on speaker.
“Matteo,” I said without looking back. “Is the perimeter secure?”
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“Locked down tight, Alessandro,” Matteo’s voice echoed slightly as he kept one hand firmly on Vivien’s shoulder. “No one enters or leaves the estate grounds. The private security detail is stationed at all exit gates, and local authorities have been notified via secure channel to receive a priority suspect.”
“Good,” I said. “Let’s bring in the rest of the household. It’s time everyone learned the truth about who has been running this house from the shadows.”
