Chapter 12 - TERESA'S CONFESSION
Teresa stepped into the tunnel holding a pistol with both hands.
Her face was swollen from crying.
Giovanni moved in front of his children.
"Put it down."
"I didn't kill Elena."
"You just said you did."
"I said Marco means me because I brought the people who did."
The distinction made Giovanni sick.
Teresa confessed that fear had controlled her for decades.
Their father used her name on the shell accounts and convinced her that prison would be waiting if the truth ever surfaced.
When Elena began investigating, Teresa reported her movements to an intermediary she knew only as Mr. Vale.
She thought they would frighten Elena into stopping.
Instead, Elena came home sick.
Teresa realized too late that the information she supplied had been used to poison her sister-in-law.
"Why disappear from the estate?" Emilio asked.
Teresa lowered the gun.
"Because the shooter wasn't aiming at me."
Everyone stared.
"He was forcing me to leave through the panic route our father built."
She had been taken from the estate through an old service tunnel and flown to Cayo Lucero to lure Giovanni back.
Marco suddenly shouted for everyone to get down.
Gunfire tore into the monastery wall.
Luca dragged Clarissa behind the altar while Giovanni covered Emilio.
Rafael fired toward the entrance and yelled that a boat was waiting below the cliff.
They escaped through the tunnel as the monastery filled with smoke.
At the dock, Giovanni counted heads.
Everyone was there except Marco.
Then a phone rang inside the music box.
A tiny hidden transmitter had activated.
Teresa said the anonymous handler had always known details from inside the Moretti house, including Elena's meals and Giovanni's travel schedule.
That was how she finally understood the conspiracy was not living only on the island.
Emilio asked why she never warned them.
Teresa answered with a sentence none of them could forgive yet: 'Because I was afraid of losing my own life.'
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Marco's voice came through it.
"Don't come back for me, Giovanni. Find Vale before he reaches Elena's grave."
