Chapter 14 - RAFAEL'S REAL CLIENT
Rafael aimed the gun at Giovanni and told everyone to place their phones on the deck.
Luca cursed under his breath.
Clarissa looked betrayed rather than frightened.
"Mom trusted you."
Rafael's jaw tightened.
"Your mother trusted the role I was paid to play."
He had never been Elena's attorney.
Sebastian Vale hired him to manage the island operation and guide Elena toward evidence Vale could control.
The music box was the one object they could never open because Elena changed its mechanism before returning to California.
"What is inside it?" Giovanni asked.
Rafael smiled.
"Not what you think."
He ordered Emilio to hand it over.
Emilio refused.
Rafael fired into the deck beside his foot.
Giovanni lunged before a second shot came.
The two men crashed against the rail.
Luca knocked the gun away and Clarissa kicked it beneath a bench.
Teresa freed the boat controls while Emilio helped Giovanni pin Rafael down.
Rafael laughed even with blood on his lip.
"You think this saves you? Vale already has the coffin."
Giovanni grabbed his shirt.
"Why does he want my wife's body?"
Rafael's smile disappeared.
"Because Elena swallowed the one thing he could never find."
Nobody understood.
Then Luca remembered the puncture mark and the hospital scan showing a tiny unexplained metallic shadow near Elena's ribs.
Giovanni felt sick.
Rafael admitted Vale had deliberately let Emilio and Clarissa find the first storage room because he believed frightened children would carry the music box directly back to Giovanni.
Elena had anticipated that too and switched the useful memory card into the false lining.
For the first time, Rafael looked impressed rather than smug.
Giovanni said, 'She was smarter than all of you,' and Rafael did not disagree.
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Elena had hidden a micro-storage capsule inside her own body before she died.
And Vale had stolen the coffin to retrieve it.
