Chapter 4 - THE MAN AT THE DOOR
Giovanni did not unlock the door.
Luca had protected him for nineteen years.
He had carried Elena from the car the night she collapsed.
He had stood beside Giovanni at the hospital when the doctor said there was nothing more to do.
Now Elena's final list had his name on it.
"Why is your name in my wife's handwriting?" Giovanni called through the door.
Silence answered first.
Then Luca said, "Because she stopped trusting me."
Emilio reached for the drawer where Giovanni kept a pistol.
Giovanni stopped him with one look.
"Nobody fires a weapon at my wife's funeral."
He opened the door.
Luca entered alone and placed his phone on the desk.
A video was already paused on the screen.
It showed Elena entering a private clinic the night before she died.
"She lied to you about where she was going," Luca said.
Giovanni watched Elena disappear through the clinic doors beside the same unknown man from the photograph.
"You followed her?"
"She asked me to."
Clarissa snapped, "Mom wrote that you were dangerous."
Luca looked at her with exhausted eyes.
"Your mother wrote many things because she didn't know which one of us would survive."
He slid a second phone across the desk.
On it was an audio message recorded by Elena eight hours before her death.
Her voice was weak but clear.
"If Luca gives Giovanni this recording, it means the first plan failed."
Giovanni's throat tightened.
Then Elena said, "Giovanni, do not trust the death certificate."
Luca did not defend himself when Giovanni accused him of betrayal.
He only said Elena had made him promise that protecting the truth mattered more than protecting his friendship with Giovanni.
That answer made Giovanni want to hit him and trust him at the same time.
Clarissa quietly moved the music box farther from Luca's reach.
May you like
Everyone stared at the closed coffin above them.
And Luca whispered, "That is why we need to open it."
