Chapter 15 - Eleven Minutes Before the Gunfire|
The old family office had been closed for years.
Its windows were dark, its brass nameplate tarnished, and the front entrance secured by a lock that looked older than I was. Carmine led us through a side door into a narrow corridor lined with framed photographs of the Lombardi family.
Salvatore stopped in front of one.
It showed two young men standing beside Vittorio Lombardi. Salvatore was perhaps seventeen, serious and unsmiling. Carmine stood beside him, grinning as if the world had never given him a reason to be afraid.
Between them stood a third man.
He had their father's face.
“Enzo,” Salvatore said.
Carmine nodded.
“He was the older twin. He left the family after a dispute over the shipping business. Our father told everyone he'd died abroad.”
“Why hide him?”
“Because he tried to sell family routes to a rival organization. Father stopped him, but he didn't want a public scandal.”
“Then why bring him back?”
Carmine looked away.
“I didn't. He came back on his own.”
We descended a narrow staircase into the archive beneath the office. Carmine used the key to unlock a steel cabinet. Inside were old ledgers, recording devices, and boxes of tapes marked with dates.
He searched until he found one labeled with the night of the ambush.
“This is the only copy I know about.”
Salvatore took the tape but didn't insert it.
“Where did you get it?”
“I recorded a meeting because I suspected Enzo was planning something. I was going to confront him. Then the shooting started, and I lost my nerve.”
“You kept it for eight years?”
“I was going to destroy it. I couldn't.”
We found an old player and transferred the recording to a digital file with the assistance of the authorities. The audio began with muffled voices and the sound of a door closing.
Then a man spoke.
“The vehicle leaves at ten forty. The route changes at the last minute. No police, no witnesses, no surviving records.”
Another voice answered.
“And Salvatore?”
“He must not reach the other side of the harbor.”
Salvatore's face tightened.
I watched Carmine.
He looked sick.
The recording continued.
A third voice asked, “What about the woman?”
The first man replied, “She knows too much. Keep her away from him.”
Then came a sentence that made Carmine cover his mouth.
“Once Salvatore is gone, the business passes to the only brother strong enough to hold it.”
The voice belonged to Enzo.
But another voice answered, calm and unmistakable.
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
It was Vittorio Lombardi.
Salvatore stopped the recording.
“My father was involved.”
“Maybe he was trying to stop Enzo,” I said. “We need the rest.”
He restarted it.
Vittorio spoke again.
“You will not touch my son.”
Enzo laughed.
“Then you should have chosen a different heir.”
A crash followed. Then the recording went silent for almost a minute.
When voices returned, Vittorio was gone.
Enzo said, “Do it tonight.”
A second man answered, “Understood.”
The recording ended.
Salvatore sat very still.
“Who was the second man?” I asked.
Carmine shook his head.
“I don't know. But he had access to our security operations.”
The authorities enhanced the audio and began comparing it with known recordings. The evidence would take time to authenticate, but it offered a new direction.
Then Carmine found another document in the cabinet.
It was a transfer agreement signed six months before the attack, giving Enzo control over a company that supplied vehicle safety mechanisms.
The final page carried a witness signature.
Dr. Anthony Russo.
I stared at my father's name.
“Dad witnessed this?”
Carmine shook his head.
“He didn't sign the agreement. He signed a medical statement confirming the injuries of the supplier who delivered the component. Enzo needed a clean record to make the payment look legitimate.”
“Why would my father agree?”
“He didn't know what the component was for. He learned later.”
Salvatore looked at me.
“Your father tried to undo his mistake.”
I nodded, swallowing my grief.
Then the archive door slammed shut above us.
A lock clicked.
Someone had trapped us underground.
And a voice came through the intercom.
“Thank you for finding the recording, little brother.”
May you like
Enzo.
“Now I don't have to search for it myself.”
