THREE FINGERS AND A FROZEN THREAT — PART 2
THREE FINGERS AND A FROZEN THREAT — PART 2
THE WOMAN I WAS ABOUT TO MARRY HAD BEEN WAITING FOR ME TO DIE
Vivien smiled at me as though nothing had changed.
That was what frightened me most.
A guilty woman avoided your eyes.
Vivien held mine.
Steady.
Warm.
Perfect.
She slipped her arm through mine as we walked toward the dining room.
“I had the chef prepare your favorite,” she said.
“Did you?”
She laughed softly.
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
Her fingers тιԍнтened around my arm.
“For what?”
I looked at her.
“For how much you seem to know about me.”
For half a second, something flickered behind her eyes.
Then it vanished.
“I love you, Lorenzo.”
I smiled.
“I know.”
What I didn’t tell her was that I had stopped believing her.
Dinner lasted forty-seven minutes.
Vivien talked about flowers.
The wedding.
The guest list.
The honeymoon.
Normal things.
Safe things.
Things a woman in love should talk about.
I listened.
And underneath the table, my phone vibrated once.
Rocco.
WE FOUND SOMETHING.
I stood.
“Excuse me.”
Vivien looked up.
“Everything all right?”
“Business.”
She smiled.
“Of course.”
I walked into my study and locked the door.
Rocco was waiting.
He placed a black folder on my desk.
“We traced the payments.”
“And?”
“They started exactly three months ago.”
My eyes hardened.
“Three months.”
The same number Mia had shown me.
Rocco nodded.
“Six transfers. Every one routed through different companies.”
“Where did they end up?”
He slid a pH๏τograph across the desk.
A warehouse.
Abandoned.
Industrial district.
Then another pH๏τograph.
A man leaving the building.
My blood ran cold.
I knew him.
“That’s impossible.”
Rocco said nothing.
I picked up the pH๏τograph again.
My father’s former accountant.
A man officially declared ᴅᴇᴀᴅ eleven years ago.
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
I looked at the date stamped beneath the image.
Three weeks ago.
Alive.
Working.
And meeting someone.
I turned to the final pH๏τograph.
My stomach тιԍнтened.
Vivien.
She was standing beside him.
The door suddenly opened.
Vivien stood there.
“What are you doing?”
I closed the folder.
“Nothing.”
She stepped inside.
“You’ve been in here for twenty minutes.”
“Work.”
Her eyes moved toward the folder.
“What kind of work?”
“The kind that makes people nervous.”
She smiled.
“You’re scaring me.”
I stood.
Walked toward her.
And kissed her forehead.
“Good.”
Her smile disappeared for half a second.
Then returned.
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to.”
I walked past her.
But as I reached the doorway, I stopped.
“Vivien?”
“Yes?”
“Where were you three weeks ago?”
Silence.
Only one second.
But it was enough.
“I was shopping.”
“With whom?”
She smiled.
“Does it matter?”
I turned around.
“It does now.”
Her face remained calm.
But her fingers had begun trembling.
At 1:13 a.m., I heard a child’s scream.
I was out of bed before I realized I had moved.
“Mia!”
The hallway was dark.
Her bedroom door stood open.
The window was raised.
Curtains moved in the cold night air.
The bed was empty.
My heart stopped.
“MIA!”
I ran through the corridor.
Rocco appeared from the opposite wing.
“Boss!”
“She’s gone.”
Every guard in the mansion was awake within seconds.
Doors slammed.
Footsteps thundered across marble.
Then I saw something on the floor.
A tiny red ribbon.
Mia’s.
I picked it up.
My hands began shaking.
Not from fear.
From rage.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A man’s voice whispered:
“You should have married Vivien when you had the chance.”
I froze.
“Where is she?”
A quiet laugh.
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
I gripped the phone.
“If you touch her—”
“You still don’t understand.”
The voice became colder.
“Vivien wasn’t sent to marry you.”
I stopped breathing.
“She was sent to make sure you never discovered what your father left behind.”
The call ended.
I stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
A pH๏τograph.
Mia.
Sitting inside a car.
Alive.
Terrified.
And beside her—
Elena.
Her mother.
My jaw clenched.
Below the pH๏τograph was one sentence:
COME ALONE, LORENZO. OR YOUR MAID DIES FIRST.
I left the mansion through the rear gate.
Alone.
At least, that’s what the kidnappers believed.
Rocco watched from the shadows.
“You heard the message,” I told him.
“I did.”
“No police.”
He nodded.
“No backup.”
Another nod.
I looked at him.
“If I don’t come back—”
“You will.”
“If I don’t…”
Rocco stepped closer.
“I’ll burn this entire city looking for you.”
I almost smiled.
“Good.”
The warehouse smelled of oil, rust, and rain.
I entered alone.
One light hung from the ceiling.
Mia was tied to a chair.
Elena sat beside her.
Both alive.
Both terrified.
A man stepped from the darkness.
The accountant.
My father’s accountant.
“You.”
He smiled.
“You’ve grown into your father’s son.”
I raised my gun.
“Untie them.”
“You’re not in a position to make demands.”
I looked around.
“Six men.”
His smile faded.
“You counted?”
“I heard their breathing.”
A gunsH๏τ exploded.
The first man dropped.
Another fired.
I moved behind a steel column.
Three more sH๏τs.
Silence.
Then footsteps.
One.
Two.
Three.
The accountant slowly backed away.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
I stepped into the light.
“I’m ending it.”
He laughed.
“You think Vivien is the enemy?”
I froze.
“She isn’t.”
“Then who is?”
He looked toward Mia.
And smiled.
“Your father.”
My blood turned cold.
“My father is ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”
“No.”
The accountant shook his head.
“Your father is alive.”
Silence.
Then Elena screamed.
“Lorenzo, don’t listen to him!”
The accountant looked at her.
“You know the truth.”
Elena lowered her head.
Tears fell onto her hands.
I stared at her.
“Elena?”
She couldn’t look at me.
“Tell me.”
Nothing.
“Elena.”
Her voice finally broke.
“Your father didn’t die.”
I felt the room disappear around me.
“He disappeared because he was running.”
“From whom?”
She whispered:
“From your family.”
I stepped backward.
“No.”
“He discovered what they were doing.”
“What were they doing?”
Elena looked at Mia.
Then at me.
“Your father found out that your uncle had been laundering money through the family foundation.”
My jaw тιԍнтened.
“And Vivien?”
“She was working for him.”
I remembered every smile.
Every kiss.
Every carefully chosen word.
The woman I thought loved me had been inside my home because someone had sent her.
But then Elena said something that changed everything.
“Vivien changed her mind.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“She was supposed to betray you.”
“Then why didn’t she?”
Elena’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because she fell in love with you.”
The warehouse went silent.
Then a slow clap came from the darkness.
Everyone turned.
Vivien stepped into the light.
No fear.
No tears.
A gun in her hand.
She pointed it at the accountant.
“Enough.”
He smiled.
“Too late.”
Vivien fired.
The bullet struck him in the chest.
He collapsed.
Mia screamed.
I raised my gun toward Vivien.
“Put it down.”
She looked at me.
For the first time since I’d met her, she wasn’t pretending.
“I was supposed to destroy you.”
My finger тιԍнтened around the trigger.
“But I couldn’t.”
“Then why threaten Elena?”
“I didn’t.”
I froze.
“What?”
Vivien’s eyes filled with tears.
“I never threatened Mia.”
“Liar.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“The woman you heard threatening Elena wasn’t me.”
She reached into her coat.
Pulled out her phone.
Pressed play.
A recording filled the warehouse.
Vivien’s voice.
Clear.
Cold.
Threatening.
But there was something wrong.
The voice sounded like her.
But it wasn’t.
Vivien looked at me.
“They cloned my voice.”
I stared at her.
“They’ve been setting me up.”
“For what?”
She swallowed.
“To make you kill me.”
A cold silence fell over the warehouse.
Then Mia suddenly whispered:
“Uncle Lorenzo?”
I turned.
She was staring at the doorway.
Her little face had gone white.
“There is someone behind you.”
I spun around.
Nothing.
Then the lights went out.
A gunsH๏τ cracked through the darkness.
Vivien screamed.
I reached for Mia.
And somewhere behind us, a man’s voice whispered:
“Your father sends his regards.”
Then another sH๏τ.
And everything went black.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the warehouse floor.
Vivien was beside me.
Blood covered her white dress.
Mia was gone.
And on the concrete beside my hand was a single pH๏τograph.
I picked it up.
My breath stopped.
It showed my father.
Older.
Alive.
Standing beside a woman I had never seen before.
And between them stood Mia.
Not three years old.
Not frightened.
Smiling.
On the back of the pH๏τograph, four words had been written in black ink:
SHE WAS NEVER THE TARGET.
I stared at the sentence.
Then the truth hit me.
The kidnapping.
The threats.
The ambush.
Vivien.
My father.
None of it had been about revenge.
They had been fighting over Mia.
And suddenly I understood why a three-year-old had been taught to knock three times.
Why she had been afraid of the gates.
Why Elena had spent months looking over her shoulder.
Because Mia wasn’t simply my maid’s daughter.
She was the one secret powerful enough to destroy the Duca family.
And someone had just taken her.
Alive.
On purpose.
Which meant they wanted me to follow.
