Chapter 7 - The ghost at the gates
The room plunged into an eerie silence. Maria rushed forward and knelt beside her daughter, pulling the small girl into her arms. "Lucy, honey, you must have been dreaming. You've never seen that woman before."
"I did see her," Lucy insisted gently. "She smelled like vanilla."
Maria quickly unzipped Lucy’s tiny, brightly colored backpack to distract her, intending to pull out a coloring book. As she pulled the small book out, a fresh, glossy photograph slipped from between the pages and fluttered down onto the dark wood floor.
Nicholas stepped forward and picked it up. He stared at the image, completely stunned.
It was a high-resolution, modern surveillance photograph, printed just hours ago. It showed the heavy iron gates of the Moretti mansion bathed in the bright morning sunlight of that exact day. Standing just outside the gates, staring directly up at the hidden security camera, was Elena. She looked exactly as she had nine years ago, her auburn hair blowing in the wind, her green eyes piercing through the lens.
"My sister died nine years ago," Nicholas barely whispered, his voice laced with a mixture of grief and raw shock.
Marco stepped up beside him, his disciplined face turning grim as he inspected the photograph. He pointed to the bottom corner of the image, where the shiny black metal of the gate reflected the inside of the estate.
"Look closely at the reflection, boss," Marco said, his voice hard. "She wasn't just standing outside. Someone was standing on the inside, entering the override code to open the gate for her."
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Nicholas stared at the blurry reflection in the metal. It was a woman wearing a deep-red satin gown. Vivienne.
He flipped the glossy photo over. On the stark white back, a message was written in elegant, flowing cursive ink: See you at midnight, little brother.
