Chapter 4 - The Machine Speaks
The Grundig dictaphone did not hum when I slid the batteries into the compartment. The old circuits were dry, starved of current for nearly a decade. I pressed the play button anyway, holding down the heavy plastic key with my thumb, waiting.
Nothing.
I adjusted the battery door, tapping the side of the grey plastic casing the way my father used to tap our old radio in the kitchen when the reception drifted.
A low, electrical hiss crawled out of the small built-in speaker.
Then, a intake of breath.
It was Chiara's breath. Not her speaking voice—just the sound of her lungs filling in a quiet room, the faint, paper-dry rustle of a sleeve against a table.
I let go of my breath. The office seemed to contract around me until the walls felt like they were pressing against my shoulders.
Dante, the voice said.
It was softer than I remembered. Memory is a strange sculptor; over eight years, I had turned Chiara’s voice into a monument, distant and solemn like the marble statues in the courtyard. But hearing it now, through the tinny, distorted speaker of an old dictaphone, she sounded young. Terrified, but young.
If you’re hearing this, it means Valentina finally won, or I didn't make it to the ferry.
A pause on the tape. The sound of distant traffic—the low rumble of trucks on the coastal highway below the villa—leaked into the microphone. She had recorded this outside, or near an open window.
I didn't want to believe what she told me about the docks. I thought she was just... being a Moretti. Protecting the name, protecting your back. But I found the ledgers in the east wing safe, Dante. The real ones. The ones you never saw because Valentina was filtering the accounts for you.
My hand tightened on the edge of the desk. The wood groaned under my fingers.
She’s not just laundering money for the Calabrians, Dante. She’s selling the shipping routes. The whole operation—every warehouse we own from Genoa to Marseille—she’s been cutting them out to the Santoro family behind your back. If you confront her without proof, she’ll do to you what she tried to do to me. She’s already told the guards your health is failing. She’s setting up the Regency.
The tape hissed, a long, steady stream of white noise filling the silence of the study.
Then, a sound that made my blood run cold.
A door opening in the background of the recording. Footsteps on polished wood—slow, rhythmic, deliberate.
Chiara?
It was Valentina’s voice on the tape. Clear, calm, carrying that sweet, poison-honey tone she used when she was about to ruin someone’s life.
What are you doing with that little machine, little sister? You know recording devices are so messy. They leave such permanent tracks.
May you like
A sharp click.
The tape cut off mid-syllable.
