Chapter 14 - The Name Luca Never Mentioned.
Antonio Moretti had been dead for six months.
Leah knew the name because newspapers had covered his funeral as though a head of state had died.
He had built Moretti Global from a regional shipping company into an international network of logistics, security, and risk-management businesses.
What Leah did not know was why Ethan had planned to meet him in secret.
Luca ended the call with Derek and returned upstairs without speaking to anyone for several minutes.
Leah waited until Nora closed the recovery room door.
"You didn't know."
Luca looked at her.
"No."
It was the first time his calmness looked fragile.
"Your father never told you?"
"My father and I stopped speaking regularly two years before Ethan died."
"Why?"
Luca looked toward the window.
"Because I thought he protected powerful people when he should have exposed them."
Leah understood immediately.
"The Sloans."
"Among others."
Luca removed his coat and draped it over the chair.
For the first time, he looked tired.
"My father believed influence was useful only if people feared losing access to it."
"And you didn't?"
"I believed secrets become debts."
Leah almost smiled despite herself.
"Considering today, you were right."
Luca gave a humorless nod.
Nora entered with a small evidence bag.
"Security found this inside the archive box after they dusted it."
Inside was a folded note.
The paper was old.
The handwriting belonged to Antonio Moretti.
Luca recognized it instantly.
He opened the note.
Ethan - if Richard is involved, do not use hospital email or internal phones.
Bring the account ledger to me directly.
If anything happens, Luca has the only clean copy of the partnership audit.
Luca read the last sentence twice.
"I don't have an audit."
Leah remembered Ethan's letter.
"Maybe you do and you don't know it."
"Ethan never gave me anything."
Nora looked toward the black pen Luca had used earlier.
"What did Ethan give you?"
Luca frowned.
"A watch."
Leah blinked.
"A watch?"
"After he left the company."
"Do you still have it?"
Luca touched his wrist automatically.
The steel watch beneath his cuff had been visible since the corridor.
Leah stared.
"You've been wearing it all day."
Luca removed it.
The back plate looked ordinary except for a thin groove around the edge.
Nora handed him a small instrument from the medical supply drawer.
Luca carefully turned the plate.
It opened.
Inside was a micro-storage card no larger than a fingernail.
Leah laughed in disbelief.
"Ethan hid evidence in a watch?"
Luca looked almost offended on his friend's behalf.
"He always liked terrible spy movies."
For one second, the tension cracked.
Then Luca inserted the card into an adapter.
The files appeared.
Bank transfers.
Emails.
Hospital access logs.
Payments to Elaine Porter.
And one audio recording dated the night before Ethan's crash.
Luca opened it.
Victoria's voice filled the room.
"If Ethan reaches Antonio, we lose everything."
Richard Vale answered.
"Then make sure he doesn't reach Antonio."
Leah stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
Victoria spoke again.
"No scenes."
"No headlines."
"Just delay him long enough for me to handle the rest."
There was no explicit order to cause a crash.
There was no confession.
But there was enough to demand a full investigation.
Luca closed the file.
"We give this to the police and the hospital board now."
Leah nodded.
Then her room phone rang.
Nora answered.
A security officer spoke rapidly.
Nora's eyes widened.
"Victoria Sloan is downstairs."
Luca stood.
"The court order bars her from approaching Leah."
Nora swallowed.
"She's not asking to approach Leah."
May you like
"What does she want?"
"She says she came to turn herself in."
