Chapter 4 - THE LAKE HOUSE AT 3:13
We drove north the next morning.
Raphael.
Dominic.
Me.
I objected.
Raphael ignored me.
I objected to being ignored.
Eventually he said:
“You noticed the photograph.”
“So?”
“I need your eyes.”
That was disturbingly flattering.
The lake house sat beside frozen gray water.
Smaller than the mansion.
Quieter.
Raphael stopped at the front door.
For several seconds, he could not enter.
Dominic looked away.
I understood.
This was where Julian died.
I stepped beside Raphael.
“You don’t have to prove anything by walking in first.”
He looked at me.
Then handed Dominic the key.
Dominic entered first.
That small surrender mattered.
Julian’s bedroom remained nearly untouched.
Raphael’s father had preserved it.
Or imprisoned it in time.
Posters.
Books.
A guitar.
College brochures.
A photograph of two brothers fishing.
Raphael looked different in it.
Twenty-five.
Laughing.
I had never seen that face.
At 3:13 in the afternoon, sunlight moved across the room.
A narrow beam struck the floor.
I noticed scratches beneath the bed.
We moved it.
A loose board.
Underneath:
A cassette recorder.
Old.
Julian had hidden it.
The tape inside still worked.
Static.
Then Julian’s voice.
“If Raphael finds this, I was right.”
Raphael closed his eyes.
Julian continued.
“Dad is meeting with Conrad. They’re moving money through the foundation. I copied everything.”
Conrad.
Raphael’s uncle.
Matteo’s older brother.
Still alive.
Retired in Florida.
Supposedly.
The recording continued.
“If they discover I know, they’ll make it look like I hurt myself.”
Raphael sat down.
I had never seen grief physically strike someone.
It struck him.
Julian named accounts.
Dates.
One phrase repeated:
The Mercy Fund.
The Orsini Mercy Foundation supposedly funded clinics, shelters and youth programs.
But fourteen years earlier, someone used it to wash millions through fake charitable contracts.
Julian discovered it.
Then died.
“Your father?” I whispered.
Raphael’s face hardened.
“Maybe.”
The tape ended.
Except it didn’t.
Five seconds later:
A door opening.
Julian saying:
“Uncle Conrad?”
Then footsteps.
Tape stopped.
Dominic immediately contacted investigators loyal to Raphael.
Conrad’s Florida home was empty.
Had been for months.
He disappeared exactly 107 days earlier.
The same day Raphael began receiving photographs.
That changed everything.
Conrad was not merely connected to the past.
He was active now.
Why countdown 214 nights?
Why half?
We searched old Orsini traditions.
Sabine found the answer.
Every twenty years, the organization held a private ratification vote among senior captains.
Symbolic historically.
But legally significant because several holding companies contained succession clauses tied to the vote.
Next ratification:
107 days away.
“The house chooses again.”
Not poetic.
Corporate.
If Raphael became mentally incompetent, disappeared, resigned or died before the vote, temporary control passed to the oldest eligible Orsini male.
Conrad.
The countdown ended on succession day.
Someone had spent 107 nights depriving Raphael of sleep.
Watching.
Sending photographs.
Making him paranoid.
Breaking him slowly.
At the end, they expected him to collapse.
Or appear unstable enough to remove.
The whiskey suddenly made sense.
“I almost gave them what they wanted,” Raphael said.
“No.”
“I came to your room drunk saying I couldn’t continue.”
“You came to my room instead of putting a gun in your mouth, disappearing, or hurting someone.”
He stared.
“That is not failure.”
Something shifted in his face.
Then Dominic entered.
“We have another problem.”
He handed Raphael his phone.
Hospital security footage.
Micah’s treatment center.
A man in a maintenance uniform had entered Micah’s room.
He stayed forty-three seconds.
Left.
Nobody noticed until Raphael’s guard reviewed footage.
I stopped breathing.
“What did he do?”
The room had been empty.
Micah was at imaging.
Security searched it.
Nothing missing.
Then I saw Micah’s chessboard.
One piece had moved.
Black king.
Placed on its side.
Underneath it was a note.
Raphael read it.
Then handed it to me.
107 days.
May you like
Leave Raphael Orsini before the count ends, Elena.
Or your brother becomes part of the vote.
