Chapter 8 - The Man Behind the Silver Watch
“Keep Elias away from Oliver.”
Matteo spoke quietly to the caseworker.
Something in his expression made her act immediately.
She guided Oliver toward a private interview room.
Elias noticed.
He approached with his usual controlled manner.
“What's happening?”
Matteo didn't move.
“Oliver says you were driving the black sedan.”
For the first time, Elias looked genuinely surprised.
Then his face hardened.
“Matteo, he's six years old.”
“He knows what he saw.”
“He also heard Margaret talking about the black car for days. Children get confused.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“My son was terrified to say your name.”
Elias glanced toward the caseworker.
“Are we really doing this in public?”
“You tell me.”
A deputy assigned to the building approached when he noticed the confrontation.
Matteo explained the allegation.
The officer asked Elias to remain available for questioning.
Elias gave a frustrated sigh.
“Of course. Whatever helps Oliver.”
But when he folded his arms, his jacket sleeve slid back.
Matteo saw the watch.
Silver case.
Dark face.
A long diagonal scratch across the glass.
His father's watch.
The same one Beatrice remembered from the afternoon Elena died.
Matteo stared at it.
Elias noticed.
“Something wrong?”
“You still wear my father's watch.”
Elias glanced down.
“You gave it to me.”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“It's important to me.”
Matteo remembered the moment he'd handed it over.
He had called Elias family.
Now he wondered what else he'd given him without realizing it.
The deputy escorted Elias into a separate office to await investigators.
Matteo didn't interfere.
He needed more than a child's frightened memory and a familiar watch.
He needed evidence that could survive outside his family's walls.
While the caseworker arranged for Oliver to speak privately with a trained interviewer, Celia arrived carrying Elena's yellow notebook.
“We found something.”
Matteo followed her into an empty conference room.
Beatrice had called the records-storage company listed on Elena's old receipts.
The brass key opened a rented storage box.
More importantly, the rental agreement named Celia as an authorized person who could retrieve its contents.
“Elena knew I would need access someday,” Celia said.
Inside the box were duplicate account statements, handwritten notes, and correspondence with a financial examiner.
They showed that money had been disappearing from the trust for years.
At first, the amounts were small.
Then they grew.
Transfers were routed through legitimate-looking security expenses and charitable consulting fees.
The names changed.
The destination accounts didn't.
Celia pointed to a series of payments.
“Look at the approval codes.”
Matteo recognized them.
Elias's security department had approved the transactions.
The missing funds hadn't been transferred to strangers outside the family's operations.
They had moved through companies Elias controlled.
Matteo stared at the totals.
“Millions.”
Celia nodded.
“And Elena noticed three years ago.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She tried.”
Celia handed him a photocopy of a handwritten letter.
It was addressed to Matteo.
The first paragraph made his chest ache.
I know you're trying to give Oliver everything you never had. But I need you to understand that money and protection aren't the same thing.
He continued reading.
Elena had discovered irregularities in the trust accounts.
She suspected someone close to Matteo.
She wanted independent verification before accusing anyone because she knew what would happen if Matteo believed his family had been betrayed.
Near the bottom, she had written:
Please don't confront anyone until Celia and I can show you the original records. Our son needs his father more than he needs revenge.
Matteo sat down.
For three years, he'd believed Elena had died angry with him.
Now he held proof that she'd been trying to protect him even during their worst disagreement.
He closed his eyes.
“She was going to tell me.”
Celia nodded.
“She wanted to do it safely.”
“Why didn't I get this?”
“I left a copy at the estate the night Daniel died.”
Matteo remembered Daniel's funeral.
Elias had handled everything.
The investigation.
The witnesses.
The security reports.
Even the arrangements for Daniel's family.
Matteo felt a terrible realization forming.
“Elias controlled the evidence from the beginning.”
Celia nodded.
“And Margaret knew enough to be frightened.”
Matteo looked toward the hallway.
“Where's my mother?”
“She came to correct her statement.”
Margaret was sitting alone near the office entrance.
When Matteo approached, she looked at the letter in his hand.
Her face changed.
“You found it.”
“You knew Elena wrote this?”
Margaret nodded.
“I saw the first page.”
“Why didn't you give it to me?”
“Because I was told it would destroy everything.”
“By Elias?”
She began trembling.
Matteo knelt beside her chair.
“Mother, look at me.”
She couldn't.
“Did Elias threaten you?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“Oliver. You. Everything.”
Matteo waited.
Margaret drew a shaky breath.
“He said if I told anyone what happened that night, he would make sure you were blamed for Elena's death.”
Matteo's voice became quiet.
“What actually happened?”
Margaret covered her face.
Before she could answer, Matteo's phone vibrated.
Denise Porter had sent an urgent message.
The financial controller had received instructions to erase archived transaction records from two Valenti companies.
The authorization had been issued using Elias's credentials.
But there was something he didn't know.
Denise had already secured independent copies of the records.
Matteo called her.
“Preserve everything. Send the deletion request directly to the investigators.”
He ended the call.
Then he turned to Celia.
“Now we know what he's afraid of.”
The financial examiner's records established a pattern of diversion stretching back more than three years.
The original storage-box records also contained a note about a missing trust distribution.
It had been scheduled for transfer shortly after Elena's death.
The recipient was listed as a family protection reserve.
But the money had gone into another private account.
Elias's account.
Matteo understood the motive.
If Oliver's trust underwent a complete independent review, years of theft could be exposed.
A change in guardianship could delay that review while giving Elias more control over the information presented.
The black sedan.
Rebecca's injuries.
The false statements.
The threats against Thomas Collins.
Every cruel detail had served the same purpose.
Keep the truth hidden until Elias could secure control.
But the question of Elena's death remained.
Later that afternoon, investigators questioned Elias about the financial transfers.
His attorney arrived.
Elias denied ordering Oliver's abduction and insisted the questionable payments were authorized security expenses.
He refused to answer questions about Elena.
Matteo watched from across the hallway.
For the first time, Elias looked like a man whose carefully built life was beginning to collapse.
But when their eyes met, he still managed a small smile.
He knew Matteo couldn't yet prove what happened in the desert three years earlier.
Margaret saw the smile too.
Something inside her seemed to break.
She stood abruptly.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
Margaret walked toward the investigators.
“Stop asking him whether he knew Elena was in that car.”
Matteo stared at his mother.
“Mother, what are you doing?”
She looked at him.
Her face was wet with tears.
“For three years, I've let you believe your wife died alone.”
The room fell silent.
Margaret gripped the back of a chair.
“She wasn't alone. Elias was driving.”
Matteo felt his knees weaken.
“Then why did she crash?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Because I followed them.”
She looked directly at her son.
“And my car struck theirs.”
May you like
Her next words shattered what remained of his certainty.
“Matteo, I caused the crash that killed Elena.”
