Chapter 2 - THE CAMERA THAT REMEMBERED THE AMBUSH
“Don't turn off that screen!” Sofia screamed.
Gabriel Shaw, Marco Bellini's security chief, froze with his finger hovering above the tablet.
The seventy guests were still gathered beneath the golden chandeliers. Broken champagne glass glittered across the marble floor, and Marco stood beside the staircase where he had nearly fallen to his death.
His injured left eye throbbed beneath his dark sunglasses.
“Why?” Marco demanded.
Sofia pointed toward the tablet taken from Dominic.
“Because whoever is watching us might have recorded what happened before tonight.”
Dominic Bellini stood between two security guards near the service elevator.
His face was pale.
“I wasn't running away,” he insisted. “I was trying to get that thing out of the house.”
Marco turned toward his cousin.
“Then why were you carrying it?”
Dominic swallowed.
“Because I knew about the cameras.”
Vivian gasped theatrically.
“Marco, he's admitting it!”
“Be quiet,” Marco said.
His fiancée stared at him.
It was the first time in six years that he had spoken to her that way.
Gabriel placed the tablet on a marble console.
The screen displayed a live image of the ballroom from somewhere above the staircase.
Marco could see himself standing beside Sofia.
He could see Vivian's trembling hands.
And he could see Gabriel leaning over the tablet.
A tiny red symbol blinked in the upper corner.
LIVE — CONNECTED
“That's not one of our authorized security cameras,” Gabriel said.
“Then find it,” Marco ordered.
Two guards hurried upstairs.
Dominic shook his head.
“You're looking in the wrong place.”
Marco approached him.
“Start explaining.”
Dominic looked toward Vivian before answering.
“Six weeks ago, someone offered me access to recordings of your recovery. They said the family needed independent proof that you were healthy enough to resume control.”
“And you agreed?”
“I was managing everything while you were hospitalized. There were decisions involving millions of dollars. I needed to know when you were coming back.”
Marco's expression hardened.
“You could have asked me.”
“You weren't telling anyone the truth about your condition.”
“Neither were you.”
For a moment, the cousins stared at one another.
Then Sofia noticed something.
At the bottom of the tablet was a small icon labeled ARCHIVE.
“Mr. Bellini,” she said quietly, “may I?”
Gabriel immediately objected.
“We shouldn't let an untrained employee interfere with potential evidence.”
“She already saved my life,” Marco replied. “I think she's earned the right to speak.”
Sofia touched the icon.
A list of recordings appeared.
There were dozens.
Marco sleeping in his bedroom.
Marco struggling through rehabilitation exercises.
Marco removing his sunglasses while a physician examined his eye.
Private conversations filmed from angles that no legitimate security system should have reached.
Sofia felt sick.
She had cleaned those rooms.
She had changed those sheets.
Someone had turned Marco's most vulnerable moments into entertainment.
Then she saw a folder near the bottom.
It was dated four months earlier.
Before Marco's surgery.
Before the temporary staircase railing.
Before the mansion had become a place where he needed someone to guide him.
The folder was labeled:
ATTEMPT ONE
Sofia stopped breathing.
“Sir?”
Marco leaned closer.
“Open it.”
The video showed the interior of a black SUV.
Marco recognized the leather seats immediately.
It was his armored vehicle.
The same vehicle in which he had nearly died during the ambush.
The recording began several minutes before the attack.
Rain streaked across the windshield.
His driver was speaking about an unexpected road closure.
Then Marco's own voice filled the ballroom.
“Take the alternate route. Security cleared it.”
Everyone fell silent.
On the screen, the SUV turned onto a deserted road.
Headlights appeared behind them.
The vehicle slowed.
Then a violent flash filled the windshield.
Marco flinched.
He remembered that flash.
He remembered the pain in his eye.
He remembered waking up in the hospital, wondering whether he would ever see clearly again.
Sofia looked away.
But Marco didn't.
He watched every second.
When the recording ended, the screen returned to the archive.
Beneath the file was a short note.
Sofia read it aloud.
“Attempt one failed. Subject survived.”
Vivian covered her mouth.
Dominic stepped backward.
And Gabriel's face became completely still.
Marco slowly removed his sunglasses.
His damaged eye was bloodshot, but his voice remained steady.
“Someone knew that attack was coming.”
Nobody answered.
“Someone placed a camera inside my vehicle before I was ambushed.”
He looked toward his cousin.
Then Vivian.
Then Gabriel.
“Which means whoever arranged my accident tonight was involved in what happened four months ago.”
Sofia glanced at the screen again.
A second line appeared beneath the recording.
It had been hidden until she scrolled farther down.
ATTEMPT TWO — PUBLIC WITNESSES REQUIRED.
Her hands began to shake.
“Mr. Bellini…”
Marco looked at her.
Sofia turned the tablet toward him.
“The staircase wasn't just another attempt to hurt you.”
She swallowed.
“They wanted seventy people to watch you fall.”
And beneath that instruction was something even worse.
A scheduled event.
8:00 A.M. — PERMANENT TRANSFER OF BELLINI AUTHORITY.
Marco stared at the words.
Then he whispered:
“They weren't only trying to take my life.”
May you like
His gaze shifted toward Dominic.
“They were trying to take everything I built.”
