Chapter 7 - THE ROSARY IN THE BLUE TOWER
Lorenzo stared at the small black speaker on the wall intercom, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the mahogany desk.
“Repeat that, Matteo,” Lorenzo demanded into the receiver.
Nothing came back through the line except a burst of harsh static, followed by the dull, metallic thud of a heavy iron door slamming shut, and then complete, suffocating silence. The connection had been severed from the main junction box in the basement.
Clara stood up from the armchair, her arms instinctively tightening around the sleeping child. “Your father? Lorenzo, you told me he was incapacitated. You said he had dementia.”
“He had a stroke fourteen months ago,” Lorenzo said, his mind furiously connecting the disjointed pieces of the puzzle that had haunted him for three years. “He couldn't speak, couldn't hold a pen. The doctors said his cognitive functions were degrading. But my father… my father was the most paranoid man in Lombardy. He spent forty years trusting no one, not even his own sons.”
Lorenzo pulled the brass key with the stamp 304 from Clara’s outstretched palm.
“Stay here,” he instructed, turning toward the hidden door. “Keep the latch thrown. If anyone other than me tries to open this panel, there is a secondary escape hatch behind the wardrobe that leads directly to the garden cistern. Take Rosie and do not look back.”
“Lorenzo, wait,” Clara said, stepping forward. For the first time, she reached out and touched his forearm, her fingers catching the rolled cuff of his shirt. “Don't go up there alone. If your father is in this house, he isn't here to talk. Elena told me… she told me the old man visited her in Rome before Matteo ever did. She said he gave her a choice.”
Lorenzo’s blood ran cold. “What choice?”
“She didn't tell me,” Clara whispered, tears shimmering in her eyes. “She only said that the Vitali name was built on blood, and that an architect didn't belong in a fortress of ghosts.”
Lorenzo gently covered Clara’s hand with his own for a single, reassuring second. “This house isn't a fortress of ghosts anymore. It belongs to the living.”
He slipped out of the safe room, securing the panel behind him, and made his way through the quiet corridors of the west wing toward the historic east pavilion. The rain outside was drumming harder now, beating against the high arched windows like handfuls of gravel thrown against the glass.
The corridor leading to Room 304 had not been used in months. Canvas drop cloths still covered the antique furniture, and the air carried the dry, papery smell of dormant timber and old paint. When he reached the heavy oak door at the base of the spiral staircase leading to the blue tower, he found the deadbolt already unlocked.
The brass mechanism had been freshly oiled.
Lorenzo drew the pistol from his waistband, stepped lightly onto the winding stone stairs, and ascended into the darkness.
At the top of the stairs, the door stood slightly ajar. A pale, ethereal blue light spilled across the stone landing—the twilight filtering through the Venetian stained-glass skylight high above.
Lorenzo pushed the door open with the toe of his shoe, clearing the corners with his weapon raised.
The tower room was circular, lined with empty wooden bookshelves and half-finished drafting tables that Elena had left behind four years ago. In the center of the room, sitting upright in a high-backed leather armchair beneath the blue glass ceiling, was an old man wrapped in a heavy wool tartan blanket.
Vincenzo Vitali.
His father looked frail, his white hair thinned to wisps, his hands resting motionless on the carved ivory handle of a walking stick. But his dark eyes, fixed squarely on Lorenzo, were sharp, lucid, and entirely devoid of the fog of dementia.
Sitting on the low table before the old man was a cup of black espresso, still steaming faintly, and a worn silver rosary with black onyx beads—the family heirloom that Vincenzo had supposedly lost in the hospital the previous spring.
“You always took your time climbing these stairs, Lorenzo,” the old man spoke, his voice dry and reedy, like autumn leaves scraping along pavement, but completely steady.
Lorenzo did not lower the gun. He stood in the doorway, the blue light painting the shadows of his face into sharp, unforgiving angles.
“You faked the decline,” Lorenzo said.
“I retired,” Vincenzo corrected calmly, his hands never leaving the head of his cane. “In our line of work, a boss cannot simply step down and tend tomatoes. If I showed strength, your enemies would have kept shooting at me. If I showed weakness, they came for you. And you… you were ready. Almost.”
“You drove Elena away,” Lorenzo stated, taking two slow steps into the room, his voice vibrating with suppressed fury. “Matteo didn't have the brains to forge those documents alone. You orchestrated her disappearance.”
Vincenzo let out a dry, rattling chuckle that ended in a cough. “I tested her, Lorenzo. As I tested you. A girl from the outside, an artist with no family, no backing, no stomach for the business—she would have broken you the moment the first bomb hit our docks. I offered her two million euros to leave Rome and walk away from you forever.”
“And she refused you,” Lorenzo said, knowing Elena’s pride, knowing the fire that lived behind her smile.
“She threw the check in my coffee,” Vincenzo said, a glint of genuine, grudging admiration flashing in his dark eyes. “She told me that my money smelled like dead men, and that if Lorenzo loved her, he would come find her without his father’s permission.”
“Then why did she run?” Lorenzo demanded, his pistol remaining level with his father’s chest. “Why did she die alone in Switzerland, hiding from both of us?”
The old man’s expression darkened, the faint amusement vanishing from his withered face. He reached out with a trembling hand, pushed the silver rosary aside, and lifted a small brass key identical to the one in Lorenzo’s pocket.
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“Because she found out what Matteo had done,” Vincenzo said quietly. “And she realized that if you found out, you would execute your own brother before sunset. She ran to save you, Lorenzo. She knew you were capable of murder, but she didn't want you to carry the sin of fratricide for the rest of your life.”
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