Chapter 20 - The phantom bell
By dawn, the manor was completely secured, the bodies removed, and Castiglione’s decimated convoy abandoned on the coastal highway as a grim warning to the southern syndicates. Yet the air inside the great estate remained heavy with unease. Sophia sat in the grand library, dressed in a warm woolen sweater, watching Emma sleep peacefully on the large leather sofa under the watchful eyes of three trusted female bodyguards. Damiano stood by the tall arched windows, staring out at the foggy cliffs where the morning light struggled to pierce through the dense coastal mist.
His private phone rang on the desk—a heavily encrypted line that only three people in the entire global underworld possessed the frequency to reach. Damiano answered it, pressing the receiver to his ear without speaking. A voice on the other end, raspy, mechanical, and distorted by an advanced scrambler, broke the silence. "You think killing Castiglione’s dogs solves the riddle, little brother?" The voice sent a violent shockwave through Damiano’s spine. His fingers tightened around the glass receiver so hard that fine hairline cracks splintered across the screen.
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"Who is this?" Damiano demanded, his voice dropping into a deadly, guttural tone that made Sophia look up from the sofa in alarm. The voice on the phone chuckled—a dry, mocking sound that resonated with chilling familiarity. "Twenty-five years ago, our father didn't just light one fire. He burned three different ships in the harbor. One carried Elena Bellini. Another carried the gold. But you never checked the third ship, did you, Damiano? You were only ten years old. You believed what the old man told you."
A loud, hollow toll of a church bell suddenly echoed through the receiver, accompanied by the distinct sound of waves crashing against wet wooden docks. It was the distinct rhythmic chime of Saint Jude’s chapel down at the abandoned commercial pier—a territory that had been sealed off under quarantine for over a decade. "If you want to know who really poisoned your little heiress’s milk," the caller whispered, "come to the dry dock alone. If you bring your men, I will detonate the gas line beneath the south wing before your car reaches the gate." The line went completely dead with a sharp click, leaving Damiano standing in absolute, frozen silence as he looked through the window toward the gray, misty harbor below.
