Mateo saw an unfamiliar mark on my neck, and I calmly told him the truth — and his hand trembled from time to time for the first time

That morning, my name was spoken beside the glass walls of the Duka Tower as if they had brought in not me, but a criminal.

“Ms. Donovan, the boss is waiting for you,” the head of security told me, and his eyes immediately moved to my neck.

I had a dark violet mark under my left ear. I covered it twice with makeup, raised my collar, but I knew that nothing could escape Mateo Duka’s eye. For eighteen months I had learned each of his habits: he never added sugar to his coffee, arranged documents from left to right, and, when angry, ran his left thumb over the surface of his ring.

I entered his office at nine in the morning. I placed on the desk his favorite dark leather folder, whose corner I had repaired years earlier with the needle of an old sewing machine. Inside, financial reports, the meeting schedule, and the documents for the Harborside project were waiting.

“The call with Senator Hartwell is at ten,” I told him. “At half past twelve there is lunch with the board members. Dominic said he needs five minutes before the shipping meeting.”

Mateo was staring at the phone and seemed to be alone in the room.

“The coffee is on the left side of the desk,” I added.

“I know.”

His voice was cold as usual. That was precisely why I became frightened when, after several seconds, he raised his head.

His eyes froze directly on my neck.

“Who did this to you?”

The air suddenly seemed to grow heavier. My hand involuntarily went toward the mark. My fingers stopped before touching the skin.

“It is nothing.”

“Elena.”

“I was on a date. I have the right to have a private life.”

He slowly stood up. The leather of the chair groaned quietly. The strip of sunlight entering through the windows divided his face in two, while the metal of the old watch on his wrist shone as if giving me a warning.

“A date?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“With whom?”

“You are my boss, Mateo. Not the supervisor of my imprisonment.”

A muscle moved on his jaw. For the first time I saw that something else was hiding beneath his anger. Fear. Very brief, but real.

He came around the desk. I stepped back and leaned against the wooden edge with my back. The hard corner of the folder dug into my thigh. My fingers froze, although the room was warm.

“Who was he?” he asked.

“A person you do not know.”

“I know every person who comes near you in my city.”

“Is that a threat now?”

“It is a warning.”

His hand slowly rose. I should have moved away, but I could not. His fingers touched my chin and turned my head to the side. He exposed the mark.

Mateo’s touch was not violent. That was exactly what was most dangerous. His thumb stopped at the edge of the violet stain, and something lit in his eyes that stopped my breath.

“You are mine,” he said quietly.

“No.”

“You are.”

The door handle moved.

Dominic Rossi stopped on the threshold. A silver folder was in his hand, and with the other hand he was holding onto the doorframe.

“The senator’s office is on the line,” he said. “But I think you have a more important matter right now.”

Mateo’s hand immediately dropped. The cold mask returned to his face.

“Connect the call to the study.”

“Right away.”

Mateo walked toward the door, but stopped at the threshold.

“We will finish this later.”

The door closed. I leaned on the desk with both hands and only then realized that I was clutching a small object in my palm: my father’s old copper compass, which I had carried in my bag for years. Its lid had opened halfway, and a thin memory card hidden inside touched my finger.

Dominic entered the room again. His face was pale.

“This mark is not from a date,” he said.

“What do you know?”

He placed the silver folder on the desk.

“I know who left it for you. And if we open this folder now, there will be no way back…”

“Then open it,” I told Dominic.

The words came out more calmly than I felt. At nine twelve in the morning, only the monotonous sound of the air conditioner could be heard in Mateo’s office. The marks of my fingers remained on the desk’s surface, and beside them stood cooled coffee. Its smell was strangely bitter.

Dominic did not open the folder.

“First you must tell me where you were that night.”

“Are you interrogating me?”

“No. I am trying to keep you alive.”

I went to the window. The city below looked so small, as if all the streets were lines drawn on one large board. Rain was beginning, and drops were slowly descending on the glass wall.

“I was with Luka Melikishvili,” I told him.

Dominic’s eyes changed.

“He works with Ridmont’s people.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you meet him?”

“Because he had what I have been looking for for eighteen months.”

Dominic struck the desk with his hand.

“Elena, you have no idea who you are standing against.”

“I have more than an idea.”

I took the copper compass from my pocket. My father’s object always seemed heavy to me, although it was small. In childhood he told me that a real compass does not show you north, it gives you a chance to return to the right path. Since he died, I no longer believed that phrase.

“Where did you get this?” Dominic looked at the compass.

“It was left to me by my father.”

“He did not have anything like that.”

“He did. You simply did not know.”

He still had not opened the folder. Just then footsteps sounded behind the door. Mateo had returned. He held a phone in his hand, and the tie fastened at his neck had loosened slightly.

“The senator will wait,” he said. “What are you two discussing?”

Dominic did not answer.

Mateo looked toward me and again stopped his gaze on my neck.

“Is the mark from him?” he asked.

“No.”

“From Luka?”

“I told you, it was a date.”

“I asked you something else.”

His voice was calm, but that calmness carried the smell of danger in the room. He pressed so hard on the pen lying at the edge of the desk that his fingers turned white.

Dominic picked up the folder.

“Mateo, this is no longer Elena’s matter alone.”

“When did you start speaking in my name?”

“Since the day your uncle killed three people and hid everything in your accounts.”

The room fell silent.

Mateo’s face did not change, but something collapsed in his eyes.

“Repeat that.”

Dominic looked toward me. In that look I no longer saw only suspicion. There was a request there.

I pressed my thumb against the lid of the compass. The small spring moved, but it did not open. The memory card was still hidden inside.

“Luka told me that my father’s death was not an accident,” I said. “He told me that a document existed that night. A document showing who gave the order.”

Mateo took a step.

“And you worked with me to find this out?”

“At first, yes.”

His eyes seemed to lose their cold color.

“At first?”

“Then I realized that you yourself were hiding something.”

“From me?”

“From everyone.”

Dominic opened the folder. Inside lay only one sealed envelope. The dark green wax was not broken in the middle. My surname was written on the surface of the envelope, but the handwriting resembled my father’s.

Mateo recognized it immediately.

“This is impossible,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I saw this handwriting on the same day your father was killed.”

I looked at the envelope. My knees gave way.

“Then tell me, Mateo. What happened that night?”

Instead of answering, he looked at Dominic.

“Who gave you this?”

“A man who said that your uncle already knew everything,” Dominic answered.

At that moment a short ring sounded on my phone. It was an unknown number. Only one message appeared on the screen: “If you open the envelope, Mateo Duka will die before he learns the truth…”

“Who sent it?” Mateo asked me.

I was still holding the phone. The message screen was flashing, while beyond the windows the rain was already striking the walls of the tower.

“I do not know.”

“You are lying to me.”

“This is the first time I am not lying to you,” I told him. “I simply do not like this message.”

Dominic took the phone from me and checked the number.

“It is a one-time line. I cannot trace it.”

Mateo stared at the sealed envelope. It was ten in the morning. The noise of the city could not reach so high, but inside the room it seemed that every car brake, every distant siren, and every hidden fear had gathered together.

“Open it,” he said.

“What if the warning is real?”

“Then I still have to know why my father was killed.”

For the first time his voice did not sound like an order. It sounded more like that of a man who had lived his whole life with one question.

Dominic took a small knife from his pocket. He carefully cut the green wax. The sound of paper tearing rang through the room.

Three sheets and a small voice recorder fell out of the envelope.

There was dust on the recorder, but one button still worked. Dominic turned it on.

At first there was only hissing.

Then my father’s voice sounded.

“If you are hearing this, it means I did not manage to return.”

My breath stopped. Mateo lowered his head, as if the words were falling physically into his body.

In the recording my father continued:

“The money of the Duka company passed for years through the secret network of my brother, Vittorio. I discovered it. Mateo knows nothing. If something happens to me, Vittorio will be responsible. But only one person will be able to stop him — my daughter, Elena.”

Dominic let go of the recorder. It fell onto the desk, and the voice continued again.

“Elena must trust neither the Duka family nor their enemies. However, tell Mateo the truth when his life is threatened. He must not be punished for the sins of others.”

The recording stopped.

No one moved.

I wanted to cry, but my eyes were dry. For eighteen months I had gathered suspicions, lived under someone else’s name, and awakened with my father’s last words. And now his voice stood before me again and was destroying everything at once.

Mateo picked up the papers. The first had bank accounts, the second signatures, and the third his uncle’s initials.

“You knew that my father was killed,” he told me.

“I knew it was murder. I did not know by whose order.”

“And you came to me so you could find the evidence.”

“At first.”

“Now?”

I looked toward him.

“Now I stayed because I was protecting you from Vittorio.”

Mateo lowered his eyes. For the first time his face showed not anger, but shame.

“He was pressuring me,” he said quietly. “After my father’s death he told me that if I did not continue his deals, the family would collapse. I thought I controlled everything.”

Dominic looked toward the window.

“We still do not control it.”

His phone rang. At one glance he lost his color.

“What happened?” Mateo asked him.

Dominic turned on the call’s speaker.

An unknown man’s voice sounded:

“You opened the envelope. Good. Now go to Harborside, and go alone. If you tell the police, a lawyer, or your people, Vittorio will die.”

The call disconnected.

Mateo struck the desk with his fist. The glass overturned and coffee spilled over the papers.

I looked into the copper compass. Its small needle was turning strangely.

And then I realized that my father had left not only a hidden recording. Something else was hidden inside the compass, something whose existence Vittorio still did not know about…