The Mafia Lord's Secret Lover-Chapter 360: Did Aunty Martha Suspect Something?

Axel settled into his chair behind the desk, the leather creaking softly beneath his weight.

He pulled his phone from his pocket. The faint smile that had lingered from teasing Dylan faded into a focused calm as he scrolled through his contacts.

When he found the name he wanted, he dialed immediately.

The call connected after two rings.

"Good evening, Boss," Ethan greeted politely from the other end.

Axel did not bother with small talk. "How is everything with the Martinez family? Why is there no news about them?"

A soft chuckle came through the phone, easing Axel’s tension just a little.

"Relax," Ethan said. "They already know about her death. They are returning her to their family home. But they are embarrassed about it, so they are keeping the information secret. Only close relatives know. That is why you have not seen any news about her death."

Axel’s upper lip curled into a faint, satisfied smile.

"Good," he said. "But do not stop monitoring their every move."

"Of course."

Axel leaned back in his chair, tapping a finger lightly against the armrest. "What about the Wright Group matter?"

There was a brief pause. Ethan took a deep breath before responding.

"We have taken care of the problem in Grayenfall," Ethan reported. "But something is strange."

Axel’s eyebrow knitted slightly. "Strange?"

"Usually, they would come back with other means. Trying to tarnish our reputation or mess with our business," Ethan explained. "But suddenly, they stopped. It is like they no longer want to spread their wings in Grayenfall."

The suspicion in Ethan’s tone was unmistakable.

Axel went silent for a moment. His gaze fixed on the dark window, the reflection of his own eyes staring back at him. His mind moved quickly, calculating possibilities.

"Boss?" Ethan called. "Are you still there?"

Axel cleared his throat, snapping back to the present.

"I think their focus is now on that girl’s death," Axel replied, his voice low and cold enough to frost glass. "Did you leave a trace? Why do they seem suspicious?"

"Of course not," Ethan answered confidently. "There is no way they found a lead that could trace us back to her."

The certainty in Ethan’s tone should have been reassuring.

But it was not.

Axel could not shake the faint unease crawling in his chest. He had spent years learning to trust his instincts.

And right now, his instincts whispered that something was moving beneath the surface of the Martinez family. Something he could not yet see.

Still, pressing Ethan further would bring no new answers. If there was a missing piece, it would come from someone else.

From Collins. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Axel exhaled slowly, masking his thoughts behind a calm voice.

"Alright. I trust you. Focus on the Wright Group for now. I will contact you if I need you."

"Okay, boss," Ethan replied playfully, as if discussing corporate strategies and silent wars were just another part of their midnight call routine.

The call ended.

Axel placed the phone on his desk and leaned back, his fingers steepled in front of him. The room was quiet again.

Outside, the city lights glowed against the garden. Inside, Axel’s eyes sharpened with quiet resolve.

If the Martinez family was moving in the shadows, he would be ready.

Axel did not waste any more time.

He reached for his phone, intending to dial Collins’s number immediately.

But just as his finger hovered over the screen, his gaze landed on a brown envelope resting quietly at the corner of his desk. It had been there the whole time, patient and forgotten.

His brows furrowed.

"What is this again?" he murmured.

He picked up the envelope and slid out its contents. The moment his eyes landed on the papers and photographs inside, his body went still.

"...Damn it," he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. "How could I forget about this?"

He exhaled deeply and began reading.

Evelyn’s voice echoed faintly in his memory. Her gentle request. Her worried eyes. Aunty Martha’s missing son.

He had promised to look into it.

Then Evelyn’s accident happened. Her recovery. His sleepless nights. His rage. His vengeance. Somewhere in that chaos, this investigation had been buried under more urgent pain.

Axel’s jaw tightened as guilt pricked at him.

"So this is him," he murmured, scanning the first document. "Noah Henry Davis. Declared lost and presumably dead during a family vacation in a neighboring country... fourteen years old."

He flipped to the next page and read the official statements. The search reports. The interviews. The timeline. His eyes moved quickly, absorbing every detail.

Then he reached another report.

His frown deepened.

"So they found the perpetrator’s car... Cause of death... car accident," Axel read aloud slowly. "Case closed."

He leaned back in his chair, tapping the paper against his palm.

"So the authority has declared the case as conclusive and duly closed. But then why is Aunty Martha still searching?" he wondered. "Why hasn’t she let go? What is her reason? Or reasons?"

He picked up another document. This one is a copy of a statement from local authorities. The wording was brief and neat. Too neat and too short for such an accident, where it was declared fatal but without the victim’s body.

His eyes narrowed.

"Did Aunty Martha suspect something? Or did she realize the authorities simply didn’t want to bother with her son’s disappearance?" he muttered.

He set the papers down and reached for a photograph. An old one.

A family picture. A smiling couple with a teenage boy between them. The boy’s grin was bright, careless, unaware of fate.

Axel stared.

Then frowned.

"Huh?" He leaned closer to the image. "Why does this kid look... familiar?"

He studied the boy’s eyes. The shape of his jaw. Something tugged at his memory, faint but persistent.

"Is he...?" Axel’s voice trailed off as he tried to grasp the thought.

But the memory refused to surface.

He leaned back again, frustrated.

"Damn it," he cursed under his breath. "Why do I feel like I know that face?"

The photo lay on the desk between his fingers, the boy’s smiling face staring back at him like a riddle waiting to be solved.

Axel’s patience snapped.

He dropped the picture onto the table, picked up his phone, and dialed Collins.

If anyone could untangle this mystery, it would be him.

And if Aunty Martha’s son was connected to something bigger... He intended to find out exactly what.