Chapter 5 - A Family Secret
Marco Moretti had supposedly died at twenty-three.
Adrian had believed it for twenty-eight years.
Now every memory became suspect.
The funeral.
The coffin.
The photographs.
The priest.
The grave.
Everything.
Adrian spent the entire night reading old files.
At three in the morning, he found something.
The death certificate had been signed by a doctor who died six months later.
The body had been badly burned.
Identification had been based on dental records.
Adrian's father had arranged everything.
Why?
The answer appeared in a letter hidden inside an old safe.
If Marco survives, Adrian must never know.
Adrian read the sentence twice.
Then again.
His father had known.
Perhaps he had even helped Marco disappear.
But why?
The answer was on the next page.
Marco had tried to kill his father.
He had been obsessed with inheriting the organization.
His father had chosen Adrian instead.
Marco retaliated.
Then he vanished.
Adrian sat back.
For years, he had believed his father's death was unrelated.
Now he wondered whether Marco had returned because Adrian had built something Marco believed belonged to him.
At dawn, Hannah found him in the library.
“You haven't slept.”
“No.”
She noticed the files.
“What did you find?”
Adrian told her.
Hannah looked horrified.
“Then what happens now?”
“I find him.”
“And then?”
Adrian didn't answer.
She understood.
“You're going to kill him.”
“If necessary.”
“No.”
Adrian looked up.
“You don't get to tell me how to handle my family.”
“And you don't get to decide that violence is the answer just because it's the language you've always spoken.”
His eyes hardened.
“You don't know me.”
“I know enough.”
She stepped closer.
“You saved my job yesterday.”
Adrian frowned.
“What?”
“You could have fired me for bringing Ellie.”
“I didn't.”
“You gave her medicine.”
“Yes.”
“You moved us here.”
“Yes.”
“You protected us.”
“Yes.”
“Then don't become the monster my daughter thinks you're not.”
Adrian stared at her.
The words hurt because they were true.
Before he could answer, a guard entered.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“We found something in the garden.”
They followed him outside.
A small red box sat beneath the oak tree.
Inside was a child's bracelet.
Pink beads.
A silver heart.
Adrian recognized it.
Lily's.
His daughter had worn it the night she died.
Adrian stopped breathing.
Hannah looked at him.
“Is that hers?”
He nodded.
“How could it be here?”
Adrian didn't know.
Then his phone buzzed.
A message appeared.
ASK YOUR WIFE WHAT SHE KNEW.
Adrian stared at the words.
Elena was dead.
But someone was telling him she had secrets.
He opened the next message.
A photograph appeared.
Elena sitting across from a man.
Marco.
The date was three months before the bombing.
Adrian felt the ground shift beneath him.
Elena had met Marco.
May you like
Secretly.
And she had never told him.
