Chapter 10 - THE MORETTI WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
His name was Gabriel Moretti.
Vittorio’s younger brother.
Luca’s uncle.
Matteo’s godfather.
And according to every record anyone could find, he had been dead for twelve years.
“That seems to happen a lot in your family.”
The words escaped me before I could stop them.
Luca looked at me.
Marco actually laughed.
One short sound.
Under different circumstances, I might have apologized.
I did not.
Luca rubbed his face.
“You are not wrong.”
Police searched every floor.
Derek remained missing.
Gabriel vanished from the interrogation room through a maintenance corridor that should have been locked.
Someone inside the hospital had helped him.
Again.
By sunrise, St. Catherine’s felt less like a hospital and more like a fortress.
I had not slept.
Neither had Luca.
Isabella was the only one behaving sensibly.
She ate.
Slept.
Cried.
Then slept again.
At six thirty, the DNA results arrived.
Two separate laboratories.
Both confirmed the same thing.
Vittorio Moretti was my biological father.
I was Luca’s half-sister.
I stared at the paper for a long time.
“So that is it.”
Luca sat across the room.
“That is it.”
“I am a Moretti.”
“Yes.”
“I hate how pleased you sound.”
“I am trying not to.”
“You are failing.”
“Probably.”
I looked at Isabella.
“What does this make her?”
“My niece.”
Something softened in his voice.
I looked up.
He was smiling.
Barely.
It transformed his face.
For one brief second, he was not the feared man in the hospital.
He was an uncle looking at a newborn.
“You really like her.”
“Yes.”
“She threw up on Marco.”
“I heard.”
“You laughed.”
“I did.”
Marco entered carrying coffee.
“I would like the record to reflect that I did not laugh.”
“You looked offended,” I said.
“It was an expensive jacket.”
“She is three days old.”
“She showed no remorse.”
I smiled.
Then reality returned.
“Gabriel.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“My uncle disappeared after my father was shot.”
“Why did everyone think he was dead?”
“His boat exploded off the coast of Sicily.”
“No body?”
“Pieces.”
I stared.
“Pieces of him?”
“Supposedly.”
“Your family needs better standards of proof.”
Marco handed me tea instead of coffee.
“Also true.”
“What motive would Gabriel have?”
Luca looked out the window.
“My father chose Matteo.”
“To inherit.”
“Yes.”
“And you got the criminal side.”
His mouth tightened.
“An oversimplification.”
“But not wrong.”
“No.”
“What did Gabriel get?”
“Nothing.”
There it was.
“He was cut out.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Vittorio discovered Gabriel had been stealing from family companies.”
“Medical funds?”
“Not then.”
“But later?”
“Possibly.”
Pieces aligned.
Gabriel knew the money system.
Rachel Hale worked for Matteo.
Samuel Pierce discovered something.
Matteo found Derek’s legal firm creating shell companies.
Then Matteo died.
“What about the second ledger?”
“We find Samuel, we find out.”
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Wisconsin State Police.”
“What?”
“They located Peter Samuels’s property.”
Samuel Pierce.
“Alive?”
“House is empty.”
“Evidence?”
“Blood.”
My heart sank.
“How much?”
“Not enough to establish fatal injury.”
“Anything else?”
Marco listened.
Then looked directly at me.
“A photograph of Emma.”
Of course.
“When?”
“Taken during pregnancy.”
My arms tightened around Isabella.
“Anything written on it?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Marco hesitated.
“Delivery date.”
The room went cold.
They had been waiting for my baby.
Why?
Not simply inheritance.
Something else.
“What happens if I die?”
I asked.
Luca’s eyes snapped toward me.
“You are not going to.”
“That was not my question.”
“Emma.”
“If I die, what happens to Vittorio’s trust?”
Marco looked at Luca.
Neither answered.
“Tell me.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“It transfers to your descendants.”
My eyes dropped to Isabella.
There it was.
“If I died, she inherits everything.”
“Yes.”
“And as her biological father, Derek could attempt to control her assets.”
“Courts would appoint oversight.”
“But Gabriel thought he could influence it.”
“Possibly.”
I felt sick.
“This was not Plan B.”
Luca stood.
“What?”
“Derek’s Plan B was custody.”
“Yes.”
“What was Plan A?”
Silence.
I remembered his words in the hallway.
I want a paternity test before I sign anything.
If she is mine, there will not be a problem.
If she is mine.
Brittany said Derek needed confirmation.
Why?
Because if Isabella was Derek’s biological child, he had a path to control.
But if she was not—
Then the plan failed.
I looked at Luca.
“They needed the paternity test to know whether Derek could inherit through her.”
His expression changed.
“Yes.”
“And once it proved he was her father?”
Luca understood at the same instant I did.
“They no longer needed you alive.”
My blood froze.
Marco immediately began issuing orders.
More guards.
New room.
No food without inspection.
No staff without verification.
I interrupted.
“No.”
Both men stared.
“I am leaving.”
“Absolutely not,” Luca said.
“You do not get to say absolutely.”
“You gave birth three days ago.”
“I will recover somewhere Gabriel does not have employees.”
“The hospital is secure now.”
“He walked into a police interrogation room.”
Silence.
“He accessed my daughter’s medical chart. He manipulated staff. He shut off power twice.”
I looked at Luca.
“This building belongs to your family. That is exactly why I do not want to be here.”
He hated it.
But he knew I was right.
“Where?”
“Somewhere nobody associates with me.”
Marco thought.
“Safe house.”
“No.”
“Emma—”
“I am not raising Isabella in a bunker.”
“Temporarily.”
I looked at Luca.
“How temporary?”
“Until Gabriel is found.”
“That could be years.”
His silence proved it.
“I want somewhere normal.”
“Normal is difficult at the moment.”
“Try.”
An hour later, the strangest compromise of my life was arranged.
A small lake house in Wisconsin owned through a company with no obvious Moretti connection.
Two bedrooms.
One fireplace.
No staff.
Security positioned far enough away that I would not see them.
A pediatric nurse available if needed.
“Not living inside the house,” I insisted.
Luca sighed.
“No.”
“And Marco does not sleep outside my bedroom door.”
Marco looked offended.
“I had not planned to.”
“You look like the type.”
“I will take that as a compliment.”
Before discharge, Detective Alvarez returned.
She brought one final piece of news.
They had recovered Derek.
Alive.
He had been found unconscious in the trunk of a car three blocks from the hospital.
“He escaped?”
“No.”
“Gabriel released him?”
“Apparently.”
“Why?”
Alvarez handed me a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was a note recovered from Derek’s jacket.
The handwriting was elegant.
Old-fashioned.
You were useful until you fell in love with her.
I stared.
Derek had fallen in love with me.
Maybe.
Part of him.
Too late to matter.
Too weak to make him good.
“What happens to him?”
Alvarez answered.
“Identity theft, conspiracy, attempted custodial interference, financial crimes, possible kidnapping-related charges. The list is growing.”
“Will he go to prison?”
“If we prove the case.”
Not revenge.
Justice.
Slower.
Less satisfying in the moment.
But real.
I looked toward the nursery.
“Can I see him?”
Luca immediately frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I need to finish something.”
Derek was brought to a guarded consultation room in a wheelchair.
His face was swollen.
One wrist cuffed to the chair.
When I entered holding Isabella, his eyes filled.
“Emma.”
I stayed several feet away.
He looked at our daughter.
“Is that…”
“Isabella.”
His mouth trembled.
“That was your favorite.”
“Yes.”
“She is beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
I believed that he was sorry.
That was the tragedy.
Sorry did not rebuild trust.
Sorry did not erase forged signatures.
Sorry did not erase a plan that used a newborn as leverage.
“I loved you,” he whispered.
“Maybe.”
His eyes closed.
“But you loved yourself more.”
He cried then.
Quietly.
I felt nothing I expected.
No satisfaction.
No desire to hurt him.
Only grief for the life I thought existed.
“I want to sign.”
My body stiffened.
“The birth certificate.”
“No.”
He looked up.
“She is my daughter.”
“Biologically.”
His face crumpled.
“You cannot erase me.”
“I am not.”
I looked at Isabella.
“One day, when she is old enough, I will tell her the truth.”
He swallowed.
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“Emma.”
“She will know you existed. She will know you made choices. And if you spend the next twenty years becoming a man worth knowing, maybe one day she will decide what she wants from you.”
Hope appeared in his eyes.
I hated having to destroy it slightly.
“But that decision will belong to her.”
Not him.
Not me.
Not Luca.
Her.
I turned to leave.
“Emma.”
I stopped.
“Gabriel has someone close to Luca.”
I looked back.
“What?”
“He has always had someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because Gray knew things nobody outside Luca’s house could know.”
My stomach tightened.
“Marco?”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Not Marco.”
“Who?”
“I never got a name.”
I waited.
Derek lowered his voice.
“But Gabriel called the person ‘the widow.’”
I left without answering.
The phrase stayed with me.
The widow.
Luca had never mentioned being married.
Neither had Marco.
That evening we left St. Catherine’s through a private exit.
Rain had begun falling.
Luca carried Isabella’s car seat as though it contained something more valuable than the entire Moretti fortune.
Maybe to him it did.
At the SUV, I stopped.
“Were you married?”
His entire body went still.
Marco looked away.
That was answer enough.
“Yes,” Luca said.
“What happened to her?”
“She died.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“How?”
His eyes met mine.
“Car accident.”
My blood went cold.
Another accident.
“Name?”
Luca did not want to answer.
I could see it.
Finally:
“Sofia.”
“Did Gabriel know her?”
“Yes.”
“Could she have been working with him?”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“You are sure?”
“She died.”
“So did Gabriel.”
Silence.
Rain struck the roof of the SUV.
Marco slowly pulled out his phone.
“Luca.”
“What?”
“I never saw Sofia’s body.”
Luca turned.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were in surgery after the crash.”
Luca’s face emptied.
“And?”
“Your uncle arranged the transfer to Italy.”
“My mother identified her.”
Marco looked sick.
“Your mother was heavily sedated.”
Luca stared at him.
“No.”
I knew that word.
I had used it all week.
No.
The word people used when truth reached them before acceptance did.
Marco continued.
“The coffin remained closed.”
Luca stepped backward.
“No.”
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Nobody moved.
Then he answered.
A woman’s voice came through.
Soft.
Elegant.
Familiar to him.
I knew because Luca Moretti—the man whose name silenced rooms—looked suddenly unable to breathe.
“Hello, Luca.”
His hand shook.
For the first time ever.
The woman laughed quietly.
“You really should stop believing every death certificate your family gives you.”
Luca’s face went white.
“Sofia?”
The line remained silent for one heartbeat.
Then two.
Finally she spoke.
“Yes, husband.”
My stomach dropped.
Marco reached for his weapon.
The woman continued.
“And before you take Emma to Wisconsin, you should know something.”
Luca turned slowly toward me.
“What?”
Sofia laughed again.
“I already own the house.”
The call ended.
Nobody spoke.
Rain fell harder around us.
I looked down at my four-day-old daughter.
At the brother I had discovered only hours earlier.
At the family I had never known existed.
And I finally understood something my mother had apparently known twenty-eight years before me.
The Moretti fortune was never the inheritance I needed to fear.
The Moretti family was.
And somewhere in Chicago, a woman Luca had mourned for five years had just announced she was alive.
Which meant the person helping Gabriel had never been hiding outside Luca’s home.
May you like
She had once been sleeping in his bed.
TO BE CONTINUED.
