Chapter 3 - The Secret Isabella Buried
Sophia stared at Isabella.
“Tell me she's lying.”
Nobody answered.
“Someone tell me.”
Isabella slowly walked around the table.
“Your mother was my younger sister.”
Sophia felt the room tilt.
Anna.
Her mother.
The woman whose photograph had sat beside Sophia's bed for eighteen years.
Anna had been Isabella Duca's sister.
Sophia looked at Roman.
The horror on her face made him understand immediately what she was thinking.
“No.”
He crossed the distance between them.
“No, Sophia. We're not related.”
She stared at him.
“How?”
“Your mother was Isabella's half-sister through her mother's second marriage. There is no blood relation between Anna's biological father and my father.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
Relief came for half a second.
Then anger replaced it.
“You knew all this?”
“Not when we met.”
“When?”
“Three months after we married.”
Sophia looked as though he'd struck her.
“Three months.”
“Sophia—”
“You've known for almost five years.”
Roman nodded.
“Why?”
Isabella answered.
“Because I asked him not to tell you.”
Sophia turned.
“Why would you have any right?”
“I didn't.”
For the first time, Isabella's voice cracked.
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of losing you the way I lost Anna.”
The dining room was silent.
Isabella sat.
Her carefully maintained composure vanished.
“Anna ran away from this family when she was twenty-one.”
“Why?”
“Because she discovered what Carlo was doing.”
Carlo leaned back.
“You're rewriting history.”
Isabella ignored him.
“Anna found financial documents showing Carlo was secretly taking money from family businesses. She threatened to tell our father.”
“What happened?”
“She disappeared.”
Sophia shook her head.
“She met my father.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know where she was?”
“Not for years.”
Isabella looked down.
“When I finally found her, you were six.”
Sophia remembered being six.
A summer afternoon.
Her mother crying after receiving a phone call.
Sophia had never known why.
“That was you.”
Isabella nodded.
“I begged Anna to come home.”
“She refused.”
“She said she had everything she needed.”
Isabella looked at Sophia.
“She meant you.”
Sophia's anger softened despite herself.
“What happened after that?”
“Carlo learned she was alive.”
The room changed.
Carlo's face remained calm.
Roman watched him.
Sophia whispered, “And my mother died seven years later.”
Isabella's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“You think Carlo had something to do with it?”
“I never had proof.”
Carlo stood.
“This has gone far enough.”
Roman stepped into his path.
“Sit.”
Carlo looked at his nephew.
“You're ordering me now?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, uncle and nephew stared at each other.
Then Carlo sat.
Roman reached for the old envelope.
“There was another reason Daniel wanted Sophia protected.”
He removed a small key Sophia hadn't noticed inside the envelope.
Sophia stared at it.
“What does that open?”
“I don't know.”
Carlo did.
His expression changed.
Roman saw it.
“So you recognize it.”
Carlo said nothing.
Matteo moved closer.
Roman held up the key.
“Daniel gave Sophia the answer five years ago.”
Sophia frowned.
“He didn't give me anything.”
“Yes, he did.”
Roman looked at the ring on her right hand.
Her mother's ring.
Sophia had worn it since she was sixteen.
She removed it.
Inside the band were three tiny engraved letters.
M.S.B.
She had always assumed they were the jeweler's initials.
Roman looked at Matteo.
“Mercer Street Bank.”
Matteo understood.
“Safe-deposit box.”
Carlo stood again.
Roman's voice stopped him.
“If you leave this room, Carlo, everyone will know why.”
Carlo remained where he was.
Sophia closed her fingers around the key.
“What is in the box?”
Roman stared at Carlo.
“The thing your father died trying to protect.”
The next morning, Sophia and Roman entered Mercer Street Bank together.
They barely spoke.
The safe-deposit box was registered under Anna Moretti's maiden alias.
Inside were photographs.
Bank records.
Letters.
And a small digital recorder.
Sophia pressed play.
Her father's voice filled the private room.
“If Sophia is hearing this, then I failed to keep the past away from her.”
Sophia covered her mouth.
Roman stood beside her.
Daniel continued.
“Carlo Duca believes this is about money.”
A pause.
“It isn't.”
Roman's eyes narrowed.
“Twenty-three years ago, Carlo did something that changed the Duca family forever. Anna discovered it.”
Sophia looked at Roman.
The recording continued.
“She kept proof.”
A rustle of paper.
“If Carlo learns Sophia has this box, he'll come for the evidence.”
Sophia's breathing quickened.
Then Daniel said:
“Roman, if you're listening with her, there's something you need to know.”
Roman froze.
“I lied to you that night at Mercer Station.”
Sophia turned toward him.
Daniel's voice became quieter.
“Carlo wasn't the only person I was afraid of.”
The recording stopped.
Roman stared at the device.
Sophia pressed play again.
Nothing.
The file ended.
But underneath the recorder was a photograph.
Roman picked it up.
His face went white.
It showed Daniel standing beside Carlo.
And beside Carlo was another man.
A man Roman recognized instantly.
His father.
Vittorio Duca.
The man Roman had spent his entire life believing died an honorable man.
On the back of the photograph were seven handwritten words:
Vittorio knew. Isabella never did. Ask Roman.
Sophia slowly looked at her husband.
“What did your father know?”
Roman couldn't answer.
May you like
Because suddenly the secret was no longer Carlo's alone.
It belonged to Roman's father too.
