Chapter 5 - The Secret Maria Had Been Hiding
I read Gabriel’s message again on the drive home.
Ask Maria who Sofia’s father is.
I wanted to dismiss it as manipulation.
Gabriel had already lied, threatened, hidden, and manipulated people around me.
Planting suspicion was exactly what a man like him would do.
But I couldn’t ignore it.
Not after everything else.
Bruno slept across the back seat beside me.
His breathing was heavy but steady.
A veterinarian Raymond trusted met us privately at the estate.
The incision was clean.
No infection.
No major complications.
The capsule had been surgically removed.
Bruno had likely been sedated twice, explaining the small blood trace in the vehicle.
He would recover.
That should have given me peace.
Instead, Gabriel’s final sentence kept repeating.
Ask Maria who Sofia’s father is.
Maria was waiting in the kitchen when I returned.
Sofia ran toward Bruno.
“Bruno!”
The dog lifted his enormous head.
Despite his exhaustion, his tail struck the floor.
Sofia wrapped both arms around his neck.
“Bruno home.”
Maria covered her mouth.
She was crying.
I watched her.
Not because I suspected her of taking him.
Because I suddenly realized how little I knew about her life.
She had started working for my family six years earlier.
Sofia was three.
Maria never mentioned the child’s father.
I had never asked.
It wasn’t my business.
Until Gabriel made it my business.
“Maria.”
She looked at me.
“We need to talk.”
Her face changed.
That was enough.
She already knew why.
We went into my father’s study.
Maria remained standing.
I closed the door.
“Who is Sofia’s father?”
She went pale.
“Mr. Moretti—”
“Adrian.”
She looked down.
“Please.”
“Gabriel told me to ask.”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“You saw him?”
“Not yet.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“He shouldn’t know about Sofia.”
“He does.”
She sat slowly.
I waited.
Finally she whispered, “Sofia’s father was your cousin.”
I stared.
“I don’t have a cousin.”
“You did.”
“What was his name?”
“Daniel.”
No Moretti in my family had ever mentioned Daniel.
Maria continued.
“Daniel Vega.”
The surname was my mother’s maiden name.
My heartbeat shifted.
“Gabriel’s son?”
Maria nodded.
The room seemed to tilt.
“Then Sofia is Gabriel’s granddaughter.”
“Yes.”
“Does Gabriel know?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“How did Daniel die?”
Maria started crying.
“Car accident.”
My entire body went still.
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
“Sofia is three.”
“I was pregnant.”
I sat opposite her.
“Tell me everything.”
Daniel had met Maria while she worked at a hotel in Manhattan.
He was charming.
Quiet.
He rarely spoke about family.
They dated for nearly two years.
Then Maria became pregnant.
Daniel was happy.
He planned to propose.
Three weeks later, his car went off a bridge during a storm.
Another accident.
Another Moretti family member.
Another road.
Maria later learned Daniel had been investigating Gabriel.
“He said his father was dangerous.”
“What was Daniel trying to find?”
“Something about your mother.”
My pulse quickened.
“He knew Elena?”
“She was his aunt.”
So Gabriel truly was my mother’s brother.
Why had my father hidden that?
Maria reached into her pocket.
“I have something.”
She removed a small key.
“Daniel gave this to me before he died.”
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“He said if anything happened to him, I should give it to Richard Moretti.”
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“I tried.”
Maria wiped her eyes.
“Your father died before I could.”
My father had died five years ago.
Daniel died four years ago.
The timeline didn’t work.
I pointed that out.
Maria looked confused.
“No. Daniel died six years ago.”
I froze.
“Sofia is three.”
“Yes.”
“You said four years.”
She looked at me strangely.
“No, Mr. Moretti. I said six.”
My skin prickled.
I replayed the conversation mentally.
Had I misheard?
Possible.
I was exhausted.
But something felt wrong.
Maria handed me the key.
Small brass.
Stamped with a number.
417.
“Where did Daniel keep his documents?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bank?”
“Maybe.”
Raymond searched the number.
Nothing obvious.
Then Thomas recognized it.
“Grand Central lockers used to use keys like this.”
Locker 417.
We drove there.
The station’s modern lockers had been replaced years earlier, but an older private storage company still maintained safe boxes beneath a nearby building.
Key 417 fit.
Inside was a metal case.
Raymond opened it carefully.
Documents.
Photographs.
A flash drive.
And a letter addressed to Maria.
She read it with trembling hands.
Then she started crying.
“What?”
She handed it to me.
Daniel had written:
Maria, if you are reading this, something happened before I could leave with you.
My father is looking for evidence my aunt Elena collected before her death.
Richard hid copies.
But I found something Richard never knew.
My father did not order Elena’s crash.
Someone else did.
I looked at Maria.
“What?”
She shook her head.
We read further.
Gabriel is guilty of many things, but Elena’s death was arranged by someone inside Richard’s company.
Someone who feared Elena would expose the entire operation.
Daniel didn’t name the person.
Not in the letter.
But he left the answer on the flash drive.
Raymond inserted it into an isolated computer.
There were twelve files.
The final one was a video recording.
Daniel appeared on screen.
Young.
Nervous.
“If anything happens to me, the person responsible for Elena Moretti’s death is still close to Adrian.”
My chest tightened.
He continued.
“Richard blamed Gabriel because the evidence pointed toward him. Gabriel believed Richard framed him to take control of the company.”
A family destroyed by mutual suspicion.
“But both men were manipulated.”
Daniel looked directly into the camera.
“The person who benefited from Elena’s death was Richard’s financial director.”
I knew the name before he said it.
Because that man still worked for me.
“Douglas Mercer.”
I stood so quickly the chair moved backward.
Maria covered her mouth.
Douglas.
My estate manager.
My father’s former financial director.
The man who told me Vivienne had asked about cameras.
The man who had been near every step of my investigation.
The man who knew what I knew.
I grabbed my phone.
No service.
Raymond checked his.
Nothing.
Signal jammer.
He looked toward the door.
“We need to move.”
The lights went out.
Maria screamed.
Emergency lighting flickered on.
We heard footsteps outside the storage room.
Raymond locked the door.
Thomas pushed a cabinet against it.
Then my phone received one message before losing connection completely.
A photo.
Sofia.
Standing in the mansion garden.
Beside Vivienne.
Timestamp: two minutes ago.
Underneath, one sentence:
Bring me Daniel’s drive, Adrian.
Or you will lose more than your dog.
The message came from Douglas.
But what he didn’t know was that Sofia had already told me something about him at breakfast that morning.
Something I hadn’t understood until now.
While drawing her picture, she had pointed to a tall man in the corner of the page and said:
May you like
“That’s the man who told Bruno to sleep.”
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