Chapter 7 - My Father’s Second Family
The approaching vehicle belonged to a delivery driver.
For once, danger turned out to be bread and canned vegetables intended for the parish shelter down the road.
Nobody laughed.
We had forgotten how.
Father Connors led us into the old rectory kitchen.
Sophie received cookies and milk.
The adults received another piece of the Moretti family history.
“There were three?” I asked again.
Father Connors nodded.
“Vittorio told me shortly before he died.”
“Who?”
The priest hesitated.
“Your older brother.”
I stared at him.
“I don't have an older brother.”
“You did.”
Did.
The word mattered.
“What was his name?”
“Michael.”
My mother had once mentioned a Michael.
I had been seven.
She stopped talking when my father entered the room.
I had forgotten.
“Who was his mother?”
“Your mother.”
That hurt differently.
“My mother had a child before me?”
“Yes.”
“Why was I never told?”
Father Connors folded his hands.
“Michael was born three years before you.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
I looked away.
“How?”
“That's where the story becomes difficult.”
Silvio muttered, “More difficult.”
Father Connors continued.
“Your father was already deeply involved with Giuseppe DeMarco. Michael was kidnapped when he was four months old.”
Elena gasped.
“Kidnapped?”
“Used as leverage.”
My stomach tightened.
“By whom?”
“Giuseppe’s brother.”
I knew the name.
Paolo DeMarco.
Killed in a car explosion decades earlier.
“Was Michael killed?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“They returned him.”
I frowned.
“You said he's dead.”
“He survived the kidnapping. But your mother never recovered emotionally. Vittorio became obsessive about security.”
That explained things.
The guards.
The locked gates.
My father's refusal to let me attend school without drivers.
“Michael died when he was five.”
“How?”
The priest looked down.
“Car accident.”
Silvio said quietly, “Not an accident.”
I turned.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“You know everything today.”
“I wish I knew less.”
“What happened?”
Silvio sighed.
“Vittorio was driving. Michael was with him. A truck crossed the center line.”
“DeMarco?”
“We never proved it.”
My throat tightened.
My father had lost his first son.
Then spent the rest of his life trying to control every variable.
It did not excuse what he became.
But for the first time, it explained some of it.
Father Connors looked at Elena.
“When Rose became pregnant, Vittorio was terrified history would repeat.”
“So he abandoned her,” Elena said.
“Yes.”
“No.”
She stood.
“He didn't protect us. He removed us because we became inconvenient.”
The priest said nothing.
Elena paced.
“My mother waited twenty years believing he might appear.”
I looked at her.
“She waited?”
“Every birthday.”
Her voice cracked.
“Every Christmas she cooked too much food. She told me it was habit.”
I closed my eyes.
“She thought he might come.”
“Yes.”
Silvio looked toward the window.
“He did.”
Elena stopped.
“What?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“When you were nine.”
She stared.
“No.”
“He drove here.”
“I would remember.”
“He never entered.”
“What?”
“He sat at the end of the road for almost two hours.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Why?”
“He was afraid he would bring danger.”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“Again with protection.”
“Yes.”
Silvio stood.
“And again, he was wrong.”
Sophie came toward Elena.
“Mom?”
Elena wiped her face.
“I’m okay.”
Sophie hugged her.
I watched.
Brother.
Sister.
Niece.
Words that had not existed in my world three days earlier were suddenly everywhere.
Dante entered.
“We have a problem.”
I almost laughed.
“Only one?”
He handed me his phone.
A news alert.
MORETTI EXECUTIVE REPORTED MISSING AMID POSSIBLE ORGANIZED CRIME DISPUTE.
My photograph was on the screen.
Below it was a quote from an unnamed company source saying I had not been seen in three days.
“Luca,” I said.
Dante nodded.
“He's creating a narrative.”
“For what?”
“If you die now, it looks like a rival hit.”
Silvio added, “And Luca inherits operational control.”
“Not legally.”
“No. But legal ownership doesn't matter if everyone believes you're dead.”
I looked toward Sophie.
We needed to end this quickly.
“Take Elena and Sophie somewhere safe.”
Elena immediately said, “No.”
“You're not coming to Manhattan.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Elena—”
“My mother left a ledger people are trying to murder my daughter over.”
“Exactly.”
“And you think I’m going to sit in some hotel while men decide what happens to us?”
“You have Sophie.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes hardened.
“And because I have Sophie, I'm done hiding.”
I understood then why Sophie could stand beside an overheated armored sedan and say Probably.
She had inherited that stubbornness honestly.
Father Connors cleared his throat.
“Rose left something else.”
We turned.
He opened a drawer and removed a sealed envelope.
“This came to me after her death.”
Elena stared.
“Why didn't you contact me?”
“She told me not to unless Adrian appeared.”
I took the envelope.
Inside was an address in Manhattan.
No explanation.
Just numbers.
Dante looked at it.
“That’s Chelsea.”
I knew the building.
An old Moretti storage property.
Sold twenty years ago.
Or supposedly sold.
Silvio examined the address.
His face changed.
“That's where she put it.”
“The ledger?”
“Maybe.”
Elena asked, “How do we know?”
Silvio pointed to the numbers.
“Look at the last four.”
317.
I shrugged.
“What?”
Elena whispered, “Sophie’s birthday.”
March seventeenth.
The key around Sophie’s neck suddenly made sense.
Rose had not hidden the ledger for Sophie to understand as a child.
She had created a trail Elena would recognize if the right people ever appeared.
Dante looked at me.
“Luca will have people watching Manhattan properties.”
“Then we don't go as Morettis.”
Silvio smiled.
“There you are.”
“What?”
“Vittorio used to make that face before doing something dangerous.”
“I'd prefer not to hear that.”
Sophie tugged my sleeve.
“Uncle Adrian?”
The room went silent.
I looked down.
She had heard enough.
Her eyes were huge.
“Are you my uncle?”
Elena started to speak.
I stopped her gently.
I crouched.
“I think I am.”
Sophie considered that.
“Do you know how to fix cars?”
“No.”
She looked disappointed.
“Can you learn?”
I smiled.
“I’ve recently discovered I can.”
She held out her arms.
I did not know what she wanted until she hugged me.
For a moment, I froze.
Then I put my arms around her.
And I understood something that frightened me more than bullets ever had.
Three days ago, I had been trying to protect an empire.
Now I had something far more dangerous to lose.
Family.
May you like
That evening, we started toward Manhattan.
None of us knew Luca Ferraro was already waiting there.
