Chapter 3 - The Night Dante Lost His Leg
For seven years, Dante remembered the explosion in fragments.
Heat.
Concrete.
A scream he could never identify.
Then darkness.
He woke in a hospital three days later and learned that his left leg could not be saved below the knee.
His father had stood beside the bed.
Isabella had cried.
Adrian had promised revenge against whoever caused it.
Dante had believed them.
Now he understood the possibility that the people standing beside his hospital bed had known exactly what happened.
Elena replayed Samuel's final sentence.
"I'm alive."
Her hands shook.
"He survived."
"Seven years ago," Dante said carefully.
"Which means he might still be alive."
"Or he might not."
Elena looked at him sharply.
Dante hated himself for saying it, but false hope could destroy people.
He knew that better than most.
"We find out," he said.
"How?"
Dante looked toward the security monitor.
"By pretending we found nothing."
The following morning Elena remained at Moretti Estate.
Officially, Dante had reconsidered firing her.
Unofficially, she became the only person in the house he trusted.
They reconstructed the night of the explosion.
Samuel had uncovered evidence that Isabella and Adrian were secretly moving money from Moretti companies.
But money alone did not explain attempted murder.
There had to be something else.
Dante searched old records.
Elena searched her father's documents.
At three in the morning, she found it.
A shipping manifest.
One company name appeared repeatedly.
AURELIA MARITIME.
Dante recognized it.
"My father founded that company."
Elena checked the dates.
"These shipments started before you took over."
Dante's expression darkened.
"So Isabella wasn't stealing from me."
"She was stealing from your father."
Another document revealed something worse.
Samuel had discovered that Isabella planned to frame Dante for the missing money.
If Dante were arrested or killed, Adrian would become the obvious successor.
The warehouse meeting had been Dante's opportunity to expose them.
Instead, it became the night that nearly killed him.
"What happened inside?" Elena asked.
Dante stared at the dark window.
"I arrived at eleven fourteen."
He could smell the river again.
Samuel waiting beneath a hanging industrial lamp.
A briefcase on a table.
Samuel had looked terrified.
"You were followed," Samuel said.
Dante remembered turning.
A metallic sound.
Then Samuel shouted.
"DOWN!"
The explosion threw Dante across the building.
A steel beam trapped his leg.
Fire spread.
Dante remembered trying to lift the beam.
Then Samuel appeared.
His face covered with dust.
Samuel could have escaped.
Instead, he came back.
"He saved me," Dante whispered.
Elena's eyes filled.
Dante remembered Samuel dragging him toward a broken loading door.
Then footsteps.
Samuel looked toward them.
Fear transformed his face.
"Don't let them know I'm alive."
That was Dante's last clear memory.
He woke in the hospital.
Samuel was gone.
Elena stared at him.
"My father saved you."
"Yes."
"And you never told me."
"I didn't know you existed."
She turned away.
Dante reached for her, then stopped.
"I looked for his family."
Elena faced him again.
"Did you?"
"For months."
"Then why didn't you find us?"
"Someone made sure I couldn't."
That afternoon, Dante ordered a quiet search through private records.
The result arrived shortly before midnight.
Samuel Rose had used another identity after the explosion.
Thomas Reed.
Under that name, someone had received medical treatment in Montreal six years earlier.
Then disappeared again.
Elena pressed a hand to her mouth.
"Canada."
Dante nodded.
There was more.
Thomas Reed had rented a postal box.
It remained active.
Someone was still paying for it.
Elena laughed through sudden tears.
"He could be alive."
For the first time, Dante allowed himself to believe it too.
Then the study door opened.
Adrian entered.
Elena quickly turned the computer screen off.
Adrian looked between them.
"Late-night housekeeping?"
Dante stood.
"Couldn't sleep."
Adrian smiled at Elena.
"You seem to be spending a lot of time with my cousin."
Elena lowered her eyes.
"I'm organizing the study."
"At midnight?"
Dante stepped between them.
"Is there something you need?"
Adrian's smile disappeared.
"No."
He left.
Elena exhaled.
"He knows."
"Maybe."
"You don't believe that."
"No."
Dante walked toward the door and locked it.
Elena noticed how exhausted he looked.
For the first time she saw beyond the reputation.
He was a man who had spent seven years believing his body had been permanently changed by enemies outside his family.
Now he was discovering the betrayal had come from inside it.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
Dante looked at her.
"What?"
"Your leg."
He almost laughed.
"Sometimes."
"Phantom pain?"
His expression changed.
"How do you know about that?"
"I researched prosthetics after I found your photograph."
Dante sat.
"Some nights it feels like my foot is still there."
Elena sat opposite him.
"And some nights I still hear my father's key in our front door."
Their eyes met.
Different losses.
Same ghost.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Dante's phone rang.
His security chief had found something connected to Samuel's Canadian identity.
A package had been mailed from Montreal three months earlier.
Destination:
Moretti Estate.
Recipient:
Elena Rose.
Dante frowned.
"That's impossible. You weren't working here three months ago."
Elena went cold.
"Then my father knew I was coming here before I did."
The package had been intercepted and placed in estate storage because no employee named Elena Rose existed at the time.
They retrieved it.
Inside was a single envelope.
Elena recognized the handwriting immediately.
She opened it.
There were only two sentences.
Elena, Dante Moretti is not your enemy.
Ask him who ordered the doctors to take his leg.
Dante read it twice.
Then a memory returned.
He had been unconscious when the decision was made.
His father later told him the surgeons had no choice.
But his father had died four years ago.
Dante called the hospital.
The original surgeon was retired.
An hour later, they reached him.
Dante asked one question.
The old doctor became silent.
Finally he said:
"Mr. Moretti, I wondered if you would ever call."
Dante gripped the phone.
"Was the amputation medically necessary?"
A long pause.
"Not when you first arrived."
Elena stopped breathing.
The doctor continued.
"Your leg was badly damaged, but we believed it could potentially be reconstructed."
"Then why wasn't it?"
"Your family representative refused."
"Who?"
Another pause.
"A woman named Isabella Moretti."
Dante closed his eyes.
The doctor spoke again.
"She told us she had medical authority."
Dante's voice became almost inaudible.
"She didn't."
"I learned that later."
Elena watched Dante's face.
Seven years of pain rearranged themselves inside him.
The explosion had not simply taken his leg.
Someone had made a choice while he was unconscious.
May you like
And that person had been sleeping under his roof ever since.
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