Chapter 5 - Dante’s First Test
Dante refused to cancel the gala.
He also refused to sacrifice Sofia.
For the next twenty-four hours, the Moretti estate transformed into a command center.
Marco coordinated police contacts discreetly. Dante contacted people Anna suspected did not appear in any official directory. Security footage from highways, gas stations and private properties was collected.
Anna stayed because Dante had asked her to.
Not as his nurse.
As Anna.
That distinction frightened her more than she expected.
At three in the morning, she found him alone in the rehabilitation room.
He had transferred from his wheelchair to the parallel bars.
Sweat soaked his shirt.
His arms trembled.
“What are you doing?”
“Working.”
“At three?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
She approached.
“Do you want help?”
“No.”
Anna stopped.
Dante looked at her.
Then smiled faintly.
“You learned.”
“You’re an exhausting teacher.”
He attempted another controlled movement.
His leg muscles responded only partially.
The effort twisted his face.
Anna wanted desperately to intervene.
She waited.
Finally he returned to the chair.
“Now,” he said, breathing hard, “you may help.”
She handed him a towel.
“Thank you.”
Dante laughed.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
The echo of their earlier conversation softened something between them.
Then his expression changed.
“If Sofia dies because of me—”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
Anna crouched in front of him.
“You were going to make yourself responsible for somebody else’s choices.”
Dante looked away.
“You did it with Luca.”
His gaze snapped back.
“You took responsibility for an accident you didn’t cause because you thought it would protect everyone.”
“It protected my niece.”
“Maybe. But it also taught your family that you would carry anything they put on you.”
Dante became silent.
Anna wondered if she had gone too far.
Then he whispered:
“You’re the first person who has ever said that.”
The next morning, Marco found Sofia.
Alive.
She had been locked inside an abandoned boathouse owned by a shell corporation.
No ransom.
No injuries beyond dehydration and bruising.
It had been theater.
A warning.
More importantly, the shell corporation traced back to a Moretti company dissolved six years earlier.
The year of Dante’s accident.
Everything kept returning to that night.
Sofia arrived at the estate furious, exhausted and terrified.
She demanded to see Dante privately.
Anna started to leave.
Sofia stopped her.
“No. Stay.”
Anna remained.
Sofia sat opposite Dante.
“Luca was not supposed to be driving that night.”
Dante’s expression changed.
“What?”
“He received a call.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“He told me he had to meet someone. You went because you didn’t want him driving alone.”
Dante nodded slowly.
He remembered.
“But there was something else,” Sofia continued. “After the funeral, I found a second phone.”
Dante stared.
“You never told me.”
“I was afraid.”
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
Sofia looked toward Anna.
“In Luca’s grave.”
Even Dante appeared stunned.
Sofia explained.
Inside the coffin, beneath the lining, she had hidden the phone before burial.
She feared whoever Luca had been communicating with might search their home.
For six years, nobody knew.
Until now.
“Why tell me?” Dante asked.
“Because whoever kidnapped me asked about it.”
The room went still.
“They know the phone exists.”
Dante immediately called Marco.
The cemetery visit took place after midnight.
Marco wanted Dante to remain home.
Dante refused.
Anna went too.
The grave was opened privately under heavy security.
Inside the damaged phone, technicians recovered fragments.
Messages.
Numbers.
One voice recording.
Dante listened.
His dead brother’s voice filled the room.
“If anything happens tonight, it wasn’t an accident.”
Anna watched Dante turn white.
The recording continued.
“I found where the foundation money is going. Somebody inside the family has been moving millions. I’m meeting them tonight.”
Static.
Then Luca said one final sentence.
“If I’m right, Dante is in danger too.”
The recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
The crash had not been an accident.
Someone had tried to silence Luca.
Dante had simply survived.
Marco looked toward his friend.
“Boss…”
Dante’s hands tightened.
“For six years,” he whispered, “I thought Luca killed himself.”
Anna placed her hand near his.
Not touching.
Waiting.
Dante looked down.
Then reached for her.
His fingers closed around hers.
The next recovered file contained a bank account.
Marco traced it.
The account was still active.
And someone had withdrawn money from it forty-eight hours earlier.
The signature belonged to a member of the Moretti family.
Dante stared at the screen.
Anna followed his gaze.
May you like
The name was unmistakable.
VITTORIO MORETTI.
