DANTE MORETTI: THE DAUGHTER HE NEVER KNEW

The school was placed under police protection before I arrived.

Mia was safe in the principal's office, sitting with her arms folded and Moonlight tucked beneath her chin. When she saw me, she ran into my arms so hard that I nearly fell backward.

“Mommy!”

I held her until my knees hurt.

“I'm here, baby. I'm here.”

She pressed her face into my shoulder.

“The lady said she knew Grandpa.”

My throat tightened.

“What did she look like?”

“Blonde hair. Red lipstick. She smelled like the flowers at the grocery store.”

I exchanged a look with Detective Kim.

Isabella.

The woman who had supposedly died six years ago had come within minutes of taking my daughter from school.

“Did she say anything else?”

Mia nodded.

“She said my daddy wanted to meet me.”

I went still.

“What did you tell her?”

“I said I didn't know my daddy.”

Her voice grew small.

“Was that wrong?”

I pulled back and brushed the hair from her face.

“No, sweetheart. You didn't do anything wrong.”

“But she said he was a bad man.”

I looked at the floor.

Children deserved the truth, but not the whole weight of it. Not yet.

“Your father has made mistakes,” I said carefully. “Big ones. But you don't have to decide how you feel about him today.”

Mia considered that.

“Does he know about Moonlight?”

I smiled despite the ache in my chest.

“Yes. He knows about Moonlight.”

“Does he know she won the race?”

“I think he does now.”

She hugged me again.

At the hospital, Dante was waiting in a private consultation room with Detective Kim. He had been told about the attempted pickup. When Mia entered, he stood slowly, one hand resting against the edge of the table.

For the first time in six years, father and daughter stood face-to-face.

Mia stared at him.

Dante stared back.

He looked like a man who had faced armed enemies without blinking and suddenly discovered that the smallest person in the room could frighten him more than any of them.

“Hi,” he said.

Mia moved closer to me.

“Are you my dad?”

Dante swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Why weren't you there?”

The question landed without anger. That made it worse.

Dante knelt carefully, wincing at the pain in his side.

“I didn't know about you. But I should have found out. I should have looked harder for your mother, and I should have made sure she was safe.”

“Mommy says people can make mistakes.”

“They can.”

“Did you make a mistake?”

He looked at me once, then returned his attention to Mia.

“Yes. I made a terrible one.”

Mia studied him.

“Are you going to leave again?”

Dante's face crumpled for half a second before he steadied it.

“No. Not without telling you. Not ever because I don't want you.”

She didn't rush into his arms. She didn't forgive him because he was her father.

Instead, she asked, “Can you sit with me while I draw?”

Dante blinked.

“I'd like that.”

Mia pulled a sheet of paper from her backpack and placed it on the table. She drew a horse, then a small girl, then a woman. Finally, she drew a tall man with silver hair.

“That's you,” she explained.

Dante looked at the picture as though it were something precious.

“I'm taller than that.”

Mia frowned. “I haven't seen you standing next to me.”

For the first time since he had returned, Dante laughed.

It was brief and rough, but real.

I turned away so neither of them would see me cry.

The moment was interrupted when Detective Kim received a message from the cybercrime team. Dr. Sloan had attempted to access the hospital's archived patient files remotely. The login originated from an account registered to the North Sound Family Foundation.

The same foundation that had paid for Mia's birth.

Police moved to detain Sloan, but he had already left the hospital.

His office was empty. His home was empty. His car was found at a ferry terminal, doors unlocked and keys in the ignition.

On the desk in his office, investigators found a note addressed to Dante.

You were never meant to find the child. Your father understood that. You should have, too.

Beneath the note was a photograph of a warehouse.

Dante recognized it.

The building where he had been shot.

He had been on his way to meet a source who claimed to have evidence about Vincent and Isabella. The source had never arrived.

Now the police suspected Sloan had arranged the meeting as a trap.

But there was something else in the photograph.

A reflection in the warehouse window showed a second vehicle parked across the street.

Inside it sat a woman with blonde hair.

Isabella.

Detective Kim ordered a citywide search.

That evening, Dante asked to speak with me privately.

“I want to take Mia somewhere safe,” he said.

“She is safe with me.”

“I know. I don't mean taking her away from you. I mean a place with controlled access, medical staff, security that doesn't answer to my organization, and police protection.”

“You're suggesting we live in one of your compounds?”

“No. A protected residence chosen by Detective Kim.”

I studied him.

“You're trying to help without making the decision for me.”

“I'm trying.”

That mattered.

I agreed to consider it.

Before I left, Dante reached into his bedside drawer and removed a small velvet box.

Inside was a silver pendant shaped like a crescent moon.

“I bought this six years ago,” he said. “I was going to give it to you when I told you I loved you.”

I looked at the pendant but didn't touch it.

“Then you left.”