Chapter 2 - The Father Who Came Back from the Dead
For three seconds, Luca Moretti couldn't move.
His father was dead.
At least, that was what the entire Moretti family had believed for eleven years.
Antonio Moretti had supposedly died in a private hospital in Switzerland after suffering a massive heart attack. Luca had received the ashes, signed the funeral documents, and taken control of the family business.
Now Elena was telling him that the man who had raised him, buried his first wife, and supposedly died eleven years earlier was standing outside the cathedral with a gun.
“That's impossible,” Luca whispered.
Elena tightened her grip on his arm.
“I wish it were.”
Another gunshot cracked outside.
Guests screamed and ducked beneath the pews. Several security guards drew their weapons, surrounding the altar.
Luca turned toward his head of security, Dominic.
“Get everyone out. Nobody leaves through the front entrance. Lock down the building.”
Dominic nodded.
“And Michael?”
“Find him. Alive.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
She was standing beside the altar, her wedding dress spread across the marble floor. Her face had lost every trace of color.
“You knew my father was alive.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I knew he might be.”
“Might be?”
“He contacted me three weeks ago.”
Luca stepped toward her.
“And you didn't tell me?”
“He threatened to kill you if I did.”
Elena let out a bitter laugh.
“He always knows how to make people obey him.”
Luca turned to her.
“You knew my father?”
“I knew what he was capable of.”
Before he could ask another question, Dominic returned.
“Boss, the south entrance is clear. But there's a problem.”
“What?”
“Your brother's car is outside. The driver is dead. Michael is missing.”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Luca looked at her.
“Why did you scream his name?”
She hesitated.
Then she reached beneath the lace of her wedding dress and pulled out a small silver key.
“Because Michael gave me this.”
Luca stared at it.
“What does it open?”
“I don't know. He told me to give it to you if Elena ever came back.”
Elena immediately stepped forward.
“Don't let her touch it.”
Luca looked between them.
“Enough. Both of you are going to tell me everything.”
But Elena wasn't looking at him anymore.
She was staring at the key.
“That's not a key to a safe,” she whispered.
“Then what is it?”
“A key to your father's private chapel.”
Luca frowned.
His father had owned an old estate outside Chicago, but the chapel had been sealed after Antonio's supposed death.
“Why would Michael give Vanessa that key?”
Elena's eyes filled with fear.
“Because something is buried beneath that chapel.”
Luca turned to Dominic.
“Bring the cars around.”
Vanessa grabbed his sleeve.
“Luca, please. Don't go there.”
He looked down at her hand.
“Six years ago, you stood beside me at my wife's funeral and watched me bury an empty coffin. Today you nearly married me while hiding a dead man's secrets. You don't get to tell me where I can go.”
Vanessa released him.
For the first time, she looked less like a frightened bride and more like someone who had been waiting for this moment.
“I wasn't trying to marry you for your money,” she whispered.
“Then what were you trying to do?”
“Keep you alive.”
Elena shook her head.
“You should have thought about that before you helped him destroy my life.”
Vanessa turned sharply.
“I didn't know you were alive!”
“You knew I was taken.”
“I was twenty-three years old! Antonio threatened my family!”
Luca raised his hand.
“Stop.”
He looked at Vanessa.
“Who took Elena?”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“Your father.”
The cathedral seemed to grow colder.
Luca stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because Elena found out what he had been doing with the family accounts. She discovered that your father had been selling weapons through legitimate companies and using your name to cover the transactions.”
Elena stepped forward.
“I found the original documents. I was going to give them to Luca.”
“And Antonio found out,” Vanessa continued. “He told me Elena had betrayed the family. He said she was going to have Luca arrested and leave with the money.”
Luca looked at Elena.
“Is that true?”
“No. I was pregnant, Luca.”
The words silenced him.
“What?”
Elena's voice broke.
“I was three months pregnant when they took me.”
Luca stared at her stomach as if the truth might somehow be visible through her black coat.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I tried. I called you that night. Your father answered your phone.”
Luca remembered the call.
Six years earlier, his phone had rung while he was in a meeting. A woman's voice had been crying on the other end. Before he could recognize it, his father had taken the phone and told him Elena was unstable.
He had believed him.
God help him, he had believed him.
“Where is my child?” he whispered.
Elena looked away.
“I don't know.”
A strange noise came from the cathedral's sound system.
A man's voice filled the building.
“Hello, Luca.”
Everyone froze.
Luca recognized the voice immediately.
Antonio Moretti.
“My son. You've made quite a mess of your wedding.”
Luca looked toward the speakers.
“Where are you?”
A quiet laugh followed.
“Somewhere you should have visited a long time ago.”
The voice paused.
“Bring Elena to the old chapel before midnight. Come alone, or you'll never learn what happened to your child.”
The speakers went silent.
Luca turned toward Elena.
She was trembling.
Then his phone buzzed again.
A photograph appeared.
A little girl, approximately five years old, stood beside an elderly man in a dark suit.
Around her neck was a silver necklace.
The same necklace Elena had worn when Luca buried her.
Beneath the photograph were six words.
SHE KNOWS WHO HER FATHER IS.
Luca looked up.
Elena had already begun to cry.
And for the first time in six years, the woman he had buried wasn't asking him to save her.
May you like
She was begging him to save their daughter.
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