Chapter 6 - The Brother Who Came Back From the DeadAt 6:40 that evening, the police rescued my sister from the warehouse.
Caleb Ross was already gone.
Natalie was alive.
But what she told us afterward changed everything we believed about Marcus's death.
I met her at Bellevue Hospital.
Her left wrist was bruised.
There was a small cut above her eyebrow.
She sat beneath a thin blanket, staring at a paper cup of water.
When she saw me, her face crumpled.
“Marissa.”
I crossed the room.
For a moment, I wanted to scream at her.
I wanted to demand why she'd lied.
Why she'd kept Marcus's photograph.
Why she'd allowed Caleb into our lives.
Instead, I wrapped my arms around her.
She held me so tightly I could barely breathe.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“You should have trusted me.”
“I know.”
We stayed that way for a long time.
Then I pulled back.
“Tell me everything.”
Natalie looked toward Detective Alvarez, who stood near the door.
“Will you protect me if I do?”
Alvarez nodded.
“We'll document your statement and take appropriate steps to protect you.”
Natalie took a shaking breath.
“Marcus came to my apartment three days before the fire.”
I felt a familiar ache open inside my chest.
“He was scared,” she continued. “I'd never seen him like that.”
“What did he want?”
“He gave me a photograph and an envelope. He said if anything happened to him, I needed to keep them hidden.”
“Why didn't he give them to me?”
Natalie's eyes filled.
“Because he said you would try to help him.”
I looked down.
Of course I would have.
Marcus knew me.
He knew I would have walked into any office, confronted any manager, and demanded answers.
He also knew I didn't understand the danger.
Natalie reached for my hand.
“He said there was a man named Luca Moretti who wanted him to sign a false statement.”
Dante, standing near the window, turned.
“What statement?”
Natalie looked frightened.
“That Marcus had caused the accounting discrepancies. That he had taken money from the restaurant.”
My breath caught.
“He wanted Marcus to confess to something he didn't do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus had found records connecting the restaurant to a group of shell companies. He'd been helping Elias Voss compare invoices.”
Dante stepped closer.
“Did Marcus say who ordered the false statement?”
Natalie nodded.
“Luca.”
The room became silent.
Dante looked as though someone had struck him.
I had never met Luca Moretti.
But I'd heard the stories.
The younger brother.
Charming.
Reckless.
Always smiling in photographs.
Unlike Dante, who rarely appeared in public, Luca had once been a fixture at Manhattan charity galas.
Then he'd vanished from New York.
The official explanation was a business dispute.
Now I understood why Dante looked sick whenever his brother's name surfaced.
Alvarez approached.
“Natalie, what happened to the envelope?”
Natalie looked at me.
“I kept it for a year.”
“Then?”
“Caleb contacted me.”
My jaw tightened.
“He told me Marcus had been involved in a criminal investigation. He said you could lose your job, your apartment, even custody of Sophie if the wrong documents surfaced.”
I closed my eyes.
“He threatened my daughter.”
Natalie nodded.
“He said he could make sure none of that happened if I gave him the envelope.”
“What was inside?”
“A handwritten list of names.”
“Did you copy it?”
“No.”
Alvarez leaned forward.
“Do you remember any of the names?”
Natalie hesitated.
“Luca Moretti. Caleb Ross. Elias Voss.”
She paused.
“And someone named Arthur Vale.”
Dante's head snapped toward her.
“What did you say?”
“Arthur Vale.”
Vincent muttered something under his breath.
Alvarez noticed.
“Who is he?”
Dante looked toward the hospital window.
“Arthur Vale is a retired federal prosecutor.”
My stomach dropped.
“A prosecutor?”
“He investigated several of my companies years ago.”
“And?”
“He found nothing he could prove.”
Alvarez narrowed her eyes.
“Where is he now?”
“Consulting for private corporations.”
Vincent stepped forward.
“Including one of Luca's European investment groups.”
Dante stared at Natalie.
“Was there anything else?”
She nodded slowly.
“Marcus said Arthur was the reason he couldn't go to the police.”
Alvarez's expression changed.
“Why?”
“Because Arthur had already been given copies of the records.”
I felt cold.
“And he did nothing?”
Natalie looked at me.
“He told Marcus the evidence was too dangerous.”
Dante turned away.
His hands were clenched.
For the first time, I understood the terrible shape of the conspiracy.
Marcus had discovered financial crimes.
He'd tried to expose them.
And someone with enough power to frighten even Dante Moretti had helped silence him.
But Natalie wasn't finished.
“There was something else.”
I leaned closer.
“What?”
“Marcus called me the night of the fire.”
I stopped breathing.
“He called you?”
“At 11:39.”
Three minutes before the first flames appeared on the video.
Natalie's voice cracked.
“He said he'd found a way to get the records to someone who could help.”
“Who?”
“He didn't tell me.”
“What did he say?”
Natalie covered her mouth.
“He said, 'Tell Marissa I love her. Tell Sophie I'll be home before breakfast.'”
My vision blurred.
Marcus had expected to come home.
He hadn't planned to disappear.
He hadn't planned to abandon us.
He had believed he could fix everything.
And someone had taken that future away.
Dante stepped toward the door.
I followed him into the hallway.
“Where are you going?”
“To find my brother.”
“Dante.”
He stopped.
I had never seen him look so dangerous.
His expression was perfectly controlled.
But his eyes were full of something close to grief.
“He was twenty-two when our father died,” Dante said. “I raised him after that. Paid his debts. Covered his mistakes. Every time he promised he would change, I believed him.”
I listened.
“Three years ago, I discovered he had been moving money through companies I owned. I removed him from every position he held.”
“And he blamed you.”
“He blamed everyone.”
Dante looked at me.
“I thought sending him overseas would end it.”
“Instead, Marcus died.”
He didn't deny it.
That mattered.
Because I needed him to understand that the dead man at the center of this wasn't merely evidence.
He was my husband.
Sophie's father.
A person who had loved us.
“Dante,” I whispered, “don't turn this into revenge.”
His jaw tightened.
“He killed your husband.”
“We don't know that yet.”
“We know enough.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“If you do something that destroys the case, Marcus loses again.”
For several seconds, he stared at me.
Then his shoulders lowered.
“You're right.”
I almost didn't believe what I'd heard.
He continued.
“Alvarez gets the evidence. The courts get the truth.”
I nodded.
“That's what Marcus would have wanted.”
Dante looked at the floor.
Then he said something I hadn't expected.
“My wife would have wanted that, too.”
I went still.
“You were married?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She died six years ago.”
“I'm sorry.”
He nodded once.
“Her name was Isabella.”
He looked toward the hospital room.
“She was the only person who could tell me I was wrong without making me angry.”
I almost smiled.
“She sounds smart.”
“She was.”
His expression softened briefly.
Then Vincent appeared at the end of the hallway.
“Dante.”
Something in his voice made us both turn.
“What?”
“We located Luca.”
“Where?”
Vincent swallowed.
“Manhattan.”
Dante went still.
“He never left?”
“He returned three months ago under a different passport.”
“Where is he now?”
Vincent hesitated.
“Inside the Moretti Reserve.”
My stomach tightened.
“Sophie.”
I was already running.
Dante caught up beside me.
Vincent spoke into his radio.
“Lock down the eighteenth floor. Now.”
But before we reached the elevator, my phone rang.
It was the hotel security desk.
I answered.
“Mrs. Lane?”
“Yes?”
The man's voice trembled.
“Your daughter is safe, but someone came to the suite asking for her.”
I gripped the phone.
“Who?”
“A gentleman claiming to be Mr. Moretti's brother.”
I stopped moving.
“What did he want?”
The security guard hesitated.
“He said he had a message for you.”
“What message?”
A pause.
May you like
Then the guard answered.
“He said Sophie looks exactly like the little girl in the photograph Marcus stole.”
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