Chapter 3 - THE DEAD MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Dominic stared at the photograph until the screen dimmed.
His father had built the Moretti organization from a small Chicago operation into an empire. His uncle Salvatore had managed its finances until the two brothers supposedly died in a car explosion outside the city.
Dominic had inherited the business, the mansion, and a lifetime of warnings about trusting outsiders.
Now two supposedly dead men were appearing in photographs.
“Marco,” he said, “find that SUV.”
“Already working on it.”
“And nobody approaches Vanessa without my permission.”
Marco nodded, but his gaze shifted toward Emily, who sat wrapped in a hospital blanket.
“Boss, should we send the maid somewhere secure?”
Dominic glanced at her.
“She stays with us.”
Emily looked startled.
“Sir, I don't want to cause trouble.”
“You didn't create this trouble.”
He pulled a chair beside her bed.
“Tell me everything Isabella told you. Every conversation. Every detail.”
Emily took a slow breath.
“I met Mrs. Moretti at a women's shelter. I was working two jobs, and I was behind on rent. I didn't know who she was at first. She came in wearing an ordinary coat and helped prepare meals.”
“Isabella volunteered?”
“Every Thursday. She never told anyone at the mansion because she said people treated charity like a performance when they knew someone important was involved.”
Emily smiled faintly at the memory.
“She noticed I was pregnant before I told anyone. I was only a few weeks along. My boyfriend had disappeared, and I was afraid I'd lose my job if anyone found out.”
Dominic's expression softened.
“What happened next?”
“She paid for my first appointment. Then she asked me to help her organize some papers at the mansion. That's when I found out she was your wife.”
Emily's fingers tightened around the blanket.
“She was scared, Mr. Moretti. Not of dying. She was scared someone would use her illness to take control of the family.”
Dominic remembered Isabella sitting beside him at breakfast, insisting that he was working too much, laughing when he brought her flowers, and asking him to promise that the Moretti name would never become more important than the people who carried it.
He had promised.
Then he had buried himself in business while she grew weaker.
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She tried. She said every time she brought up the medical records, someone told her you were too busy or too angry to listen.”
Dominic looked away.
He knew exactly how often he'd dismissed concerns as distractions.
A knock interrupted them.
Dr. Reynolds returned with a printed document.
“The flash drive contains an audio file. It appears to have been recorded in Isabella's hospital room the evening before the surgery.”
Dominic connected it to a secure laptop.
A burst of static filled the room.
Then Isabella's voice emerged, weak but unmistakable.
“If you're listening to this, I couldn't get the truth to you in time.”
Dominic's eyes closed.
He hadn't heard her voice in eighteen months.
“I found evidence that someone changed my test results. Vanessa says she's trying to help, but she keeps insisting that I sign documents I don't understand. Yesterday, I heard her arguing with someone about the Moretti trust.”
A door slammed in the recording.
Then a man's voice spoke.
“Your husband will never know. By the time he asks questions, the company will already belong to us.”
The recording ended abruptly.
Dominic sat motionless.
He recognized the voice.
It belonged to his uncle Salvatore.
But another sound lingered in the background—a woman's bracelet striking a glass table.
Dominic had heard that sound hundreds of times.
Vanessa wore a silver bracelet with a tiny bell-shaped charm.
“She was there,” Emily whispered.
Dominic nodded.
“Both of them.”
A new message appeared on Marco's phone.
The SUV had been located at an abandoned lakeside property once owned by Victor Moretti.
Security footage showed Vanessa entering the building.
Salvatore had gone inside five minutes earlier.
But the final image was what made Dominic rise from his chair.
A third person had arrived.
A gray-haired man wearing a dark overcoat.
Marco enlarged the image.
Dominic's face drained of color.
His father had been dead for three years.
May you like
Yet the man in the photograph was unmistakably Victor Moretti.
And he was carrying a newspaper dated that morning.
