Chapter 2 - The Man Who Wore Luca's Face
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The ballroom, once filled with music and champagne, had become a room full of people afraid to breathe.
Luca stared at the medical worker.
“Explain yourself.”
The man removed his identification badge.
“Dr. Samuel Hayes. St. Catherine's Medical Center. I was responsible for the examination of the patient.”
“You brought a dead man into my wedding and expect me to believe he's me?”
“I didn't bring him here by accident.”
Luca grabbed the doctor's collar.
“Then start talking.”
Two of Luca's security men moved forward, but Emily stepped between them.
“Mr. Moretti, look at the bracelet again.”
Luca released the doctor.
Emily pointed at the hospital identification.
“Your name is on it. But the date of birth isn't the only thing that's strange.”
She turned the man's wrist.
Beneath the bracelet was a small surgical scar.
Luca instinctively touched his own wrist.
He had the same scar.
A childhood injury.
A broken window.
A night he barely remembered because he had been only six years old.
“Who is this man?” he demanded.
Dr. Hayes swallowed.
“His fingerprints match yours.”
A woman screamed near the entrance.
Vanessa's mother, Margaret Bellini, had been standing among the wedding guests. Now she was pushing through the crowd.
“This is enough!” she shouted. “The wedding is over. Everyone needs to leave.”
Luca slowly turned.
“You seem very eager to end this.”
Margaret's expression hardened.
“Your father would be ashamed of you.”
“My father has apparently been dead twice. I think he'll survive being ashamed.”
A few guests exchanged nervous looks.
Luca ordered his men to lock the doors.
Nobody was leaving.
Then he turned toward Vanessa.
“You said you were seventeen when you identified the body. You said you didn't know who he was. But that photograph shows you knew my father when you were five.”
Vanessa wiped her tears.
“I knew one of them.”
“Which one?”
“The one who visited our house.”
“When?”
She looked at the stretcher.
“Before the funeral.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
“That's impossible. My father died in a car accident.”
“No,” she whispered. “One of them did.”
Dr. Hayes opened his folder.
“There's something else. The man on the stretcher was found three days ago in an abandoned private clinic outside the city. He had been receiving treatment under a false identity.”
“What identity?”
The doctor hesitated.
“Luca Moretti.”
Luca laughed bitterly.
“Someone has been living under my name?”
“Not someone,” Vanessa whispered.
Everyone turned.
She looked directly at Luca.
“Your father.”
Before Luca could respond, Margaret slapped her daughter.
“Shut your mouth!”
The sound echoed through the ballroom.
Vanessa stumbled against a table.
Luca immediately stepped forward, but Emily reached her first.
“Don't touch her again.”
Margaret stared at the maid as if she had forgotten servants were capable of speaking.
“You have no idea what you're interfering with.”
Emily held Vanessa's arm.
“Then explain it.”
Margaret looked toward the security guards.
“Take that girl away.”
Nobody moved.
Luca raised his hand.
“Anyone who touches Emily answers to me.”
He turned back to the doctor.
“Take the body to the underground examination room. Nobody else sees it.”
Dr. Hayes nodded.
But as the medical workers prepared the stretcher, the man's fingers moved.
Emily noticed first.
“Wait!”
Everyone froze.
The dead man's right hand twitched.
Then his chest rose.
A weak, painful breath escaped his lips.
“Dad?” Luca whispered.
The man's eyes opened.
He stared at Luca for several seconds.
Then his mouth moved.
“Not… him.”
Luca leaned closer.
“What?”
The man struggled to raise his hand.
His finger pointed toward the bride.
“Don't… marry…”
Vanessa began sobbing.
The man's eyes shifted toward her.
Then he whispered a name.
“Gabriel.”
His head fell sideways.
The monitor attached to the stretcher began screaming.
Dr. Hayes rushed forward.
“Clear the room!”
The medical team worked desperately.
Luca stood motionless as they attempted to revive the man.
After several minutes, Dr. Hayes lowered his hands.
“I'm sorry.”
The second death was real.
Luca looked at the covered body.
Then at Vanessa.
“Who is Gabriel?”
She couldn't answer.
Margaret suddenly bolted toward the side exit.
One of Luca's men caught her before she reached the door.
“Where do you think you're going?” Luca asked.
Margaret turned pale.
“Your father warned me about you.”
“My father?”
She stared at him.
Then whispered something that made his blood run cold.
“Gabriel is your older brother.”
Luca frowned.
“I don't have a brother.”
Margaret began laughing through her tears.
“That's what they told you.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a small photograph.
A young boy stood beside Antonio Moretti.
He looked about ten.
His hair, eyes, and expression were unmistakably Luca's.
On the back, someone had written:
GABRIEL MORETTI — THE FIRST HEIR.
Luca took the photograph.
Then he looked at the woman who had raised his future wife.
“Why was I never told?”
Margaret looked toward Vanessa.
“Because your brother was supposed to die before you were born.”
And suddenly Luca understood something.
The man on the stretcher hadn't come to stop the wedding because he hated Vanessa.
He had come because someone wanted Luca to marry into a family that had already buried one Moretti heir.
But the most frightening question remained.
May you like
If Gabriel was dead, why had the dying man called his name?
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