Chapter 6 - The Coffin That Contained No Father
The cemetery was surrounded by Moretti guards before sunrise.
Luca stood beside the open grave.
The coffin lid had been broken from the inside.
There were no bones.
No clothing.
No personal belongings.
Only a small metal box.
Emily carefully lifted it.
Inside were two passports, a hospital bracelet, and a folded document.
The first passport belonged to Antonio Moretti.
The second belonged to a man named Daniel Russo.
The photograph was unmistakably Luca.
Emily looked at him.
“That's your face.”
Luca opened the document.
It was a hospital birth record.
BABY A: DANIEL RUSSO.
BABY B: LUCA MORETTI.
The document had been signed by Dr. Richard Bellini.
Vanessa's father.
A handwritten note appeared beneath the signatures.
The child named Luca was born to Daniel Russo. The child named Gabriel was born to Antonio Moretti.
Luca read it twice.
His biological father was Daniel Russo.
A man he had never known.
A man who had apparently been murdered twelve years earlier.
He looked at Gabriel.
“You knew.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I found out when I was fourteen.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because you were happy.”
Luca laughed bitterly.
“Happy? I was living inside a lie.”
“You had a family. I had a target on my back.”
Luca turned toward him.
“Who killed Daniel?”
Gabriel's expression darkened.
“Stefano.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel discovered that Stefano had been selling our family's operations to a rival organization. He was going to expose him.”
“And Antonio helped cover it up?”
“No. Antonio tried to stop it. That's why he disappeared.”
Luca examined the documents.
“Where are the original records?”
Gabriel pointed toward the metal box.
“Your father hid them somewhere only you could find.”
“Which father?”
Gabriel gave a sad smile.
“That's the question that has kept this family alive.”
Emily noticed a small engraving on the inside of the box.
A sequence of numbers.
17-04-09.
She recognized the hospital code.
“It's the date your mother was admitted to Bellini Hospital.”
Luca immediately called his men.
They reached the abandoned hospital an hour later.
The building had been closed for years. Dust covered the reception desk, and broken medical equipment filled the corridors.
Vanessa's childhood photographs hung in the administration office.
Luca found Room 17.
The lock accepted the silver key.
Inside stood a single metal cabinet.
There were dozens of patient files.
Emily searched through them.
Then she found a file bearing the name Daniel Russo.
The medical notes described severe injuries from a car accident.
But the final page contained a handwritten addition.
Patient transferred to private residence. Identity changed by order of S. Moretti.
Luca's phone rang.
An unknown number.
He answered.
“Luca?”
Vanessa.
“Where are you?”
“I'm in the hospital.”
“Listen carefully. Stefano isn't the person you should be looking for.”
“Who is?”
“My father.”
Luca frowned.
“Your father is dead.”
“No. The man who raised me wasn't my father.”
Silence.
Vanessa continued.
“I found a photograph. My real father is alive. He's the man who arranged the first body identification.”
Luca gripped the phone.
“Who is he?”
Before she could answer, a door slammed behind him.
The lights went out.
Gunfire erupted in the hallway.
Luca pushed Emily behind the cabinet.
Gabriel returned fire.
When the emergency lights flickered on, the hospital was filled with smoke.
A figure appeared in the doorway.
Vanessa.
She was holding a gun.
“Luca, don't move.”
He stared at her.
“Put it down.”
She shook her head.
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“Because he's here.”
A man stepped out from behind her.
He had silver hair.
A familiar scar.
And the same eyes Luca saw every morning in the mirror.
The man smiled.
“Hello, son.”
Gabriel whispered:
“Stefano.”
But Luca was staring at something else.
The man's face was identical to the man on the stretcher.
Only the scar was different.
And beneath his collar, Luca could see a hospital bracelet.
PATIENT: DANIEL RUSSO.
The man raised his gun.
May you like
“Now that you've found your real father, we can finally finish this family reunion.”
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