Chapter 2 - The Mother Who Was Buried Alive
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Luca Moretti stood in the middle of his wedding ballroom, holding a silver key while the woman he had buried two years earlier stared at him.
His mother, Isabella Moretti, was alive.
His first wife, Elena, was alive.
And his bride was apparently responsible for burying one of them.
“Everybody out,” Luca ordered.
Nobody argued.
His security team immediately began escorting the guests toward the exits. The musicians abandoned their instruments. The wedding planner disappeared through a side door.
Vanessa remained beneath the chandelier, her white dress spread across the marble floor.
“Luca, please. Let me explain.”
He looked at her.
“You have thirty seconds.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“I didn't bury your mother. I was trying to save her.”
Isabella let out a bitter laugh.
“Save me? You locked me in a coffin and ordered men to bury it.”
“I was following instructions!”
“Whose instructions?” Luca demanded.
Vanessa looked at Elena.
That hesitation told him more than any confession could.
Elena stepped closer.
“Your fiancée has been lying to you since the day she entered this house.”
Luca turned toward his former wife.
“Where have you been for two years?”
“Running.”
“From whom?”
Elena looked at Isabella.
“From the people who convinced you I was dead.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
“I saw your funeral. I watched them lower your coffin.”
“You watched them lower a coffin.”
The distinction hit him.
He remembered the night of Elena's supposed death. A car accident. A closed casket. His mother's insistence that he shouldn't look at the body because of the injuries.
He had been devastated, medicated, and barely conscious.
He had trusted his family to handle everything.
“Who was inside?” he whispered.
Isabella closed her eyes.
“An unidentified woman.”
Luca stared at her.
“You buried a stranger under my wife's name?”
“I didn't know that was what they had done until it was too late.”
Elena shook her head.
“You knew more than you're admitting.”
Before Isabella could respond, Luca's security chief, Marco, approached.
“Boss, we have a problem.”
“What?”
“The four men who carried the coffin aren't on our guest list. Their vehicle is registered to a company that no longer exists.”
“Find them.”
Marco hesitated.
“They're gone.”
Luca turned toward the ballroom entrance.
“Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves.”
Vanessa suddenly stepped forward.
“Luca, you can't keep treating me like a criminal. We were about to get married.”
He looked at her wedding ring.
“Take it off.”
Her expression collapsed.
“Please.”
“Take it off.”
Vanessa slowly removed the diamond ring and placed it on the nearest table.
Then she looked at Elena.
“You think you've won?”
Elena didn't answer.
Vanessa leaned closer and whispered something only she could hear.
Elena's face changed.
For the first time since entering the mansion, she looked frightened.
“What did you say?” Luca demanded.
Vanessa smiled through her tears.
“Ask your first wife why she disappeared without telling you about your daughter.”
The room went silent.
Luca turned toward Elena.
“My daughter?”
Elena's eyes filled with tears.
“Luca…”
He grabbed her shoulders.
“Do we have a child?”
She nodded.
“A little girl. Her name is Sofia.”
Luca staggered backward.
Two years earlier, Elena had been pregnant when she disappeared. He had been told she lost the baby in the accident.
“Where is she?”
Elena looked toward the open coffin.
“She's alive.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere safe. Or at least I thought she was.”
Marco's phone suddenly rang.
He answered, listened, and went pale.
“Boss, we found something in the east security room.”
“What?”
“A camera feed that was disabled three minutes before the coffin arrived.”
Luca took the phone.
The screen showed a grainy image of the mansion's underground garage.
A little girl in a yellow coat stood beside a black SUV.
She looked directly into the camera.
Then she raised a photograph.
Luca recognized the face immediately.
It was his.
Written across the bottom were four words.
DADDY, DON'T TRUST MOM.
Elena covered her mouth.
“That's Sofia.”
The video ended.
Then another message appeared.
A voice recording began playing.
It was a little girl's voice.
“Daddy, if you're watching this, the woman who says she's my mother isn't Mommy.”
And behind the child's voice, another woman whispered:
“Take her before Luca finds out.”
Luca looked at Elena.
She was already running toward the door.
Because the voice in the recording belonged to Vanessa.
May you like
And the woman beside him was suddenly no longer the only person claiming to be Sofia's mother.
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