Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Dante did not sleep that night.
He sat in his office with the wedding band on his desk and three security teams searching every inch of the property. Elena remained upstairs, refusing to answer his calls.
At 2:17 a.m., Marcus entered with a report.
"Victoria's gone."
Dante looked up slowly.
"Explain."
"She used the service elevator to reach the underground garage. Someone had disabled the cameras. By the time we discovered the gap, her car was already off the property."
"And the guards?"
"Two were assigned to the east entrance. Both swear they never saw her."
Dante leaned back.
"Find out who paid them."
Marcus hesitated.
"There's something else."
"Of course there is."
"We recovered a laptop from the office safe. It isn't yours."
Dante stood.
"Bring it here."
Marcus placed the laptop on the desk and opened it.
The screen displayed a directory of scanned documents, financial transfers, photographs, and medical records.
Dante recognized several names belonging to his family's oldest associates.
Then he saw Elena's.
His blood turned cold.
A folder labeled ELENA MORETTI — MEDICAL contained copies of her prenatal appointments, laboratory results, and a schedule of every visit she had made to her obstetrician.
There were photographs of her entering the hospital.
One showed her sitting alone in the waiting room.
Another captured her standing outside a pharmacy.
Someone had been tracking his pregnant wife.
Dante gripped the edge of the desk.
"Who took these?"
"We're checking the timestamps."
"Now."
Marcus began working.
Dante opened another folder.
This one contained photographs of his mother.
Not old family pictures. Surveillance photographs.
His mother leaving a grocery store.
His mother entering a bank.
His mother carrying a small suitcase toward a train station three days before her death.
Dante stared at the final image.
His mother had never taken that trip.
According to everything he remembered, she had died in a car accident on a rainy evening.
He opened the document attached to the photograph.
A scanned police report appeared.
The accident date was correct.
The location was correct.
But the report listed the driver as unidentified.
Dante had been told his mother was driving alone.
He scrolled down.
A handwritten note appeared in the margin.
Passenger recovered alive. Transferred before identification.
Dante stopped breathing for a moment.
"Marcus."
His security chief leaned closer.
"Yes?"
"Who authorized the transfer?"
Marcus studied the report.
"The name is obscured."
"Can you recover it?"
"We can try."
Dante closed the laptop.
He suddenly felt sixteen again, standing in the hallway while his father told him his mother was gone. He remembered the rain against the windows, the smell of wet wool, and Luca sitting on the staircase with his face buried in his hands.
His father had taken both boys into his study that night.
He had told them the family needed to become stronger.
He had told them grief was a weakness enemies would exploit.
And he had told them never to question the people who had protected them.
Dante had obeyed.
For eleven years, he had obeyed.
Upstairs, Elena sat awake beside the window, rubbing her lower back.
Her phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
You deserve to know what your husband did before you decide whether to forgive him.
A photograph followed.
It showed Dante standing outside a courthouse fourteen years earlier, his arm around a young woman Elena had never seen.
The woman was crying.
Dante was holding a baby.
Elena enlarged the picture.
The child looked no older than six months.
A second message appeared.
Ask him about the daughter he buried before he met you.
Elena felt the room tilt.
She knew Dante had been engaged once. He had mentioned a woman named Sofia during their first year together, describing the relationship as a mistake made when he was young and angry.
He had never mentioned a child.
She stared at the photograph until her eyes burned.
Then she called Dante.
He answered on the first ring.
"Elena?"
"Did you have a daughter?"
Silence.
Not confusion.
Not surprise.
Silence.
Her hand tightened around the phone.
"Answer me."
"Who told you that?"
She closed her eyes.
"Oh, my God."
"Elena, listen to me."
"Was there a child?"
"Yes."
The single word shattered something inside her.
"What happened to her?"
"She died."
"When?"
"Eleven years ago."
The same year Luca supposedly died.
Elena pressed her free hand against her stomach.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I couldn't talk about her."
"That isn't good enough."
"I know."
"No, Dante. You don't. You have spent our entire marriage deciding which pieces of your life I was allowed to know. And every time I found a missing piece, you called it protection."
She heard him breathing.
Then he said something that made her sit down.
"Her name was Isabella."
Elena looked at the photograph again.
The woman holding the baby wasn't Sofia.
It was Victoria.
She had been younger, but unmistakable.
"Victoria was there?"
Dante's voice changed.
"Elena, where did you get that photograph?"
Before she could answer, a loud crash came from downstairs.
A security alarm began screaming.
Dante shouted something to Marcus.
Then his voice returned to the phone.
"Lock your bedroom door. Do not open it for anyone except me."
Elena stood.
"Dante—"
The line went dead.
She turned toward the bedroom door.
A soft knock came from the other side.
"Mrs. Moretti?"
It was the housekeeper, Mrs. Alvarez.
Elena approached cautiously.
"What is it?"
"I need you to come downstairs. Mr. Moretti asked me to bring you somewhere safe."
Elena hesitated.
Then she remembered the photograph.
Victoria had known about Isabella.
Victoria had been part of Dante's past long before the six weeks she had spent in their home.
Elena reached for the handle.
And stopped.
Through the narrow gap beneath the door, she saw a pair of men's shoes.
Not Mrs. Alvarez's.
A man's voice whispered from the hallway.
"Tell her the baby isn't hers."
Elena stepped back.
Her daughter kicked sharply beneath her palm.
May you like
Then the bedroom handle began to turn.
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