Chapter 6 - The Unspoken Truth
A suffocating silence descended over the great hall. The bodyguards looked between the Don and the young boss, their weapons lowered but their stances rigid. Mrs. Gable stood trembling, her chest heaving, the blood completely drained from her face.
Lorenzo’s gray eyes widened—a rare, fleeting glimpse of genuine shock breaking through his hardened facade. He stared at his father’s hand resting against the maid’s abdomen.
"Father?" Lorenzo whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "You... you can move your arm?"
Giovanni did not look at his son. He kept his eyes locked on Nora. The old man’s jaw worked, his throat muscles straining as he fought against the physical prison of his vocal cords. A low, raspy sound escaped his lips—not the nonsensical babble of dementia, but the agonizing effort of a man trying to form words.
Nora felt tears spill over her eyelashes. She didn't think about mafia dons, hitmen, or the danger surrounding her. All she saw was the sweet, abandoned old man who had cried in the dark while she talked to him about baby Lily.
She knelt down beside his wheelchair, ignoring the sharp pain in her swollen joints. With her free hand, she reached up and took a pristine linen napkin from the table, gently wiping away the small bead of sweat and saliva from Giovanni’s lips, exactly as she had done in room 4B every day for three months.
"It's okay, John," Nora whispered gently, using the name she had always called him. "Don't strain yourself. Take your time. You're safe."
At the sound of the name John, Lorenzo’s jaw tightened dangerously. He looked at Mrs. Gable.
"Why is she calling him John?" Lorenzo demanded, the timber of his voice shaking the crystal glasses on the table.
Mrs. Gable stammered, backing away until her shoulder hit the grand fireplace mantel. "I... I don't know, Mr. Moretti! The girl is simple-minded! She must have confused his name! John... Giovanni... she's uneducated!"
"She calls me John," a voice rasped from the wheelchair.
Every person in the room froze.
The bodyguards gasped. Lorenzo stumbled back half a step, his breath catching in his throat.
Giovanni Moretti was speaking.
His voice was hoarse, fractured, and ancient, like dry leaves scraping over concrete, but the words were unmistakable. His silver head turned slowly, turning his dark, burning eyes away from Nora and fixing them directly upon Mrs. Gable.
"She calls me John," Giovanni repeated, every syllable forced out with supreme, venomous will, "because that is the name she gave the forgotten ghost you locked in the dark."
Mrs. Gable fell to her knees on the marble floor. "Don Giovanni... please... you're confused... the medicine—"
"Quiet!" Lorenzo roared. The sound shattered the room like a thunderclap. He stepped between Mrs. Gable and his father, his chest rising and falling heavily. He dropped to one knee beside the wheelchair, his large, tattooed hands trembling as he reached toward his father.
"Dad?" Lorenzo choked out, the cold mafia boss disappearing, replaced in an instant by the terrified twenty-seven-year-old boy who had thought his father was lost forever. "You're... you're here? You know who I am?"
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Giovanni looked down at his son. Slowly, with immense effort, he lifted his hand from Nora’s belly and placed it against Lorenzo’s cheek.
"I know you, Lorenzo," Giovanni rasped, a tear slipping down his weathered cheek. "And I know what has been done in my house while you were away."
