Chapter 6 - The Father I Buried
The drive into Wisconsin took three hours.
Every mile felt impossible.
Dante sat across from me in the SUV, saying nothing.
I appreciated the silence.
Vanessa remained in Chicago under federal protection.
Before leaving, I had sent copies of every document to three separate attorneys. I was finished carrying secrets that could be destroyed by killing one person.
At 1:16 a.m., we reached the cabin.
The door was open.
“Gabriel?”
No answer.
Dante entered first.
The living room was empty.
A kettle boiled in the kitchen.
Someone had been there minutes earlier.
Then I heard coughing upstairs.
I ran.
“Evelyn!”
Dante followed.
I opened the bedroom door.
A man sat beside the window.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
A scar crossed his neck.
For one impossible second, my mind refused to recognize him.
Then he looked at me.
“Evie.”
My world stopped.
Nobody had called me that way since my father died.
I couldn't move.
“Dad?”
Thomas Moretti began crying.
So did I.
I crossed the room.
He stood weakly.
Then I was in his arms.
Four years of grief broke open.
I hit his chest once.
Then again.
“You were alive.”
“I know.”
“You were alive!”
“I'm sorry.”
I pushed him away.
“You let me bury you.”
His face crumpled.
“I thought it was the only way to keep you alive.”
“You let me marry Roman!”
“I didn't know until afterward.”
“You could have come back.”
“Salvatore had people watching you every day.”
“So did Roman!”
“I know.”
My father sat down heavily.
Dante remained by the doorway.
Thomas saw him.
“You kept your promise.”
Dante's jaw tightened.
“Not well enough.”
My father looked at me.
“He saved my life.”
I stared.
“But Roman said—”
“Roman tells truth in pieces because pieces can be arranged into lies.”
Thomas explained.
Dante had entered the burning warehouse and found him trapped.
Thomas ordered him to retrieve the evidence because firefighters were minutes away.
But Dante returned.
Together with Gabriel, he pulled Thomas free.
“Why did Dante tell me he left you?”
“Because I made him promise never to reveal I survived.”
Dante spoke quietly.
“I thought admitting I returned would raise questions I couldn't answer without exposing him.”
Anger remained.
But its shape changed.
“You could have told me something.”
“Yes.”
“You let me think the worst.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your father's safety mattered more than whether you thought I was a good man.”
That answer hurt precisely because I believed it.
I looked at my father.
“Where's Gabriel?”
Thomas's expression darkened.
“He called me yesterday. He said Roman found him.”
“You were together?”
“For years.”
“Why?”
My father sighed.
“After the fire, Salvatore's people controlled Chicago. Gabriel moved me between safe houses while we tried to build a case.”
“And Margaret Vale?”
Dante stepped closer.
“Yes. Explain my mother.”
Thomas looked at him.
“Margaret financed us.”
Dante blinked.
“What?”
“She knew what Salvatore was becoming before you did.”
“My mother told me she hated the Morettis.”
“She needed Salvatore to believe that.”
Another secret.
Another person playing dead emotionally to survive.
“Where is she now?” I asked.
Dante pulled out his phone.
His face changed.
“What?”
“My mother disappeared this morning.”
Thomas stood.
“Then Roman has her.”
Dante immediately called his security chief.
I watched him become something colder.
Dangerous.
Then he stopped.
Looked at me.
And deliberately lowered the phone.
“What do you want to do?”
That question mattered.
Roman would have ordered.
Dante asked.
“We find Gabriel and Margaret,” I said.
Thomas nodded.
“And we finish what I should have finished four years ago.”
He opened a locked cabinet.
Inside were paper ledgers.
Dozens.
“I kept originals.”
Dante stared.
“These connect Salvatore's network to Roman.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you turn them over?”
“Because the network included people inside law enforcement.”
Thomas looked at me.
“But Evelyn's public move changed the equation. Roman is exposed. People who protected him because he looked invincible are already abandoning him.”
My birthday humiliation had done more than activate a trust.
It had cracked an image.
Power, I realized, was often a room full of people pretending one man couldn't fall.
Then the first person stopped pretending.
My phone buzzed.
Roman.
I answered.
His voice was calm.
“Enjoying Wisconsin?”
Dante went still.
Roman knew.
“What do you want?”
“My empire back.”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you'd like to hear from someone.”
A woman cried out.
Dante's face drained.
“Mother.”
Roman laughed softly.
Then another voice.
Gabriel.
“Evelyn, don't—”
A blow silenced him.
My father gripped the table.
Roman continued.
“Midnight tomorrow. Castellano Tower.”
“You think I'm bringing you evidence?”
“I think you're bringing me everything.”
“And if I don't?”
“Gabriel dies first.”
A pause.
“Margaret second.”
His voice softened.
“And Thomas Moretti dies properly this time.”
I felt my father stiffen.
Roman knew he was alive.
The line ended.
Dante looked at me.
“We don't trade evidence.”
“No.”
Thomas said, “Then what?”
I looked at the ledgers.
Roman believed everyone around him was a possession.
Vanessa.
Me.
His lawyers.
His soldiers.
His allies.
Maybe that was his weakness.
“He wants his empire back?”
Dante nodded.
I picked up my phone.
“Then tomorrow night, we're going to give him one.”
My father frowned.
“What does that mean?”
I looked at the financial records.
“It means Roman is expecting a hostage exchange.”
May you like
I smiled without humor.
“So we're going to arrange a hostile takeover.”
