Chapter 3 - HIS SON’S SECRET
“Call Dr. Reeves!”
Michael’s voice shook the walls.
I carried Zach toward the bed, but Michael took him gently from me.
The difference between the man I’d heard about and the father kneeling beside his child was almost impossible to understand.
“Zachary.”
He touched the boy’s cheek.
“Open your eyes.”
Zach’s eyelids fluttered.
“I’m okay.”
“No, buddy. You fainted.”
“I’m sleepy.”
Michael looked toward the doorway.
“Where is Reeves?”
“Seven minutes out,” Elias answered.
Seven minutes felt like seven hours.
I sat beside Zach and held his hand.
His fingers curled weakly around mine.
“You’re still marrying me, right?”
Michael stared at him.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Obviously. A pinky promise is legally binding.”
Zach smiled faintly.
Michael looked away.
The doctor arrived with equipment and examined Zach.
I learned the truth in fragments.
Zach had been born with a congenital heart defect. Surgery when he was younger had helped, but recent tests suggested another procedure might be necessary.
The appointment he’d been running from wasn’t routine.
He knew that.
That was why he’d disappeared.
“You scared your father,” I whispered when the doctor finally allowed him to sleep.
Zach glanced toward Michael.
“Dad doesn’t get scared.”
Michael was standing by the window.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “He does.”
Zach fell asleep.
Michael and I walked into the hallway.
“Thank you.”
It sounded unnatural coming from him.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“You found him.”
“Technically, he found me.”
Michael leaned against the wall.
For the first time, he looked exhausted.
“His mother died when he was two.”
I said nothing.
“Car accident. He remembers almost nothing about her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
There was something in his voice that told me the wound had never closed.
Then Elias approached.
His expression immediately changed the atmosphere.
“We have a problem.”
Michael straightened.
“What?”
“Valenti knows she’s here.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“We’re finding out.”
Michael’s face hardened.
“He won’t come onto this property.”
“That isn’t what concerns me.”
Elias handed him a phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
It showed me entering Michael’s SUV outside Bellarosa.
Someone had taken it from across the street.
Below it was a message.
RETURN THE GIRL. SHE BELONGS TO ME.
Michael stared at those words for a long time.
Then handed the phone back.
“She belongs to herself.”
Something about hearing him say it loosened a knot inside my chest.
“I should leave.”
“No.”
“If I stay, I put Zach in danger.”
“Valenti already knows Zach is my son. You leaving changes nothing.”
“You don’t understand Tony.”
Michael’s eyes sharpened.
“Explain.”
So I did.
Tony Valenti wasn’t merely a gambler Regina owed.
He operated clubs, illegal lending businesses, and a network that preyed on desperate women.
Three months earlier, I had accidentally overheard Regina discussing documents with him.
Not just my debt.
Names.
Payments.
Girls.
I had taken photographs.
Michael stared at me.
“You have them?”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“I mailed them to myself using an account Regina doesn’t know about.”
For the first time, Michael looked genuinely surprised.
“Smart.”
“I’ve spent months surviving.”
“Those aren’t always the same thing.”
His words hit harder than I expected.
“What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
“You have it.”
“No.”
He stepped closer, stopping far enough away that I didn’t feel cornered.
“You’re still hiding something.”
I looked toward Zach’s room.
“My father.”
Michael’s expression changed.
“What about him?”
“Before he died, he told me Regina was dangerous. He said if anything happened to him, I should find someone named Matteo Moretti.”
Michael went completely still.
“My father.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Matteo Moretti was my father.”
The hallway suddenly felt too small.
“My dad knew yours?”
Michael nodded slowly.
“Apparently.”
I remembered my father’s final weeks.
His confusion.
His fear.
The envelope he had given me.
I had never opened it because Regina stole almost everything after his funeral.
Almost everything.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
I reached beneath my shirt and pulled out the tiny brass key I’d worn around my neck for three years.
“My father gave me this the night before he died.”
Michael stared at it.
On its head was a tiny engraved symbol.
An M inside a circle.
All color drained from his face.
“Where did you get that?”
“I just told you.”
He took one step closer.
“My father used that mark on private deposit boxes.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Then what does this key open?”
Michael’s phone rang.
Elias answered his own phone simultaneously.
His expression darkened.
“Sir.”
Michael looked at him.
“Someone breached the east gate.”
The mansion lights suddenly went out.
Darkness swallowed the hallway.
May you like
Then somewhere downstairs—
a gunshot exploded.
