Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED EVERYTHINGAnna didn't wait for another warning.
She lifted Ethan into her arms and moved toward the service corridor.
“Anna!” Vincent called.
She kept walking.
Marco stepped in front of the nearest guests, signaling Vincent's security team to secure the ballroom.
“Boss, let me handle this.”
Vincent ignored him.
He followed his wife.
At the corridor entrance, he caught up with her.
“Stop running from me.”
Anna spun around.
“I'm not running from you. I'm protecting my son.”
“Our son.”
“You don't get to claim him because you finally noticed his face.”
Vincent glanced down at Ethan.
The little boy was watching him cautiously.
“Mommy, why is he following us?”
“Because some people don't understand when they're unwanted.”
Vincent flinched.
“I deserve that,” he whispered. “But please, let me help you.”
Anna wanted to refuse.
She wanted to tell him that she had survived without his money, his name, and his protection. She wanted to remind him that she had given birth alone in a hospital where nobody knew she was the wife of Vincent Moretti.
But the man at the ballroom entrance changed everything.
She looked over Vincent's shoulder.
“He was on the plane.”
Vincent turned.
“Who?”
“The man near the doors. I saw him before the explosion.”
Vincent immediately signaled Marco.
“Find him. Don't let him leave.”
Marco disappeared into the crowd.
Vincent turned back.
“What do you remember?”
Anna's eyes filled with the memories she had spent years trying to bury.
The screaming alarms.
The smell of burning fuel.
The heat.
And the sound of a second explosion after Vincent had already escaped.
“I remember someone locking the rear emergency door.”
Vincent went pale.
“What?”
“I was trying to reach it. I pulled the handle until my hands bled. It wouldn't open.”
“Why didn't you tell investigators?”
“Because nobody believed me.”
Vincent stared at her.
“Anna, the investigation concluded that the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure.”
“Then the investigation was wrong.”
She lowered Ethan to his feet.
“I wasn't unconscious when the plane exploded. I saw someone outside the cabin window. He was standing near the landing gear.”
Vincent's jaw tightened.
“Did you recognize him?”
“No. But I recognized the tattoo on his hand.”
She described a black serpent wrapped around a dagger.
Vincent's expression changed.
He knew that symbol.
It belonged to a criminal organization that had been trying to penetrate the Moretti family's operations for years.
But there was something else.
A name.
“Who arranged the flight?” Anna asked.
“Your father-in-law's office handled the logistics.”
“And who approved Sophia coming with us?”
Vincent looked away.
“I did.”
“Of course.”
She took a breath.
“I was seven months pregnant, Vincent. I told you I didn't feel comfortable having her there. You called me jealous.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
Her voice trembled.
“You don't know what it feels like to be trapped in a burning aircraft, screaming for the man who promised to return, while realizing he might never come.”
Vincent had no answer.
A small voice interrupted them.
“Mommy?”
Ethan was looking up at Anna.
“Are we in trouble?”
She knelt immediately.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Is that man angry with us?”
Vincent crouched several feet away.
“I'm not angry, buddy.”
Ethan studied him.
“Why are you sad?”
Vincent's throat tightened.
“Because I made a very big mistake.”
Ethan considered that.
“Did you say sorry?”
Vincent looked at Anna.
“I'm trying.”
The boy nodded solemnly.
“You should say it louder.”
Anna almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Marco returned.
“We lost the man. He exited through the loading area.”
Vincent's face hardened.
“Get the security footage.”
“I already did.”
Marco handed him a tablet.
The footage showed the man entering the ballroom, watching Anna, and then leaving.
But the final frame revealed something unexpected.
The man had approached Sophia before entering.
He had handed her a small envelope.
Vincent slowly turned toward his former lover.
Sophia stood several yards away, her face drained of color.
“What was in the envelope?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
Marco enlarged the image.
A silver ring was visible on the man's finger.
Vincent recognized it.
It was the same ring worn by his older brother, Gabriel, who had supposedly died in a warehouse fire two years earlier.
Sophia backed away.
“Vincent, listen to me.”
He stepped toward her.
“Tell me why a dead man was speaking to you.”
Sophia's lips trembled.
May you like
Then she whispered something that made Anna's blood run cold.
“Because Gabriel wasn't dead.”
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