Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEADVincent ordered the entire ballroom sealed.
Guests protested. Security personnel moved through the building. Nobody was allowed to leave until every entrance and exit had been checked.
Sophia was escorted into a private office.
Anna refused to accompany them.
She remained in the corridor with Ethan, watching Vincent through the glass.
He looked like a stranger.
The man she had once loved had become even colder during the three years she was gone. His shoulders were rigid, his expression unreadable, and his voice carried the kind of authority that made grown men lower their eyes.
Yet when Ethan stumbled and scraped his knee, Vincent immediately turned toward him.
“Is he hurt?”
“It's nothing,” Anna replied.
Vincent knelt.
“Let me see.”
Ethan hesitated before showing him the small scrape.
Vincent took a clean handkerchief from his pocket.
“Brave little guy.”
“Mommy says I don't have to be brave all the time.”
Vincent looked up at Anna.
“She tells you the right things.”
“She tells me everything.”
The words hurt more than Anna intended.
Inside the office, Sophia finally began talking.
She claimed Gabriel had contacted her six months before the supposed aircraft accident. He had told her Vincent's marriage was destroying the family and promised that if Anna disappeared, Vincent would eventually return to the woman he had always loved.
Vincent listened without moving.
“You knew Gabriel was alive?”
“I didn't know where he was.”
“Did you know he was planning something?”
“No.”
“Did you know he arranged for Anna to be left on that aircraft?”
Sophia began crying.
“I swear I didn't know about the explosion.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Then why did you get on that plane?”
Sophia hesitated.
“Gabriel said you needed me.”
Vincent stared at her.
“You were never in danger.”
“What?”
“The crew's emergency reports showed that the passenger-side evacuation equipment had been tampered with. Your exit was clear. Anna's wasn't.”
Sophia shook her head.
“I didn't know.”
Vincent stood.
“Three years ago, I believed you were terrified. I believed you needed me.”
“I did need you.”
“And I left my pregnant wife because of it.”
Sophia reached for him.
He stepped away.
“Don't touch me.”
She looked toward the glass partition.
Anna was standing outside.
“You think she wants you now?” Sophia asked bitterly. “Look at her. She has a child, a life, everything she needs. You're nothing to her.”
Vincent's voice dropped.
“That's my decision to live with.”
Meanwhile, Anna's phone rang.
The number was unknown.
She answered cautiously.
A man's voice came through.
“Mrs. Moretti.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Who is this?”
“Someone who helped you survive that night.”
Anna went still.
“What?”
“You remember the service road near the runway? The ambulance that arrived before the fire department?”
She remembered.
She remembered being pulled from the wreckage by a paramedic whose face had been covered in soot.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
“I wasn't the one they were trying to kill.”
“Who are you?”
“Daniel Hayes. I worked security for your husband's family.”
Anna looked toward Vincent.
“Why are you calling me?”
“Because the man who locked that door is preparing to finish what he started.”
Her blood ran cold.
“Gabriel?”
“No.”
A pause.
Then Daniel said the name she least expected.
“Your father-in-law.”
Anna stopped breathing.
Before she could ask another question, the call ended.
A second message appeared.
It contained a photograph of a document dated three years earlier.
At the bottom was a signature.
ANTHONY MORETTI.
Anna stared at it.
Anthony had attended her wedding.
He had kissed her forehead when Vincent announced the pregnancy.
He had promised that she would always be part of the Moretti family.
And now she was looking at evidence that he might have ordered her death.
She turned toward the office.
Vincent was already walking toward her.
“What happened?”
Anna held up the phone.
“Your father.”
Vincent read the document.
For the first time that evening, the feared mafia boss looked genuinely terrified.
Because the signature wasn't the only thing on the page.
May you like
There was also a second instruction.
THE CHILD MUST NOT SURVIVE.
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