Chapter 4 - My Father’s Second Debt
“My mother is dead.”
Vivian said it three times.
Nobody contradicted her.
That was worse.
Edmund took the tablet.
“Image manipulation.”
Marco shook his head.
“We checked the raw feed.”
“Then someone resembles her.”
Victor whispered, “No.”
Vivian turned.
“You identified her body.”
His silence shattered something.
“You did identify her body, didn’t you?”
Victor sat down.
“I identified what they showed me.”
“What does that mean?”
“The car burned.”
Vivian’s throat tightened.
“Was there DNA?”
“It was eleven years ago. The police said—”
“I asked whether there was DNA.”
“No.”
She stepped backward.
“You buried a closed coffin.”
“Yes.”
“And told an eleven-year-old girl her mother was inside.”
“I believed she was.”
“Believed?”
Victor covered his face.
Edmund looked at Marco.
“Find the woman.”
Marco left.
Vivian walked toward the pier.
Edmund followed.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
She looked across the black water.
“I spent fifteen years remembering her funeral.”
Edmund said nothing.
“I remember holding Dad’s hand. I remember thinking if I opened the coffin maybe she would wake up.”
Her voice broke.
“I stopped myself because everyone told me to be brave.”
“Vivian.”
“If she was alive...”
She turned.
“Why didn’t she come back?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew her.”
“For a few months.”
“What was she like?”
Edmund hesitated.
“Difficult.”
Despite everything, Vivian almost smiled.
“That sounds familiar.”
“She was intelligent. Suspicious. Brave enough to become reckless.”
“Still sounds familiar.”
This time his mouth actually moved.
Then he looked away.
“She loved you.”
“How do you know?”
“Every decision she made was about you.”
Vivian stared at him.
“Then tell me everything.”
So he did.
Eleven years earlier, Evelyn Moretti had contacted twenty-six-year-old Edmund Costa because she believed someone inside her husband’s shipping business was moving trafficked people through Moretti containers.
She could not trust police.
She could not trust Victor.
She could not trust Edmund’s father.
But she believed Edmund was ambitious enough to want the truth more than loyalty.
He investigated.
The trail led to Gabriel Costa.
Then Evelyn died.
Three days later Gabriel’s car exploded.
Case closed.
Except there had never been enough evidence.
“You spent eleven years believing your brother did it.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now I think someone wanted me to believe that.”
Victor approached.
“I owe you both something.”
Vivian laughed bitterly.
“Only one thing?”
He accepted it.
“After Evelyn died, I received photographs of you at school.”
Vivian went still.
“Every week.”
He continued.
“They demanded money. I paid. When Moretti Shipping started failing, I borrowed. When banks stopped lending, I gambled because sometimes I could double what little I had.”
“And sometimes you lost.”
“Most times.”
“Why didn’t you tell Edmund?”
“I didn’t know whether the threat came from his family.”
Edmund looked at him.
“So you let me marry her anyway?”
Victor’s shame was visible.
“The messages changed three months ago.”
“How?”
“They said Vivian would die unless I placed her under Costa protection.”
Vivian stared.
“What?”
“The marriage wasn’t your idea first.”
Edmund turned sharply.
Victor continued.
“They told me to approach you.”
Edmund’s expression darkened.
“Someone engineered the marriage.”
“Yes.”
Vivian felt trapped in a chess game begun years before she knew pieces existed.
“Why would they want us married?”
Edmund answered.
“To bring the two families together.”
“Why?”
“So whatever they’re planning can destroy both at once.”
Victor reached into his jacket.
“I received this yesterday.”
A folded note.
Edmund opened it.
BRING YOUR DAUGHTER TO THE ALTAR. COSTA WILL DO THE REST.
Vivian read it twice.
“You still let me walk down that aisle?”
Victor’s eyes filled.
“If I refused, they said you wouldn’t survive the week.”
She turned away.
A phone rang.
Marco.
Edmund answered.
“Talk.”
He listened.
Then looked at Vivian.
“We found the woman.”
“Where?”
“She left the hotel thirteen minutes after the shooting.”
“Where did she go?”
Marco’s voice came through the speaker.
“Saint Aurelia’s.”
The church.
Vivian’s wedding church.
They drove there in silence.
Saint Aurelia’s was empty when they arrived.
Candles still burned near the altar.
Vivian walked down the same aisle she had crossed that morning.
Her bouquet had been white roses.
Her father’s hand had shaken.
Edmund had stood waiting.
Now blood-colored light from stained glass fell across the floor.
“Why here?” she whispered.
Edmund checked the side chapel.
“Vivian.”
She followed.
A candle burned before a statue.
Beneath it sat a small wooden box.
Her name was carved into the lid.
Vivian opened it.
Inside was a child’s silver necklace.
She recognized it immediately.
“My mother gave me this.”
She had lost it the week Evelyn died.
Beneath it was a cassette tape.
And a note.
FOR VIVIAN. WHEN EDMUND FINALLY TELLS YOU THE TRUTH.
She looked at him.
He looked equally disturbed.
“There’s a player in the sacristy,” Victor said.
They found one.
Vivian inserted the cassette.
Static.
Then a woman breathed.
Vivian gripped the table.
Her mother’s voice.
“If you are hearing this, Vivian, then everything I did failed.”
Vivian began crying silently.
“I need you to understand something. Your father was never the enemy. Neither was Edmund Costa.”
Edmund looked down.
“There is one man responsible for what happened to both families.”
Static cracked.
“His name is—”
The tape stopped.
Vivian hit play.
Nothing.
She removed it.
The ribbon had been cut.
Not broken.
Cut.
Then footsteps sounded behind the sacristy door.
Edmund drew his gun.
The handle slowly turned.
A woman’s voice came from the other side.
“Vivian?”
Vivian froze.
She knew that voice.
She had just heard it on the tape.
May you like
Her mother was standing behind the door.
And she was about to come inside.
