Chapter 2 - The Letter Her Mother Left
Gabriel Moretti did not look like a man who had arrived at a gala.
He looked like a man who had arrived to stop one.
He was in his late sixties, tall despite a slight bend in one shoulder, with gray hair and a scar running from his left ear toward his jaw. Unlike everyone else in the room, he wore no tuxedo.
Just a charcoal coat.
Black gloves.
And an expression that made Luca step in front of Emma without thinking.
“Who invited you?” Salvatore demanded.
Gabriel looked at him.
“You know nobody invites me anywhere.”
Emma glanced at Luca.
“Who is he?”
“My father’s older brother.”
“I thought your father only had one brother.”
“He does,” Luca said slowly. “As far as I knew.”
Gabriel smiled without warmth.
“That’s how family stories work. Remove enough people, and eventually the lie becomes tradition.”
Isabella looked furious now.
“You need to leave.”
“No.”
Gabriel’s attention moved to Emma.
“You look like Rachel.”
Emma’s fingers tightened around her mother’s letter.
“You knew her?”
“I did.”
“How?”
Gabriel did not answer immediately.
Instead, he lifted the photograph he had brought.
“That letter won’t make sense without this.”
Luca held out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“It belongs to Emma.”
Emma stepped around Luca.
He caught her wrist.
“Stay behind me.”
She looked at him.
“I spent the last hour being treated like I don’t belong in conversations about my own life.”
Luca released her immediately.
Emma crossed the room.
Gabriel handed her the photograph.
It showed her mother again.
But this time Rachel was not smiling.
She stood beside a dark-haired man outside a warehouse.
On the man’s wrist was a watch.
Emma had seen that watch tonight.
She slowly looked toward Salvatore.
He was wearing it.
The same rectangular gold face.
The same black leather strap.
The photograph had been taken decades ago.
But some things survived decades.
“What is this?”
Gabriel’s voice was low.
“Proof that your mother was involved in something your family was never supposed to discover.”
“My family?”
“Your father.”
Emma stiffened.
Her father, David Parker, had raised her after Rachel died.
He had worked two jobs.
He had packed her lunches badly.
He had taught her how to drive.
He had sat through every terrible school play.
He had died five years ago from pancreatic cancer.
“What did my father have to do with the Morettis?”
Gabriel looked at the sealed envelope in her hand.
“Open it.”
Emma’s fingers trembled.
Luca came beside her.
This time he said nothing.
He simply stood there.
She broke the seal.
Inside were three handwritten pages.
She recognized her mother’s handwriting from old birthday cards.
Emma,
If Isabella gives you this, then something has happened that I hoped never would.
First, you must understand one thing.
The Moretti family did not destroy our lives.
One Moretti did.
Emma stopped.
Her eyes moved to Salvatore.
He stared back at her.
She continued reading.
When I met Isabella, she saved me. I was nineteen and scared and had nowhere to go. Her family gave me work. Later, your father helped them keep legitimate businesses separate from men who wanted to use those businesses for crime.
But Salvatore was different.
Emma’s eyes lifted again.
Salvatore swore.
“This is nonsense.”
Isabella’s voice cut through the room.
“No. It isn’t.”
Luca stared at his uncle.
Emma read on.
Salvatore learned your father had discovered money being moved through one of the Moretti companies. It was not Luca’s father. It was not Isabella. It was Salvatore.
David wanted to report it.
I begged him to wait because I was frightened.
That was my mistake.
Emma’s throat tightened.
The final paragraph was shorter.
If you are reading this, I may not have gotten the chance to tell you myself.
Trust Isabella.
Trust Gabriel if he is still alive.
And if Luca Moretti has become the kind of man his father hoped he would become, trust him too.
But never trust Salvatore.
Emma lowered the letter.
Every person in the ballroom seemed to be staring at the same man.
Salvatore laughed.
It was not convincing.
“A dead woman’s accusation.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“She wasn’t the only one.”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened.
Gabriel pointed toward the photo.
“Rachel took that the night she discovered the account books.”
Luca’s voice was terrifyingly calm.
“What account books?”
“The ones proving Salvatore had been stealing from the family and using Moretti businesses to finance operations your father had forbidden.”
Emma looked at Luca.
“What operations?”
Luca did not answer.
Gabriel did.
“Extortion. Smuggling. Men paid to make witnesses disappear.”
Emma felt sick.
Salvatore moved toward the door.
Marco blocked him.
For the first time all evening, Luca’s younger brother looked directly at his uncle with disgust.
“Stay.”
Salvatore laughed.
“You think a twenty-five-year-old photograph proves anything?”
“No,” Gabriel said.
“But Rachel made copies.”
Salvatore stopped smiling.
Emma caught it.
So did Luca.
“Where?” Luca asked.
Gabriel looked at Emma.
“Your mother hid them.”
“My mother died twenty-eight years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Then how would I know where?”
“Because she left the answer with you.”
Emma frowned.
“No, she didn’t.”
Gabriel pointed toward the necklace around Emma’s throat.
She touched it automatically.
A small silver oval locket.
Her mother’s.
Emma had worn it for years.
Her father had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday.
“He said it was hers.”
Gabriel nodded.
“It was.”
Emma opened the locket.
Inside was the tiny photograph she had always known.
Rachel holding baby Emma.
Nothing else.
Gabriel held out his hand.
“May I?”
Emma hesitated.
Then gave it to him.
Gabriel examined the edge.
He pressed his thumbnail against a nearly invisible groove beneath the hinge.
The backing popped loose.
Something tiny fell into his palm.
A brass key.
Emma stared.
Luca looked toward Salvatore.
And Salvatore suddenly moved.
He shoved Marco aside and headed for the doors.
Luca’s security team reacted instantly.
Two men blocked him.
“Move,” Salvatore snapped.
Nobody moved.
Luca approached his uncle.
“Where were you going?”
“Home.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“After twenty-five years of secrets suddenly start talking?”
Salvatore smiled.
“You always were dramatic.”
“And you always underestimated me.”
Salvatore’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Emma saw it.
Luca saw it too.
Luca turned toward Gabriel.
“What does the key open?”
Gabriel returned it to Emma.
“Rachel had a storage box at Grand Central Station.”
Emma blinked.
“A locker?”
“Not anymore. The station removed those years ago. Isabella transferred the box after Rachel died.”
Emma looked at Isabella.
“Where?”
Isabella hesitated.
Luca’s voice hardened.
“Mother.”
She sighed.
“The private vault beneath Moretti Trust.”
Emma nearly laughed from disbelief.
“Your bank?”
“Yes.”
“You kept my mother’s evidence inside your family bank?”
“It was the safest place.”
“For whom?”
Isabella flinched.
Emma immediately regretted the cruelty in her tone.
But only a little.
Isabella had carried her mother’s letter for twenty years.
Emma had buried both parents believing an entirely different story.
“You could have told me.”
“I wanted to.”
“When?”
“When you were eighteen. Then twenty-one. Then after your father died.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Isabella looked at Luca.
“Because Salvatore watched anyone who got close to the truth.”
Emma understood.
“And tonight?”
“We discovered three weeks ago that you were dating Luca.”
Bianca spoke softly from behind them.
“That’s why they investigated you.”
Emma looked at her.
Bianca’s eyes filled with shame.
“I thought Isabella wanted you gone because she still hoped Luca and I would marry.”
“Didn’t she?”
Bianca gave a sad little smile.
“At one time.”
Isabella didn’t deny it.
Emma almost found that refreshing.
Gabriel moved toward the windows.
“If Salvatore knows about the key now, the vault isn’t safe.”
Luca pulled out his phone.
He called someone.
“Lock Moretti Trust. No one enters the basement level. Nobody. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
He ended the call.
Emma shook her head.
“You’re not going without me.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Salvatore laughed from across the room.
“You think Rachel’s box will save you?”
Emma turned.
“Save me from what?”
“Nothing.”
“No. You said it.”
Luca stared at his uncle.
Salvatore’s face changed.
He had made a mistake.
Emma walked closer.
“Save me from what?”
Salvatore looked at Isabella instead.
And smiled.
That smile frightened her more than anything else he had done.
“You never told her?”
Isabella went pale.
Gabriel cursed.
Luca’s eyes moved between them.
“Told Emma what?”
Isabella whispered, “Salvatore, don’t.”
But Salvatore had already realized he had one weapon left.
So he used it.
“Rachel Parker wasn’t killed because of what she knew.”
Emma stopped breathing.
Salvatore looked directly at her.
“She was killed because of who Emma’s father really was.”
Silence.
Emma heard Luca say her name.
She barely registered it.
“My father was David Parker.”
Salvatore smiled.
“David raised you.”
Emma stared at Isabella.
“Tell me he’s lying.”
Isabella did not.
Emma’s knees weakened.
Luca caught her elbow.
She pulled away.
“Tell me.”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“David loved you as his daughter.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Emma pressed both hands over her mouth.
The ballroom tilted.
She looked at Gabriel.
He had lowered his eyes.
She looked at Salvatore.
He seemed almost pleased.
“Who?”
Nobody answered.
Emma shouted for the first time.
“WHO WAS MY FATHER?”
A voice came from the back of the ballroom.
“I was.”
Everyone turned.
May you like
A man had stepped through the doors.
And Luca Moretti went completely still.
