Chapter 7 - The Photograph in Her Mother's Drawer
David Brooks was alive.
Natalie stared at the photograph until Luca took the phone from her trembling hand.
"That could be old."
"It isn't."
She pointed.
Anthony wore yesterday's shirt.
David had aged.
Gray hair.
Lines around his eyes.
But Natalie remembered him.
Especially his eyes.
Her eyes.
Elena broke down when she saw the photograph.
For twenty years she had mourned a man who had apparently chosen silence.
Natalie felt something harder than grief.
Rage.
They prepared for Bellini Harbor.
But before leaving, Natalie searched her mother's old drawers.
She found another photograph.
David holding baby Natalie.
Behind him was Samuel, perhaps nine years old.
Elena had never seen it.
On the back David had written:
I found him. Sofia was right.
Samuel had known David.
Everything changed again.
At Bellini Harbor, Luca refused Gabriel's demand that Natalie enter alone.
They entered together.
Anthony sat tied near the water.
Gabriel stood beside him.
Samuel stood in shadow.
And David was there.
Natalie stopped.
"Dad?"
David cried.
That almost made it worse.
He tried to explain.
Gabriel had forced him into hiding.
David had become an informant, collecting evidence.
Returning would have endangered Elena and Natalie.
Natalie slapped him.
The sound echoed through the warehouse.
"You don't get twenty years back with an explanation."
David accepted it.
Samuel watched.
He seemed less like a killer than a wounded man.
Gabriel had raised him.
Fed him lies.
Told him the Morettis murdered his mother.
Now Samuel knew Elena was alive.
"Mom?" he whispered.
Natalie saw the child inside him.
"She's waiting for you."
Gabriel's face hardened.
Samuel turned toward him.
"You lied."
Gabriel reached for his gun.
Luca moved first.
Chaos exploded.
Anthony fell sideways.
David shoved Natalie behind a crate.
Marco fired.
Gabriel escaped through a service door.
Samuel disappeared after him.
When the shooting ended, David had been hit.
Natalie pressed her hands against his wound.
"Stay awake."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't."
"I wanted to come home."
"Then stay alive and tell me later."
Paramedics arrived.
David survived surgery.
Anthony also survived.
But Samuel vanished.
That night Natalie returned to Elena's apartment.
She found her mother sitting alone.
They cried together.
Then Elena showed Natalie one final item from the drawer.
A letter from Sofia Moretti.
It contained instructions.
If Gabriel ever returned, there was evidence stored in a bank vault.
The access required two people.
A Moretti.
And Elena's lost son.
Luca read the letter.
"Samuel."
Natalie nodded.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A message.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO SAVE LUCA.
Natalie frowned.
"Luca is standing right here."
Then they heard Marco shout downstairs.
Luca's phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
May you like
Someone had attacked the Moretti estate.
And the man standing beside Natalie was apparently not the Luca they wanted.
