Chapter 3 - The Man in the Photograph
Antonio Moretti smiled at Beatrice.
Lorenzo reached inside his coat.
Marco stepped between them.
“No guns.”
Antonio lifted both hands.
“At least someone here remembers manners.”
Beatrice stared at him.
The old man looked nothing like Lorenzo except around the eyes.
Same steady gaze.
Same refusal to blink first.
He appeared to be in his seventies.
Perfectly tailored suit.
Silver hair.
A walking cane he clearly did not need.
Lorenzo’s voice was flat.
“You were supposed to be in Naples.”
Antonio smiled.
“I changed my plans.”
“Why?”
Antonio looked at Beatrice.
“For her.”
Patrick backed toward the bar.
Beatrice noticed.
So did Lorenzo.
“Do not move,” Lorenzo said.
Patrick froze.
Beatrice held her mother’s photograph.
“Someone is going to tell me what is happening.”
Antonio inclined his head.
“You sound like Isabella.”
“My mother was Margaret.”
“Margaret was the name Gallagher gave her.”
Patrick snapped, “That’s enough.”
Lorenzo turned.
“Speak again without permission and I will forget Beatrice is watching.”
Patrick shut his mouth.
Beatrice should have been frightened by the threat.
Instead, she felt strangely protected.
That frightened her in a different way.
Antonio walked toward a table and sat.
“Your mother was born Isabella Romano in Brooklyn. Her parents were Sicilian immigrants. When she was nineteen, she came here.”
“I know some of that.”
“She stayed longer than she told you.”
“How long?”
“Three years.”
Beatrice’s fingers tightened around the photograph.
“And you knew her?”
Antonio nodded.
“Very well.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
“You told us she left Sicily.”
“She did.”
“You never said she was pregnant.”
Antonio’s expression became unreadable.
“I did not know.”
Salvatore laughed softly.
“Convenient.”
Antonio ignored him.
Beatrice stepped forward.
“Who was Antonio to her?”
Silence.
Then Antonio answered.
“I loved her.”
Lorenzo looked at his uncle.
Beatrice stopped breathing.
Patrick stared at the floor.
Antonio continued.
“Your mother and I intended to marry.”
Beatrice looked at the photograph again.
The torn-out man.
Antonio.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“She disappeared.”
“People don’t just disappear.”
“In our world, sometimes they do.”
“No.”
Her voice rose.
“People make choices. People lie. People run. Which one happened?”
Antonio regarded her for a long moment.
“Gallagher happened.”
Patrick looked up.
Beatrice turned.
Her father’s face told her the accusation was true before anyone explained it.
“What did you do?”
Patrick said nothing.
Lorenzo stepped toward him.
“What did you do?”
Patrick’s voice was defensive.
“I helped her.”
Antonio laughed.
The sound contained no humor.
“You kidnapped her.”
Beatrice went cold.
Patrick shouted, “I got her out!”
“After threatening her family.”
“I saved her life.”
“From whom?”
“From all of you!”
Patrick pointed at the Morettis.
“You people call cages homes and threats protection. She wanted out.”
Antonio stood.
“She wanted you nowhere near her.”
Patrick’s face flushed.
“You weren’t there.”
“I was waiting at the church.”
That silenced the room.
Antonio’s voice became quieter.
“She never came.”
Beatrice looked between them.
“When did she meet my father?”
Antonio’s eyes moved to Patrick.
“He worked for a shipping company that handled Moretti accounts.”
Patrick muttered, “I was nobody to them.”
“You were a clerk,” Antonio said. “And you listened.”
Patrick’s mouth tightened.
“You learned Isabella was pregnant.”
Beatrice stared.
Patrick finally looked at her.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then make me.”
“I loved your mother.”
Antonio took a step forward.
Patrick raised his voice.
“I loved her when he treated her like property.”
Antonio’s face sharpened.
“I never owned Isabella.”
“You owned everything around her!”
Lorenzo cut through them.
“Enough.”
The room fell silent.
He looked at Patrick.
“Was Beatrice your biological daughter?”
Patrick hesitated.
That hesitation answered everything.
Beatrice’s knees weakened.
Lorenzo caught her elbow.
She pulled away immediately.
Not because his touch was wrong.
Because she needed to stand by herself.
Patrick said, “I raised you.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I was there.”
“Was I your daughter?”
Patrick looked at her.
“No.”
The single word was almost gentle.
That made it worse.
Beatrice stared at him.
Every birthday.
Every school pickup.
Every insult.
Every time he had told her she was difficult, expensive, undesirable.
This man had built her entire identity.
And he had known from the beginning she belonged to someone else.
“Who?”
Patrick looked at Antonio.
Beatrice followed his eyes.
Antonio did not move.
Her stomach dropped.
“No.”
Antonio’s voice was soft.
“I did not know.”
Beatrice backed away.
Lorenzo remained near her without touching her.
Antonio continued.
“If Isabella was pregnant when Gallagher took her, then yes.”
Beatrice covered her mouth.
Antonio Moretti.
Lorenzo Moretti’s uncle.
Her husband’s uncle.
The room tilted.
She looked at Lorenzo.
He had understood immediately.
Their marriage.
Impossible.
Not by blood close enough to make them siblings, but close enough to turn the arrangement into something grotesque.
Lorenzo’s face showed the same realization.
He looked murderous.
At Patrick.
Not at her.
“You knew.”
Patrick shook his head.
“I suspected.”
“You knew enough to alter the birth certificate.”
“I wanted to protect her.”
“You married her to her cousin.”
Patrick shouted, “You think I wanted this?”
Beatrice finally exploded.
“You arranged it!”
Patrick stared at her.
“You signed the contract!”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Lorenzo’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“How was it supposed to happen?”
Patrick said nothing.
Salvatore smiled again.
And Beatrice finally understood.
The debt.
The marriage.
The false stories about her.
The altered certificate.
It was all part of something larger.
Lorenzo walked toward Patrick.
“What was supposed to happen?”
Patrick’s face collapsed.
“You were supposed to reject her.”
Lorenzo stopped.
Beatrice frowned.
“What?”
Patrick looked at her.
“I told him those things so he would refuse.”
She stared.
“You humiliated me to save me?”
“I thought if Moretti believed you were—”
“Worthless?”
Patrick flinched.
“That he’d take the property instead.”
Lorenzo looked at Salvatore.
“And when I accepted?”
Patrick looked toward him too.
Salvatore’s smile disappeared.
Patrick said, “Then the second plan started.”
Marco moved closer.
“What second plan?”
Patrick swallowed.
“To prove Lorenzo knowingly married a blood relative.”
Silence.
Salvatore began backing away.
Lorenzo turned toward him.
“For what purpose?”
Antonio answered.
“To remove you.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
Antonio’s voice was grim.
“Moretti leadership cannot survive that scandal. Not here.”
Beatrice stared.
“So I was never payment.”
Antonio looked at her.
“You were leverage.”
Patrick whispered, “I was trying to keep you alive.”
Beatrice turned on him.
“By handing me to a mafia boss?”
Patrick winced.
Lorenzo’s eyes flashed.
Beatrice didn’t care.
Patrick came closer.
“Salvatore said if I didn’t cooperate, he would expose your mother’s identity.”
“So?”
Patrick’s face crumpled.
“You don’t know what Isabella took when she ran.”
Antonio stiffened.
Lorenzo noticed.
“What did she take?”
Patrick looked at Antonio.
“Ask him.”
Antonio’s face gave nothing away.
Beatrice stepped closer.
“What did my mother take?”
Antonio said nothing.
Salvatore laughed softly.
“Oh, this is beautiful.”
Lorenzo turned toward him.
Salvatore raised his hands.
“Ask your uncle about the ledger.”
Marco swore under his breath.
Lorenzo looked at Antonio.
“What ledger?”
Antonio’s silence became an admission.
Salvatore continued.
“Thirty years ago, Isabella Romano walked out of Sicily with evidence powerful enough to destroy half the families on this island.”
Beatrice looked at Patrick.
“Did Mom still have it?”
Patrick nodded.
“Until she died.”
“Where is it now?”
“I don’t know.”
Salvatore’s smile returned.
“That is why everyone suddenly cares about Beatrice Gallagher.”
Beatrice felt sick.
“My mother died of cancer.”
Patrick looked at her.
For the first time that night, genuine grief appeared in his face.
“Yes.”
“So nobody killed her.”
“No.”
“Then why hide all this?”
“Because before she died, she made me promise something.”
“What?”
Patrick reached into his pocket.
Lorenzo’s guards reacted.
“Slowly,” Marco warned.
Patrick withdrew a small brass key.
Old.
Worn.
He held it toward Beatrice.
“She said if anyone ever came asking about Sicily, I had to give this only to you.”
Beatrice stared at it.
“You waited seven years.”
“I hoped nobody would ever come.”
She took the key.
A number was engraved into the metal.
“What does it open?”
Patrick shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Salvatore suddenly moved.
His hand disappeared inside his coat.
Marco shouted.
The lights went out.
Beatrice heard a crash.
Someone grabbed her arm.
She screamed.
Lorenzo shouted her name.
A gunshot cracked through the darkness.
Then another.
Hands pulled Beatrice backward.
She kicked hard.
Someone cursed.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Lorenzo was across the room.
Patrick was on the floor.
Salvatore was gone.
And Antonio Moretti stood near the open rear door.
Blood covered his white shirt.
May you like
Beatrice looked down.
The brass key was no longer in her hand.
