Chapter 6 - The Voice That Should Have Been Dead
Lorenzo answered the phone.
Nobody spoke.
Then a man breathed on the other end.
“Sophia?”
My knees nearly collapsed.
The voice was older than I remembered.
Rougher.
But I knew it.
Children remember certain sounds forever.
The way a parent says your name is one of them.
I took the phone.
“Dad?”
Silence.
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
I stopped breathing.
Eleven years.
Eleven years of believing my father died in a car crash.
Eleven birthdays.
Eleven Christmases.
My wedding.
My divorce.
Emma’s birth.
Her diagnosis.
All without him.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
Rage replaced shock.
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let me stand beside an empty coffin?”
“Yes.”
“You knew I had a daughter?”
His silence answered.
I nearly threw the phone.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then don’t call me.”
“Sophia, listen.”
“No.”
“Emma is in danger.”
Every emotion inside me stopped.
“What?”
“The medicine was never about theft.”
“I know.”
“It was a warning.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Lorenzo stepped closer.
I put the call on speaker.
My father heard movement.
“Who’s there?”
“Lorenzo Duca.”
Silence.
Then my father said, “You sound like Carlo.”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
“People keep telling me things about my father today.”
“Believe half.”
“Which half?”
“The ugly half.”
Gray laughed quietly.
My father heard him.
“Adrian?”
“Yes, Michael.”
“You found the room.”
“Sophia did.”
Silence.
My father whispered, “Then Carlo kept his promise.”
I looked at the fingerprint scanner.
“What promise?”
“To make sure you could always reach the evidence.”
My hands shook.
“Evidence of what?”
“The medical network. The stolen medications. The stolen funds. Everything.”
“Who stole them?”
My father hesitated.
Then:
“Carlo’s wife.”
Lorenzo went still.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
Lorenzo stared at the floor.
His mother, Elena Duca, had died when he was twenty-four.
At least that was what everyone believed.
Lorenzo asked, “Why?”
“She believed the charitable distribution was wasting millions on people who would never repay the family.”
My stomach turned.
“So she sold the medication?”
“Through private clinics. Wealthy buyers. Overseas brokers.”
“And Vincent’s father?”
“He helped her.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
My father continued.
“When I discovered it, Elena ordered my death.”
I whispered, “The accident.”
“Yes.”
“How did you survive?”
“Carlo.”
Lorenzo looked up.
“My father saved you.”
“He staged my death before Elena could finish the job.”
“Why didn’t you take Sophia?”
“I wanted to.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because Elena knew Sophia existed.”
I felt sick.
“She threatened me?”
“She threatened your mother first.”
My mother had died five years after my father.
Cancer.
Or so I had been told.
“Did Mom know?”
“Yes.”
I covered my mouth.
“So everybody knew except me.”
My father’s voice cracked.
“We thought ignorance would keep you safe.”
I laughed bitterly.
“It put my three-year-old in the middle of it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I have watched over you every year.”
I stared at the cardiology photograph.
“Did you take the picture?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I believe Elena’s old network is active again.”
Lorenzo said, “My mother is dead.”
“Are you sure?”
Nobody moved.
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“I saw her coffin.”
“So did Sophia.”
The comparison landed brutally.
Lorenzo looked at Gray.
Gray did not deny it.
“Is my mother alive?”
“I don’t know,” Gray said.
My father answered.
“I do.”
Lorenzo grabbed the phone.
“Where is she?”
“First protect the girls.”
“Where is she?”
“Lorenzo—”
“WHERE?”
His shout echoed through the cellar.
Emma would have cried if she had heard it.
My father said quietly, “Your mother has been living in Switzerland under another name.”
Vivien sank onto a chair.
Vincent swore.
Lorenzo looked numb.
“Why come back now?”
“She needs the records in that room.”
“For what?”
“To erase proof before a federal investigation opens.”
Vincent stared.
“Federal?”
“Yes. I sent them copies.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
That explained the sudden escalation.
Lorenzo said, “Then Emma was framed to distract us while someone stole the originals.”
“Yes.”
“Who planted the bottles?”
“I can tell you who had access.”
“Vivien?”
“No.”
Vivien exhaled.
Vincent looked at my father’s voice coming through the speaker.
“Me?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
My father said one name.
“Clara.”
I stared.
Isabella’s caregiver.
The woman who had worked in the Duca household for twelve years.
The woman who was currently with Isabella.
Lorenzo moved before anyone else.
He ran.
Vincent followed.
I was right behind them.
The eastern wing seemed miles away.
Lorenzo shouted into his radio.
“Lock down the guest suite!”
Static.
No answer.
“Security!”
Nothing.
Vincent looked at his phone.
“System’s offline.”
We reached the lower corridor.
One guard lay unconscious near the stairwell.
Alive.
Lorenzo checked his pulse.
Then sprinted forward.
Isabella’s secured door stood open.
Empty.
Lorenzo stopped.
For one terrible second, he looked less like a mafia boss than any man I had ever seen.
He looked like a father whose world had disappeared.
“Isabella?”
No answer.
Emma had been moved into the adjacent secure room with another guard.
I rushed there.
Empty.
My scream came from somewhere outside my body.
“EMMA!”
Lorenzo turned.
Both girls.
Gone.
Vivien arrived behind us.
She covered her mouth.
“No.”
Vincent searched the rooms.
“Service exit.”
A maintenance door stood open.
Lorenzo grabbed his phone.
A message appeared.
Unknown number.
One photograph.
Emma and Isabella sitting together in the back seat of a vehicle.
Both alive.
Emma was crying.
Isabella had one arm around her.
Under the photograph:
BRING THE CELLAR RECORDS.
NO POLICE.
NO FEDERAL AGENTS.
MIDNIGHT.
Lorenzo’s hand shook.
Then another message arrived.
This one was addressed to me.
SOPHIA COMES ALONE.
I looked at Lorenzo.
“No.”
He knew what I was going to say.
“No.”
“She has my daughter.”
“And mine.”
“I’m going.”
“You’re not.”
I stepped toward him.
“You don’t get to decide.”
“I absolutely do when someone is using you as bait.”
“She already used Emma as bait.”
His face twisted.
“That is exactly why you’re not walking into another trap.”
Vincent looked at the photograph.
“Wait.”
He zoomed in.
Behind the girls, through the rear window, a sign was visible.
DUCA MARITIME STORAGE.
Lorenzo recognized it.
“Old warehouse.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Too obvious.”
I looked closer.
A reflection in the glass showed something.
A clock.
11:17.
But it was only 9:42.
“The photo isn’t current.”
Vincent stared.
“You’re right.”
Lorenzo looked at the metadata.
“Taken two hours ago.”
“So they moved them.”
I studied Emma’s face.
She was holding something.
Her bracelet.
No.
Not the bracelet.
A loose pink thread.
Isabella had taught her a game.
When they walked through the garden, they tied little pieces of thread to branches so they could find the path home.
I whispered, “Emma is leaving us a trail.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“What?”
“Pink thread.”
We searched the service exit.
There.
Caught on the door hinge.
A piece of pink embroidery thread.
Another near the stairwell.
Another beside the loading corridor.
We followed it.
Through the kitchen level.
Past the boiler room.
Down to an unused tunnel beneath the estate.
Lorenzo stared into darkness.
“I didn’t know this existed.”
Gray appeared behind us.
“Your mother did.”
The thread continued.
One piece every twenty feet.
Emma.
My brave little girl.
We followed it beneath the property until the tunnel ended at an old carriage house.
A vehicle waited outside.
Empty.
Inside, another strip of pink thread was tied around the door handle.
Lorenzo opened it slowly.
The carriage house was dark.
A chair stood in the center.
Clara sat tied to it.
Blood ran from her forehead.
Lorenzo rushed forward.
“Where are the girls?”
She opened her eyes.
“I tried to stop her.”
“Who?”
Clara looked toward the darkness behind us.
“She came back.”
A woman’s voice answered from the shadows.
“Hello, Lorenzo.”
He froze.
An elegant older woman stepped into the light.
Silver-blonde hair.
Gray eyes exactly like his.
May you like
Lorenzo whispered one word.
“Mother.”
