Chapter 2 - The Daughter I Was Never Allowed to Know
The photograph slipped from my hand.
For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.
The park disappeared.
The sounds disappeared.
The people walking along the path disappeared.
There was only that small piece of paper between my fingers.
A baby.
A woman I thought I lost.
And a truth that could destroy everything I had built my life around.
"Where did you get this?"
My voice was quieter than I expected.
Isabella looked at me.
She looked older than the woman I remembered.
Not because of her face.
Because of her eyes.
Seven years of carrying a secret had left something behind.
Something heavy.
"Alessandro..."
"No."
I stepped closer.
"Don't say my name like that."
Her expression changed.
"Like what?"
"Like you have the right to stand here after disappearing."
The words came out colder than I intended.
But I had spent seven years believing she was dead.
Seven years believing I had failed her.
Seven years carrying the anger of a man who had lost the only person who ever made him feel human.
And now she was standing in front of me.
Alive.
With a child.
My child.
Emma stood between us, holding her basket of stones.
She looked from me to her mother.
She didn't understand the storm happening around her.
She only saw two people she cared about standing too far apart.
"Mom?"
Isabella looked down immediately.
Her expression softened.
"Emma, go pick up the apple."
The little girl nodded.
She walked toward the grass.
Slowly.
But she kept looking back.
She knew something was wrong.
Children always knew.
I looked at Isabella again.
"How old is she?"
Her lips parted.
She knew exactly what I was asking.
"Six."
My chest tightened.
Six.
Six years.
A child had existed in this world for six years.
My daughter.
And I had never known.
"When were you going to tell me?"
Isabella looked away.
"I tried."
I laughed once.
A bitter sound.
"You tried?"
"Yes."
"When?"
Her silence answered before she did.
"Many times."
"Then why didn't you?"
Because that was the question that mattered.
Not where she had been.
Not why she left.
Why she kept my daughter from me.
Isabella lowered her voice.
"Because every time I came close to you, someone stopped me."
The anger in my face didn't disappear.
It changed.
"Who?"
She looked around the park.
Not at me.
Around me.
Checking.
Watching.
Like she was still afraid.
That bothered me more than anything.
Isabella Delgado had never been afraid easily.
Not when she stood against my enemies.
Not when she walked into rooms full of dangerous men and made them lower their voices.
But now?
She was afraid of someone watching us in a public park.
"Isabella."
She looked at me.
"The people who attacked your convoy three days ago..."
My eyes narrowed.
"What about them?"
"They weren't trying to kill you."
The words hit harder than I expected.
I stared at her.
"What?"
"They wanted you angry."
"Why?"
"Because an angry Alessandro Moretti makes mistakes."
The wind moved through the trees.
A few leaves fell between us.
I remembered the attack.
The timing.
The location.
The way the shooters disappeared before my men could respond.
It had never made sense.
Someone wanted chaos.
Someone wanted me looking in the wrong direction.
"Who hired them?"
Isabella didn't answer.
Instead, she looked at Emma.
Then back at me.
"The same people who made me disappear."
My hands tightened.
Seven years of unanswered questions suddenly had a face.
A name.
A reason.
"Tell me everything."
She shook her head.
"Not here."
"Why not?"
"Because if they found me once, they can find me again."
I stepped closer.
"No one touches you."
Her eyes changed.
For a moment, I saw the Isabella I remembered.
The woman who used to challenge me.
The woman who would tell me when I was wrong.
The woman who wasn't afraid of my name.
Then she whispered:
"That's what you said seven years ago."
The words stopped me.
Because I remembered.
The night she disappeared.
I had promised her.
I had promised that nobody could hurt her.
I had promised that my world would never reach her.
And then she vanished.
The official story was simple.
Isabella Delgado died.
A car accident.
A body recovered.
A closed case.
But something always bothered me.
The body was never shown to me.
The evidence was handled by people I trusted.
People who told me to move on.
People who told me grief was making me suspicious.
I looked at Isabella.
"You were alive the entire time."
She nodded slowly.
"Yes."
"And my family knew?"
She didn't answer quickly enough.
That was the answer.
My stomach turned.
"Who knew?"
"Alessandro..."
"Who?"
Her eyes filled with pain.
"Your father."
The world became quiet again.
My father.
Luciano Moretti.
A man who had taught me everything about power.
A man who taught me never to trust weakness.
A man who died three years ago believing he had left behind a clean empire.
"He knew?"
Isabella looked down.
"He helped me disappear."
My jaw tightened.
"Why?"
"Because someone inside your family wanted Emma gone."
I stared at her.
"My daughter was a threat?"
"Yes."
"To who?"
Isabella hesitated.
That hesitation scared me.
More than the answer.
Because Isabella had always been brave with me.
If she was afraid to say something...
It meant the truth was worse than I imagined.
"Alessandro, you need to understand something."
She stepped closer.
"The person who wanted Emma gone wasn't one of your enemies."
A cold feeling moved through me.
"Then who?"
Isabella looked toward the path.
Toward the city beyond the park.
Toward the world I controlled.
"The person who tried to destroy your family..."
She swallowed.
"Was someone standing inside it."
I didn't speak.
I couldn't.
Because my entire life had been built on one belief.
Family protected family.
But Isabella was telling me the opposite.
Someone with my last name had tried to erase my daughter.
Someone close enough to reach my father.
Close enough to hide the truth.
Close enough to make me believe Isabella was dead.
Emma returned holding the apple.
She looked between us.
"Are you two fighting?"
The question broke something inside me.
Because she asked it like she cared.
Like she had already decided I mattered.
I looked at my daughter.
A child I had never held.
A child I had never protected.
A child who built a stone house for a lonely stranger without knowing that stranger was her father.
"No," I said.
My voice softened.
"We're just talking."
Emma smiled.
"Good."
She placed the apple back into her mother's bag.
"My mama says people should talk before they leave."
I looked at Isabella.
Because that sentence hurt.
She had left.
And she knew it.
"Emma."
The girl looked at me.
"Yes?"
I wanted to say so much.
I wanted to tell her who I was.
I wanted to tell her that I was her father.
But six years of missing time could not be fixed with one sentence in a park.
So I only asked:
"Do you like building houses?"
She smiled.
"Yes."
"Why?"
She looked at the small stone house on the bench.
"Because my daddy used to make them with me."
Everything stopped.
Isabella froze.
I looked at her.
"Your daddy?"
Emma nodded.
"He said he would come back."
My heart sank.
"Who?"
Emma looked confused.
"My daddy."
She touched the red stone.
"He gave me this one."
I looked at Isabella.
Her face had gone pale.
"Emma..."
The little girl continued.
"He told me never to lose it because it would help someone find us."
My blood turned cold.
Someone had known.
Someone had prepared for this moment.
Someone had left a message hidden inside a child's memory.
I picked up the red stone.
Turned it over.
The marking underneath was clearer now.
Not just words.
A symbol.
A symbol I recognized.
A symbol that belonged to one person.
One person who had been dead for three years.
My father.
I looked at Isabella.
"Why does my father’s mark appear on this stone?"
Her face changed completely.
And before she answered, her phone suddenly started ringing.
She looked at the screen.
Then all the color disappeared from her face.
May you like
Because the call was coming from a number that should have been impossible.
A number that belonged to the man who was supposed to be dead.
