Chapter 4 - The Daughter He Never Knew
Vincent drove back toward the mansion with Elena beside him.
Neither spoke.
Dominic coordinated security from the front seat.
The impossible image remained burned into Vincent’s mind.
Ethan.
Sofia.
Together.
Gabriel had taken both.
“How did he get Ethan?” Vincent asked.
“We’re still reconstructing it,” Dominic said. “One guard is unconscious. Rosa is missing.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“And Anna?”
“Safe with Lily.”
“Keep them that way.”
Elena stared through the windshield.
“He wants the watch.”
“Why?”
“There’s something inside it.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
He removed it.
The watch had stopped working years ago, but he had never repaired it because Elena once told him not to let anyone open it.
He suddenly understood.
Dominic handed him a small knife.
Vincent carefully lifted the back panel.
Inside was a thin metal disk.
Numbers were engraved across it.
Maria had hidden something there decades ago.
Elena stared.
“Account key.”
“For what?”
“The original Moretti trust.”
Vincent frowned.
His grandfather had created an international trust before Salvatore took control.
Maria had once been trustee.
“If Gabriel gets this?”
“He can access records proving where Salvatore moved the money.”
“Why would he want evidence against himself?”
“He doesn’t.”
Elena looked at him.
“He wants to destroy it.”
Vincent closed the watch.
“Then he doesn’t get it.”
“He has our children.”
Vincent’s voice hardened.
“He thinks that gives him control.”
“It does.”
“No.”
Vincent looked toward her.
“It gives him leverage. Control is different.”
They reached the mansion at dawn.
The gates stood open.
Too open.
Vincent ordered most of his men to remain outside.
He entered with Elena and Dominic.
The ballroom was empty.
Cake still covered the floor.
The celebration now looked like a crime scene.
“Gabriel!”
Vincent’s voice echoed.
A speaker crackled.
“Welcome home.”
Vincent looked upward.
“Where are my children?”
“Your children.”
Gabriel laughed.
“That must feel strange.”
Elena stepped forward.
“Gabriel.”
Silence.
Then:
“Hello, sister.”
Vincent saw Elena’s pain.
“You have what you wanted,” she said. “We came.”
“No. Vincent has what I want.”
Vincent removed the watch.
“Come take it.”
A door opened across the ballroom.
Ethan appeared.
“Dad!”
Vincent started forward.
Elena caught him.
A man stood behind Ethan.
Not Gabriel.
Michael Bellini.
Anna’s missing husband.
Vincent stopped.
Michael raised his hands.
“I’m not with him.”
“Then release my son.”
“I can’t.”
A red light blinked above Ethan’s collar.
Vincent saw the device.
Michael spoke carefully.
“Gabriel has the trigger.”
Ethan looked frightened now.
Vincent forced calm into his voice.
“You’re okay, son.”
“I know.”
Even then, Ethan tried to be brave.
Vincent nearly broke.
“Where is Sofia?”
Michael looked toward the upper balcony.
A girl appeared.
Elena covered her mouth.
“Sofia.”
The child stared down.
“Mom?”
Elena began crying.
Vincent looked at his daughter for the first time outside a photograph.
She had his eyes.
That realization hurt more than anything.
Gabriel appeared behind her.
“Touching.”
Vincent’s hand tightened around the watch.
Gabriel had aged.
Gray threaded his dark hair.
But he looked healthy.
Comfortable.
“Let them go.”
Gabriel smiled.
“Give Michael the watch.”
Vincent looked at Michael.
Michael shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“No.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“Excuse me?”
Vincent held the watch up.
“You want it? Come downstairs.”
Gabriel placed a hand on Sofia’s shoulder.
Vincent’s body went rigid.
“Don’t.”
“Then cooperate.”
Sofia looked at Vincent.
“Are you really my dad?”
The question nearly destroyed him.
“Yes.”
“Michael said you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t.”
“He said you’d come.”
“I came.”
Sofia nodded as though that settled everything.
Vincent turned to Michael.
“Why did you bring her here?”
“I didn’t.”
Michael’s voice cracked.
“I found Sofia six months ago. I was trying to get her to you. Gabriel caught us three months later.”
“Why did Anna think you abandoned her?”
“To keep her safe.”
The parallel hit Vincent.
Michael had done to Anna exactly what Elena had done to him.
Disappear to protect someone.
And leave devastation behind.
Gabriel grew impatient.
“The watch.”
Vincent glanced at Dominic.
A tiny nod.
Dominic’s men were moving through the house.
Vincent needed time.
“Tell me why Lily recognized it.”
Gabriel laughed.
“Because Michael is sentimental.”
Michael looked ashamed.
“I showed Lily photographs of everyone I was trying to protect. You. Elena. Sofia. Maria. I told her stories.”
Anna’s toddler hadn’t remembered the watch from a real encounter.
She remembered her father pointing to it in photographs.
The mystery suddenly made sense.
But one question remained.
“Why the cake?”
Gabriel smiled.
“I needed to know whether Michael had taught his child anything useful.”
“You used my son as bait.”
“The compound was harmless.”
“That distinction matters only to you.”
Vincent saw movement behind Gabriel.
A shadow.
Maria.
She was on the balcony.
Gabriel didn’t know.
Vincent kept his eyes forward.
“You lose either way.”
Gabriel laughed.
“How?”
“Because the watch isn’t the evidence.”
Gabriel’s smile faded.
“It’s a key.”
“To evidence that has already been copied.”
That was a bluff.
But Gabriel didn’t know.
Behind him, Maria moved closer to Sofia.
Gabriel raised the trigger.
“Last chance.”
Vincent threw the watch.
Not toward Michael.
Toward the chandelier.
Gabriel instinctively looked up.
Maria grabbed Sofia.
Dominic fired at the balcony light.
Darkness exploded across half the ballroom.
Michael ripped the device from Ethan’s collar and threw it.
Vincent lunged toward his son.
Gabriel shouted.
Security poured through the doors.
Seconds later, Vincent had Ethan in his arms.
Elena reached Sofia.
Gabriel disappeared through a service corridor.
Dominic pursued him.
Vincent looked at his two children.
For one impossible moment, nothing else existed.
Ethan stared at Sofia.
“So you’re my sister?”
Sofia nodded.
“I think so.”
Ethan considered that.
“Okay.”
Vincent almost laughed.
Then a gunshot sounded from the corridor.
Elena flinched.
Vincent pushed both children behind him.
Dominic returned alone.
“He escaped.”
“How?”
“Underground passage.”
Vincent knew the old tunnels.
His father had built them.
“Find him.”
Dominic nodded.
Then Sofia spoke.
“He won’t leave.”
Everyone looked at her.
“How do you know?” Vincent asked.
“Because Grandpa is here.”
Vincent’s heart stopped.
“What grandpa?”
Sofia pointed toward the doorway behind him.
An old man stood there.
Silver hair.
Walking cane.
A face Vincent had watched disappear beneath a coffin lid six years earlier.
May you like
Salvatore Moretti smiled at his son.
“Hello, Vincent.”
