Chapter 4 - The Daughter Who Was Never Supposed To Return
The voice outside my apartment door said my mother's name.
"Elizabeth."
I froze.
Nobody called her that anymore.
Not since I was a child.
Everyone who knew my mother called her Liz.
But the person standing outside my door didn't say it like a stranger.
They said it like someone who had known her before I ever existed.
I stepped away.
My hand tightened around my phone.
The message from the unknown number was still open.
Ask Adrian what happened to your mother.
The hallway outside was silent.
Too silent.
"Who are you?" I asked.
No answer.
Then came another knock.
Slow.
Patient.
Like whoever was outside knew I wasn't going to open the door unless they gave me a reason.
"Nia."
My body went still.
The voice was older.
A man's voice.
Deep.
Tired.
But familiar.
Not because I knew him.
Because I had heard that voice before.
In memories.
In nightmares.
In the stories my mother refused to finish.
I walked closer to the door.
"How do you know my name?"
A pause.
Then the answer came.
"Because I was there the night you disappeared."
My heart dropped.
I stepped back.
That sentence didn't make sense.
I had never disappeared.
I had grown up.
I had gone to school.
I had worked.
I had lived an ordinary life.
But the way he said it made me feel like I was the only person who didn't know the truth.
I reached for the door lock.
Then stopped.
Because my mother's letter was still sitting open on the table behind me.
Don't believe everything they say.
I didn't know if she meant Adrian.
I didn't know if she meant Victor.
Or if she meant everyone.
Including the person outside my door.
"I won't open this door," I said.
The man didn't sound surprised.
"Good."
My eyebrows tightened.
"Good?"
"You learned something from your mother."
My blood ran cold.
"What do you know about my mother?"
Silence.
Then he whispered:
"More than Victor Moretti ever wanted me to remember."
The name changed everything.
Victor.
Not Adrian.
Victor Moretti.
The man who stood at the top of the family.
The man everyone feared.
The man who had a photograph with my mother hidden in his office.
My hand moved away from the lock.
"Who are you?"
The answer came immediately.
"Someone who failed her."
A second later, footsteps moved away.
I rushed to the door.
"Wait!"
Nothing.
I opened it.
The hallway was empty.
But something was lying on the floor.
A small envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Nia Bennett.
I picked it up.
And I knew the handwriting.
Because I had seen it before.
On my mother's letter.
I didn't sleep that night.
I sat at my kitchen table until sunrise, reading every word inside the envelope.
The letter wasn't long.
But every sentence felt like another piece of my life being taken apart.
Nia,
If this reaches you, then I failed to keep you away from them.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
I wanted you to have a normal life.
I wanted you to believe your father was just a man who left.
I stopped.
My father.
A word I rarely heard.
Because my mother never talked about him.
Not once.
I continued reading.
But your father didn't leave us.
He was taken from us.
I covered my mouth.
My entire life, I believed I was abandoned.
I believed someone had chosen to walk away.
But my mother had written something completely different.
The Moretti family knows what happened.
My eyes moved faster.
Victor knows.
Adrian does not.
That sentence made me stop.
Adrian does not.
Again.
My mother was protecting him.
Why?
Why would she protect the son of the man who supposedly destroyed our lives?
I read the final lines.
If Adrian remembers you, then there is still hope.
But if Victor finds out you know the truth...
The sentence ended there.
No explanation.
No warning.
Just fear.
I looked at the paper.
And for the first time, I understood something.
My mother wasn't running from the Morettis.
She was running from someone inside the Morettis.
The next morning, I returned to the mansion.
Not because I wanted answers.
Because I needed them.
The moment I entered, I noticed something different.
The security guards were watching me.
Not normally.
Carefully.
Like they had received instructions.
I walked through the hallway.
The same hallway where I had fallen.
The same hallway where Adrian had apologized.
But now everything felt different.
Like the mansion had stopped pretending.
"Nia."
I turned.
Adrian was standing near the staircase.
He looked like he hadn't slept either.
His shirt was wrinkled.
His hair was messy.
For the first time, he looked less like a powerful heir and more like someone who had spent the entire night fighting his own thoughts.
"We need to talk."
I held up the letter.
His expression changed.
"Where did you get that?"
I stared at him.
"So you know what it is?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
I noticed.
"You do."
Adrian looked away.
"Nia."
"Who is my father?"
The question hit him harder than I expected.
His face changed.
Just slightly.
But enough.
"You know."
He didn't answer.
That was the answer.
My chest tightened.
"You knew."
"I suspected."
"For how long?"
Adrian looked toward the empty hallway.
"Since yesterday."
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because I didn't know what else to do.
"So everyone knows something except me."
"Nia."
"No."
I stepped closer.
"My whole life, people made decisions for me."
My voice shook.
"My mother hid things."
"She was trying to protect you."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
The certainty in his voice surprised me.
"How?"
Adrian looked at me.
"Because she protected me too."
I went silent.
He took a breath.
"When I was a child, my father wanted me to become exactly like him."
I listened.
"He taught me that emotions were weakness."
His eyes lowered.
"But your mother was the only person who treated me like I was still a child."
I didn't expect that.
Not from him.
"She used to bring you here."
My heart stopped.
"What?"
"You were little."
Adrian's voice became quieter.
"You would sit in the garden while she worked."
A strange feeling moved through me.
A memory.
A tiny piece of something buried.
A garden.
A boy with a scraped knee.
A woman laughing.
I touched my forehead.
"I don't remember."
"I know."
Adrian stepped closer.
"Your father wanted to take you away."
I looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because he found out about something."
"What?"
Adrian looked at the necklace.
"The truth about your birth."
The world felt unsteady.
"My birth?"
Before he could continue, a voice interrupted us.
"Adrian."
We both turned.
Victor stood at the end of the hallway.
His face was calm.
Too calm.
But his eyes were not.
They were fixed on the letter in my hand.
And he knew.
He knew exactly what it was.
"Nia."
His voice was softer than usual.
That scared me more.
"Give me the letter."
I held it tighter.
"No."
The entire hallway became silent.
Adrian moved between us.
"Father."
Victor looked at his son.
"You don't understand what you're protecting."
Adrian's expression hardened.
"Then explain it."
Victor stared at him.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Victor said something that changed everything.
"Adrian."
A pause.
"You have been protecting the wrong person."
I felt my stomach drop.
Adrian looked confused.
"What does that mean?"
Victor looked at me.
Not with anger.
With regret.
"Nia..."
His voice lowered.
"Your mother didn't run away from us."
I waited.
"She ran away because she discovered what your father had done."
The hallway went silent.
I couldn't breathe.
Because I had spent my entire life believing my father abandoned us.
But now Victor was saying something else.
Something impossible.
"You knew my father?"
Victor didn't answer.
Adrian looked at him.
"Who was he?"
Victor closed his eyes.
And for the first time, the powerful man everyone feared looked defeated.
"He was my brother."
I froze.
Adrian froze.
Because nobody had ever heard that before.
Victor had never mentioned having a brother.
Not once.
Then the security alarm suddenly screamed through the mansion.
Everyone turned.
A guard rushed into the hallway.
His face was pale.
"Mr. Moretti."
Victor looked at him.
"What happened?"
The guard swallowed.
"Someone entered the underground archive."
Adrian stepped forward.
"Impossible."
The guard looked at me.
Then said:
"They left one thing behind."
May you like
A pause.
"A photograph of Nia's father."
