Chapter 3 - The Secret Sofia Buried
Dante reached the stairs first.
Marco was behind him.
Bianca followed with Leo until Dante turned.
“Stay.”
This time she did.
Not because he ordered her.
Because Leo was shaking again.
Dante and Marco entered the upstairs corridor.
Sofia’s room had remained locked since her death.
Dante kept the key.
Yet the door stood open.
A man moved near the window.
Marco lunged.
The intruder smashed through the glass before Dante reached him.
He landed on the lower balcony and disappeared over the railing.
“East yard!” Marco shouted into his radio.
Dante looked around.
Drawers had been emptied.
Photographs scattered the floor.
Someone had searched the room.
Again.
Bianca appeared in the doorway despite his warning.
Leo buried his face against her shoulder.
“What were they looking for?”
Dante crouched and picked up a photograph.
Sofia at twenty-five.
Michael beside her.
Baby Leo in her arms.
Dante stood behind them.
His sister had been smiling.
He remembered the day.
He also remembered the argument afterward.
Sofia had wanted to leave Chicago.
Dante told her she was overreacting.
She died seven weeks later.
Bianca noticed another photograph under the bed.
She picked it up.
It showed Sofia pregnant.
Beside her stood Dante.
On the back, in faded ink, someone had written a date.
Bianca frowned.
“That date…”
Dante took it.
He understood immediately.
The photograph was taken eleven months before Leo’s recorded birthday.
Not suspicious by itself.
Then Bianca noticed the second line.
Twenty-eight weeks.
Dante stared.
“No.”
“What?”
He did the math.
Again.
Then a third time.
Sofia had been twenty-eight weeks pregnant nearly eleven months before Leo was supposedly born.
Meaning the dates did not align.
“Leo’s birth certificate,” Dante said.
“What about it?”
“Michael registered him.”
Marco entered.
“No sign of the intruder.”
Dante barely heard him.
“Get the family safe from the hospital.”
Marco understood.
Twenty minutes later, an encrypted file arrived.
Dante read the birth record.
Date of birth: March 14.
He looked at the photograph.
The date written on the back: March 22 the year before.
Twenty-eight weeks pregnant.
Impossible.
Bianca watched him.
“Could she have lost that pregnancy?”
Dante’s face hardened.
“I would have known.”
“Would you?”
The question was not cruel.
It still hurt.
Dante had been a different man then.
Always working.
Always protecting.
Always assuming money and security were the same as presence.
He stared at the picture.
Sofia had hidden something.
But why?
Leo fell asleep against Bianca’s shoulder.
Dante looked at the child.
“His birthday is false.”
Bianca whispered.
“Why would parents falsify their own son’s birth date?”
Marco answered.
“To hide where he was born.”
Dante turned.
“Or who his father was.”
The words hung there.
Bianca looked at Dante.
Leo had dark curls.
Brown eyes.
A small scar on his chin.
Features people had always attributed to Sofia.
Dante had never questioned them.
“Leo said the man told him Sofia lied about Daddy,” Bianca said.
Marco’s phone buzzed.
“Boss. We found something downstairs.”
They went to the study.
A small envelope had been left beneath the door.
No one knew how it arrived.
Dante opened it.
Inside was a photocopy of a DNA report.
The names were partially blacked out.
One remained visible.
Leo Costa.
Bianca stared.
“Costa?”
Leo’s legal surname was Moretti, Michael’s family name.
Dante read the probability line.
Paternity probability: 99.98%.
The father’s name had been covered with black ink.
Bianca whispered.
“Someone wants you to know.”
Dante turned the sheet over.
Three handwritten words.
ASK YOUR MOTHER.
Dante’s expression changed.
His mother, Elena Costa, had died three years earlier.
Or so everyone believed.
The official certificate said heart failure in Sicily.
Dante had attended the funeral.
Closed casket.
He had been told illness made viewing impossible.
Bianca saw his reaction.
“What is it?”
“My mother knew.”
“How?”
“Her handwriting.”
Marco studied the note.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Bianca sank into a chair.
“This is bigger than Bellini.”
Dante agreed.
He hated admitting it.
Someone had entered his home twice.
Someone knew secrets his own family had hidden.
And Bellini had chosen this exact night to expose them.
Morning arrived without sleep.
Dante ordered Bianca moved to a secure apartment.
She refused.
Again.
“I’m staying with Leo.”
“Then Leo goes too.”
“Fine.”
Leo woke at eight and immediately asked for pancakes.
The normal request nearly broke everyone.
Bianca cooked.
Dante sat at the kitchen island, surrounded by armed guards, while a four-year-old pushed blueberries around a plate.
At one point Leo held up a pancake.
“Uncle.”
Dante looked over.
Leo had made a crooked smile with fruit.
Dante smiled despite himself.
Bianca watched him.
This was the man few people saw.
Not the boss.
Not the name whispered in restaurants.
Just an uncle terrified of losing the last piece of his sister.
After breakfast, Bianca found Dante alone in the corridor.
“You need to tell me something.”
He stopped.
“About tonight?”
“About us.”
His face tightened.
“I don’t know if there is an us.”
“There could have been.”
That was worse.
Bianca crossed her arms.
“You asked me to stay six months ago because Leo needed stability.”
“He did.”
“Was that the only reason?”
Dante did not answer quickly enough.
Bianca looked away.
“I knew it.”
“No.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t.”
She faced him.
Dante exhaled slowly.
“The first month, yes. Leo needed you.”
“And after?”
“After I needed you too.”
Bianca’s heart kicked.
Dante stepped closer.
“I didn’t touch you because you worked for me.”
“You barely spoke to me.”
“Because when I did, I wanted things I had no right to ask for.”
Bianca swallowed.
“What things?”
Dante looked at her.
“A life that doesn’t exist for men like me.”
She almost laughed.
“You don’t get to decide what life exists for me.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m learning.”
Before she could answer, Marco entered.
“The Bellini meeting changed.”
“When?”
“Tonight. Eight o’clock.”
“Location?”
“Chicago Opera Club.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s public.”
“Exactly.”
The Opera Club was not an opera house.
It was a private social venue where politicians, developers, businessmen, judges, and old Chicago families attended charity galas.
Bellini wanted witnesses.
He wanted Dante humiliated before respectable Chicago.
Marco handed him the invitation.
At the bottom was a typed line.
Bring the nanny.
Dante crushed the paper.
Bianca took it from him.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“He attacked you.”
“And hiding tells him it worked.”
Dante stepped close.
“This isn’t pride.”
“No. It’s Leo.”
She pointed toward the room.
“Whatever they stole belongs to his story. His mother’s story. I’m done letting men decide what truths women and children are allowed to hear.”
Dante stared.
That sentence was meant for more than Bellini.
He knew it.
“Fine.”
Bianca blinked.
“You’re agreeing?”
“With conditions.”
She almost smiled.
“Of course.”
“You stay beside me.”
“I’m not standing behind you.”
“Beside.”
She considered.
“Fine.”
“You leave when I say.”
“No.”
“Bianca.”
“If something happens to Leo’s information, I stay.”
Dante rubbed his jaw.
“You negotiate like a criminal.”
“I learned from the household.”
That actually made him laugh.
For one second.
Then his phone rang.
Marco watched the number.
Dante answered.
A woman’s voice spoke.
Old.
Italian accent.
Familiar.
“Dante.”
Every bit of color left his face.
Bianca stepped closer.
“Who is it?”
Dante could barely speak.
“Mama?”
Silence filled the line.
Then Elena Costa, dead for three years, whispered:
“Do not take Leo to that meeting.”
Dante gripped the phone.
“Where are you?”
“You have been lied to.”
“By whom?”
Her next words stopped everyone in the room.
May you like
“By Sofia.”
And before Dante could ask why, his supposedly dead mother said the name of Leo’s real father.
