Chapter 2 - Sophia Remembered Me
For three years, I had imagined what would happen if Sophia Moretti ever came back.
I had imagined Vincent demanding answers.
I had imagined police arriving.
I had imagined losing my job.
I had even imagined Charles Bellamy showing up at my apartment and reminding me exactly why I had hidden the phone.
I had never imagined Sophia waking from a medically induced sleep, looking past her husband, and saying my name.
Vincent turned toward me.
So did everyone else.
I could not move.
Sophia’s eyes were unfocused, but they remained fixed in my direction.
“Claire,” she whispered again.
Dr. Harris leaned over her.
“Sophia, you’re in the hospital. You’re safe.”
She barely reacted.
Vincent took her hand.
“Soph.”
Her eyes shifted toward him.
For one heartbreaking second, she stared at his face as if she could not understand why he looked older.
Then tears formed.
“Vince?”
His shoulders dropped.
It was the first time I had ever seen Vincent Moretti look helpless.
“I’m here.”
Sophia tried to sit up.
Dr. Harris gently stopped her.
“Easy. You’ve been through severe physical stress. Don’t move too quickly.”
“Where…”
“You’re safe.”
She looked around.
Her gaze landed on Isabella.
Everything changed.
Sophia recoiled.
“No.”
Isabella immediately stepped backward.
“Sophia—”
“No.”
Vincent stood between them.
“What is it?”
Sophia’s breathing accelerated.
Dr. Harris checked the monitor.
“Everyone give her space.”
Sophia gripped Vincent’s wrist.
“Why is she here?”
Vincent looked toward Isabella.
No one answered.
Sophia saw the pendant around Isabella’s neck.
Her own pendant.
Her face drained of color.
“You gave her my necklace?”
Isabella grabbed the pendant instinctively.
“Vincent gave it to me. I didn’t know—”
Sophia looked at Vincent.
The pain in her expression silenced the room.
Vincent removed his hand from hers.
Not because he wanted to.
Because he suddenly looked ashamed.
“I thought you were dead.”
Sophia stared at him.
“How long?”
Vincent swallowed.
“Three years.”
She closed her eyes.
A tear slipped sideways into her hair.
Three years.
The words seemed to land harder than anything else.
Emily quietly moved beside me and took my hand.
I squeezed hers.
Sophia opened her eyes again.
“Claire.”
I stepped forward.
Vincent did not stop me.
Neither did Dr. Harris.
I approached the bed.
Sophia studied my face.
“You found it.”
The phone.
I knew immediately.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The service stairwell.”
She closed her eyes.
“Good.”
Vincent turned sharply.
“You wanted Claire to find the phone?”
Sophia shook her head weakly.
“No. I wanted anyone except them.”
Her eyes moved toward Charles.
Charles remained near the wall.
Still composed.
Still silent.
Vincent followed her gaze.
“The voicemail named Charles and Dominic.”
Sophia’s breathing changed.
“Dominic.”
“Where is he?”
She looked confused.
“Here.”
Vincent frowned.
“He’s not here.”
“He was.”
“When?”
“The night they moved me.”
Every person in the room stopped.
Dr. Harris leaned closer.
“Sophia, do you remember where you’ve been?”
Her forehead tightened.
“Rooms.”
“What kind of rooms?”
“White walls. Locked windows.”
The doctor nodded carefully.
“We found you at Glenwood Recovery Center.”
Sophia stared at him.
“That’s not the first place.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“How many places?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who took you?”
Sophia looked at Charles.
Charles finally spoke.
“Sophia, you’re heavily medicated. Memory after prolonged trauma can be unreliable.”
Vincent stepped in front of him.
“You don’t speak to her.”
Charles’s jaw tightened.
“Vincent, I am trying to keep this situation from becoming worse.”
“You’ve spent three years doing that.”
“That is unfair.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You told me she abandoned me.”
“That was the information presented to me.”
“By whom?”
Charles did not answer.
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“By Dominic?”
Silence.
That silence was becoming louder than anything Charles said.
Sophia looked at me.
“Did you listen to the whole message?”
I shook my head.
“Not then.”
“Why?”
I looked at Emily.
She was watching me.
Eight years old.
Old enough to understand fear.
Too young to understand the price of carrying it.
“Because two days after I found the phone, someone came to my apartment.”
Vincent turned.
“What?”
“A man knocked on my door.”
“When?”
“The morning after police searched the estate.”
“What did he want?”
“He said he was from your legal team.”
Charles stared at me.
“Who?”
“I never knew his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“Late forties. Gray coat. Scar near his left eyebrow.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
“Marco DeLuca.”
Charles closed his eyes.
Vincent saw it.
“So you know him.”
“Of course I know Marco. He worked security for your father.”
“Past tense.”
“Yes.”
“Where is he now?”
Charles said nothing.
Vincent looked toward one of his guards outside the room.
“Find him.”
The guard nodded and disappeared.
I continued.
“He asked whether I had found anything unusual after Sophia disappeared.”
Vincent’s voice became very quiet.
“And?”
“I said no.”
“Why?”
“Because he already knew where I lived.”
Emily squeezed my hand tighter.
I hated that she was hearing this.
“He told me accidents happened to people who involved themselves in family problems.”
Vincent stared at Charles.
Charles looked genuinely disturbed.
“I never authorized that.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“No,” Vincent said. “Sophia did.”
Sophia’s eyes remained closed.
But she whispered, “Charles didn’t send him.”
Everyone turned.
Vincent approached the bed again.
“Who did?”
Sophia took a shallow breath.
“Dominic.”
Isabella suddenly sat down.
Her knees appeared to give out beneath her.
Vincent looked at her.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Then why are you reacting like that?”
She pressed both hands to her temples.
“Because Dominic introduced me to you.”
Vincent went still.
That fact had always been public.
Dominic had invited Isabella to a charity dinner eleven months earlier.
Vincent had met her there.
They began dating months later.
But until that moment, nobody had viewed the introduction as anything except coincidence.
Sophia looked at Isabella.
“Did he tell you I was dead?”
Isabella’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
“Did he give you the pendant?”
“No. Vincent did.”
Sophia looked at Vincent.
He seemed unable to meet her eyes.
Isabella removed the pendant.
“I didn’t know it was yours.”
She placed it on the bedside table.
“I swear.”
Sophia stared at the silver chain.
Then at Isabella.
Something in her expression softened slightly.
“I believe you.”
Vincent looked surprised.
So did Isabella.
Sophia closed her eyes.
“He used you too.”
“Dominic?”
Sophia nodded.
Charles suddenly reached for his phone.
Vincent noticed.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling the police.”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“You spent three years avoiding them.”
“No. I spent three years protecting you from making accusations without proof.”
Sophia opened her eyes.
“We had proof.”
Charles looked at her.
“What proof?”
Her gaze sharpened.
“You know.”
For the first time, Charles seemed truly confused.
Sophia saw it.
“You never found it.”
“Found what?”
Sophia turned to Vincent.
“The ledger.”
Vincent frowned.
“What ledger?”
“The real one.”
Charles took one step forward.
“Sophia.”
Vincent blocked him.
She continued.
“Dominic kept two sets of records. One for the company. One for himself.”
“Where?”
Sophia looked at me.
My stomach dropped again.
“She gave it to me,” I whispered.
Vincent turned.
“What?”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
Memories rushed back.
Sophia appearing in the service kitchen two days before she vanished.
No makeup.
Hair pulled back.
Hands shaking.
She had handed me a flat brown package.
“Keep this somewhere nobody looks,” she had said.
I thought it contained personal documents.
I had put it in an unused storage cabinet behind holiday linens.
The next day it was gone.
“I hid it,” I said. “In the linen storage room.”
Sophia nodded.
“Then someone took it.”
Vincent looked at Charles.
Charles shook his head.
“Not me.”
Sophia studied him.
“I believe that too.”
That surprised everyone.
Charles frowned.
“You accused me in the voicemail.”
“I said you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That Dominic was changing the trust.”
“Yes,” Charles said. “Because Vincent’s father instructed him to prepare contingencies years earlier.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“My father?”
Charles exhaled.
“This is why I wanted this handled privately.”
“My father died six years ago.”
“And before he died, he discovered Dominic had been moving money.”
Vincent stared.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“Your father made me promise.”
Sophia whispered, “That’s why Dominic needed Charles.”
Charles looked at her.
“He needed my signature on amendments. I refused.”
“Then he forged it,” Sophia said.
Charles went pale.
Vincent looked between them.
The entire history of the last three years appeared to be collapsing in front of him.
A marriage.
A disappearance.
An engagement.
A trust.
A cousin he had treated like a brother.
Nothing meant what he thought it meant.
Emily tugged my sleeve.
“Mom.”
I looked down.
She was staring at the phone.
“What?”
“The message isn’t finished.”
My blood turned cold.
“What do you mean?”
“It says part one.”
Vincent crossed the room immediately.
Emily tapped the screen.
A second audio file appeared.
Same date.
11:53 P.M.
Six minutes after the first voicemail.
Vincent looked at Sophia.
Her eyes widened.
“I don’t remember recording another one.”
Emily pressed play.
At first there was only movement.
Footsteps.
Sophia breathing hard.
Then a male voice in the background.
Dominic.
Even through static, Vincent recognized him.
His face changed.
The recording caught Dominic saying:
“You should have stayed out of it.”
Sophia responded.
“You’re stealing from him.”
Dominic laughed.
“From Vincent? No. I’m saving the company from him.”
Then another voice entered.
A woman.
Isabella froze.
Vincent turned toward her.
But Isabella was already shaking her head.
“That isn’t me.”
The woman on the recording said one sentence.
“Get Sophia in the car.”
Sophia’s eyes opened wider.
Vincent stared at the phone.
He knew that voice.
I could see it.
Everyone could.
He whispered:
“No.”
The recording continued.
And from the hallway outside the hospital room came the sound of running footsteps.
A guard burst through the door.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Vincent turned.
The guard held up another phone.
His face was pale.
“We found Dominic.”
Vincent took one step forward.
“Where?”
The guard swallowed.
“He’s downstairs.”
May you like
A pause.
“And he brought someone with him.”
