Chapter 4 - The Woman I Had Buried With My Mother’s Ring Was Standing Beside the Man Hunting My DaughterI found Isabella in an abandoned restaurant.
She looked older.
But alive.
She smiled when she saw me.
“Hello, Matteo.”
I wanted to shoot her.
Instead, I asked,
“Why did you let me believe you were dead?”
She looked down.
“Because I had to disappear.”
“From whom?”
“Nico.”
“You knew he was alive?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Seven years.”
My anger exploded.
“You knew my daughter existed?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“I was trying to keep her alive.”
“Everyone keeps using that excuse.”
She flinched.
“Because it's true.”
Isabella revealed the final part of the story.
Nico had been planning to kill me.
But my mother had discovered the plan.
She helped Elena disappear.
She created fake records.
She hid Lily.
Then she faked her own death.
But someone betrayed her.
Adrian Cole.
He had been working for Nico.
I stared at Isabella.
“Then why are you with him?”
She shook her head.
“I wasn't.”
“Marco saw you.”
“I was following him.”
I didn't know what to believe.
Then the lights went out.
Gunfire erupted.
Isabella pulled me behind a table.
Men entered.
I counted six.
We escaped through the kitchen.
But before we left, Isabella grabbed my arm.
“Matteo.”
“What?”
“Nico isn't after Lily because of the trust.”
I stopped.
“Then why?”
She whispered,
“Because Lily knows something.”
I stared at her.
“She’s six.”
“She saw something when she was four.”
“What?”
“My father.”
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
“He died before Lily was born.”
Isabella nodded.
“Exactly.”
I didn't understand.
Then she said,
“Lily once described a man who came to your old house.”
“What man?”
“My father.”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“He wasn't dead when Lily saw him.”
My stomach tightened.
My grandfather.
The founder of the Moretti empire.
The man who had supposedly died before Lily was born.
Another dead man who wasn't dead.
I realized the pattern.
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Someone had spent years controlling the family by faking deaths.
And Lily had accidentally seen the truth.
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