Chapter 5 - My Six-Year-Old Daughter Remembered a Man Everyone Believed Had Been Dead for Ten YearsI returned home and sat beside Lily.
She was drawing.
“Can I ask you something?”
She nodded.
“Do you remember someone named Vincent?”
She frowned.
“Old man?”
“Yes.”
“He had white hair.”
I showed her a photograph.
Her face changed.
“That’s him.”
My grandfather.
Dead for ten years.
Lily pointed.
“He came to Mommy's room.”
“When?”
“Before we moved.”
“What did he say?”
She thought.
“He told Mommy not to tell Daddy.”
My blood went cold.
“What else?”
“He gave her a box.”
“What box?”
Lily ran to her bedroom.
She returned with a small wooden box.
I opened it.
Inside was a ring.
My grandfather's ring.
And a key.
Beneath them was a note.
The truth is buried beneath the house where Matteo grew up.
I knew exactly where that was.
My childhood home.
The place I had refused to visit since my mother's death.
That night, we drove there.
Lily came with us.
I didn't want her anywhere near danger.
But she refused to stay behind.
“I know where the secret is.”
She was right.
In the basement, behind an old wine rack, we found a hidden door.
The key fit.
Inside was a room filled with files.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Medical reports.
And one document that changed everything.
It was my father's original will.
Lily was named as heir.
But there was another clause.
If Lily remained alive until her eighteenth birthday, the entire Moretti criminal network would legally transfer to her.
My father had planned everything.
He wanted the empire to belong to the next generation.
But I didn't want Lily to inherit any empire.
I wanted her to inherit a normal life.
Then I found one final photograph.
Nico.
My father.
And Adrian Cole.
Standing together.
The photograph was dated eleven years ago.
Before Nico's supposed death.
Before my mother's supposed death.
May you like
Before everything.
They had been planning this for years.
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