Chapter 8 - The Wedding Was Supposed to Be the End of Our Nightmare—Until the Missing Doctor Returned With One Last Secret About My FatherThe wedding was scheduled for spring.
Chicago was bright.
The snow was gone.
Mara was learning to walk.
Leonardo was stronger.
Sophia was healthy.
My mother smiled again.
Dominic looked happier than I had ever seen him.
For one day, there was peace.
Then Sterling escaped.
A prison transport accident.
Two officers dead.
A vehicle burned.
And one message sent to my phone.
Ask your father what happened on March 3.
I froze.
March 3.
The day my father died.
Dominic looked at the message.
“What does it mean?”
“I don't know.”
We reopened my father's old records.
There had been a hospital admission.
My father wasn't dead when we thought he was.
He was alive for twelve hours after the supposed time of death.
He had spoken to someone.
The person was recorded as:
Unknown female.
My mother recognized the description.
“She was a Moretti.”
“Who?”
“Dominic's aunt.”
Dominic's face went cold.
His father's sister.
She had been missing for years.
We found her.
She confessed.
She had tried to protect my father.
She had discovered Sterling's network.
She had been threatened.
She knew my mother was alive.
And she knew why my father died.
“Sterling killed him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he had the original evidence.”
“Where?”
She looked at me.
“He left it with your grandmother.”
My heart stopped.
My grandmother had died when I was ten.
We went to the old family house.
Inside a locked chest, we found documents.
Evidence.
Bank accounts.
Photographs.
And a recording.
My father spoke directly to me.
“Claire, if you're hearing this, I'm sorry.”
He explained.
He had known Dominic's father.
He had helped protect Sophia.
He had helped hide Mara.
He had trusted my mother.
He had known Sterling was dangerous.
And he had left the evidence for me because he believed I was the only person who would act without being controlled by money.
I cried.
Dominic held me.
Then the final line.
Don't marry into the Moretti family unless you know what they hide.
Dominic looked at me.
I smiled.
“I already know.”
He kissed me.
Our wedding went ahead.
This time, nothing interrupted it.
Mara carried flowers.
Leonardo wore a tiny suit.
Sophia stood beside me.
My mother walked with me.
Dominic waited at the altar.
When I reached him, he whispered,
“You came.”
May you like
I smiled.
“I always do.”
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