Chapter 2 - The Daughter Who Had Been Buried on PaperNobody in the study knew how to answer Isla’s question.
Not Vivien.
Not Victor.
Not Marcus.
And certainly not Dante.
He had spent six years believing both his wife and unborn child were dead.
Now the child was sitting eight feet away from him with one sock around her ankle and tears on her cheeks.
Dante finally lowered himself to one knee.
It was an unfamiliar position for a man accustomed to having other people stand when he entered a room.
“Isla.”
She looked at him.
“I don’t know why you chose that seat.”
Her eyes stayed on his.
“But I’m glad you did.”
That was all he could manage.
Isla glanced toward Vivien.
“Is he really my daddy?”
Vivien touched her hair.
“We need a test before we know for certain.”
Dante reached for his phone immediately.
Victor understood without being told.
“A private lab?” he asked.
“Two.”
Vivien looked at him.
“Two?”
“I want independent results.”
Dante had trusted a single hospital record once.
He would never make that mistake again.
Within forty minutes, two physicians arrived at the mansion.
Neither was told why both Dante Moretti and a six-year-old girl needed expedited DNA testing.
Samples were collected.
The laboratories were instructed to process them immediately.
Dante paid for discretion, speed, and duplication.
Then came the question nobody wanted to address.
What happened now?
The gala remained frozen downstairs.
Nearly two hundred guests had been prevented from leaving.
Rumors would already be spreading.
Dante looked at Marcus.
“Release the guests.”
Victor frowned.
“Sir—”
“Quietly. Nobody discusses what happened upstairs.”
Marcus nodded.
“And Adrien?”
Dante’s gaze sharpened.
“Bring him here.”
Marcus paused.
“He was downstairs ten minutes ago.”
“Then bring him upstairs.”
Marcus left.
Vivien stood.
“I should take Isla home.”
“No.”
The word came too quickly.
Isla flinched.
Dante saw it.
His expression immediately softened.
“I’m sorry.”
It may have been the first time Victor had heard Dante apologize for his tone.
Dante looked at Vivien.
“I need to understand what happened. But Isla does not spend tonight anywhere I cannot protect her.”
“I protected her for six years.”
“And someone tried to kill her mother before she took her first breath.”
Vivien’s face tightened.
Dante continued.
“If the man from that hospital discovers she’s here, what happens?”
That question ended the argument.
Vivien looked toward her daughter.
Dante turned to Victor.
“Prepare the east guest suite.”
“The family wing?”
“Yes.”
Victor left.
Isla watched him go.
“Does your house always have this many men walking around?”
Dante looked at her.
“Usually more.”
“That seems exhausting.”
For the first time that night, Marcus almost smiled.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then thirty.
Marcus returned alone.
“Adrien isn’t here.”
Dante looked up.
“What?”
“He left.”
“When?”
Marcus checked his phone.
“Security has him exiting through the east service gate twelve minutes after we came upstairs.”
“Why was the gate opened?”
“His authorization cleared automatically.”
Of course it had.
Adrien Cole had been beside Dante for twenty-one years.
They had met at fifteen.
Fought together at seventeen.
Built businesses together in their twenties.
Adrien had stood beside Dante at his wedding.
He had helped carry Isabella’s coffin.
He had been the man who came to Dante’s apartment before the hospital officially confirmed her death.
Dante stood.
“Call him.”
Marcus did.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Vivien watched Dante’s expression change.
“You think it was him.”
“I think nothing yet.”
That was a lie.
At 2:14 a.m., the first DNA result arrived.
Dante opened it alone.
He read the same sentence three times.
Probability of paternity: 99.9998%.
His hands went numb.
The second laboratory result arrived seventeen minutes later.
99.9997%.
Dante remained in his study for several minutes after that.
Then he walked to the family wing.
Vivien had fallen asleep sitting upright beside Isla’s bed.
Isla had not.
She was under a cream blanket, staring at the ceiling.
Dante stood in the doorway.
She noticed him.
“Did the test come?”
He nodded.
Vivien woke instantly.
“What did it say?”
Dante could not take his eyes off Isla.
“She’s my daughter.”
Vivien covered her mouth.
Isla sat up.
Nobody spoke.
Dante approached slowly.
He placed the printed report on the bedside table.
Isla looked at it.
Then at him.
“So you’re my dad?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
For some reason, that nearly destroyed him.
Dante sat on the edge of a chair rather than the bed.
“Yes.”
She considered this.
“Do I have to call you Dad?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
A pause.
“What should I call you?”
“Whatever makes you comfortable.”
She nodded.
“Dante is kind of a scary name.”
Vivien laughed through her tears.
Dante almost smiled.
“What would you prefer?”
Isla thought seriously.
“I’ll decide later.”
That was Isabella too.
Everything required consideration.
Nothing was accepted merely because someone powerful said so.
Dante lowered his eyes.
Isla saw his expression.
“Are you sad again?”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Because of my other mommy?”
“Yes.”
She moved closer to the edge of the bed.
“Mommy says you can be sad and happy at the same time.”
Dante glanced at Vivien.
“She says that?”
Vivien wiped her eyes.
“Apparently I do.”
Isla held out her hand.
Dante stared at it.
Then placed his much larger hand beneath hers.
Her fingers closed around one of his.
That was the first time he touched his daughter knowingly.
He had missed her birth.
Her first cry.
Her first smile.
Her first tooth.
Her first steps.
Five birthdays.
Her first day of school.
He had missed every fever, every scraped knee, every nightmare.
Someone had stolen six years.
Yet her hand was in his.
Alive.
Warm.
Real.
By sunrise, Dante had transformed half the mansion into an investigation center.
Hospital records were ordered.
Old security footage requested.
Former employees identified.
Financial transactions from the months around Isabella’s death pulled from archives.
Marcus contacted Samuel Park.
The former pediatric resident now worked at a hospital outside Boston.
When Marcus explained why Dante wanted to speak with him, Dr. Park hung up.
That told Dante enough.
Victor examined the mansion’s security logs.
Adrien had not simply left.
He had exited eight minutes before Marcus went looking for him.
More troubling, he had used a private service corridor not normally used during events.
And someone had disabled one camera for exactly four minutes.
At 7:38 a.m., Marcus entered the study carrying a tablet.
“You need to see this.”
Dante looked up.
Marcus displayed an archived photograph from a charity banquet held at St. Brendan’s six years earlier.
The event had taken place nine days before Isabella’s accident.
Hospital administrators stood in a line beneath a banner.
Dr. Leonard Vale was there.
Several donors.
Two city officials.
And near the edge of the photograph stood a man wearing a pale blue suit.
Dante’s face became perfectly still.
Vivien entered behind Isla at that exact moment.
She saw the screen.
The coffee cup in her hand slipped.
It struck the carpet.
“Mommy?”
Vivien did not respond.
Her face had gone white.
Dante looked at her.
“Is that him?”
She stared at the photograph.
Six years disappeared.
She was back in the emergency corridor.
Isabella was bleeding.
A newborn was crying.
A man in a blue suit was smiling as he ordered everyone to remain silent.
Vivien whispered one word.
“Yes.”
Isla looked from her mother to Dante.
Dante looked again at the photograph.
At the man he had once called his brother.
Adrien Cole.
And suddenly Dante remembered something he had never considered important.
On the night Isabella died, Adrien had arrived at his apartment at 11:57.
May you like
Wearing a black overcoat.
Dante had never seen what was underneath it.
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