Chapter 4 - The Secret Her Father BuriedThe attic belonged to Nora's childhood home.
She had not been there in twelve years.
Her mother lived alone now.
Gabriel came with her.
The moment they stepped inside, Nora remembered the smell.
Cedar.
Dust.
Old photographs.
Her father had been a quiet man.
He worked in accounting.
He loved jazz.
He hated arguments.
He had died when Nora was twenty-eight.
She had thought she understood his life.
She hadn't.
Her mother handed her a key.
“Your father told me never to give this to you unless someone from the Moretti family came looking.”
Nora stared.
“Why?”
“He said the truth would destroy everything.”
Gabriel took a step backward.
“Open it.”
The key unlocked an old metal chest.
Inside were documents.
Photographs.
A cassette recorder.
And a birth certificate.
Gabriel picked it up.
The name on it wasn't Nora's.
It belonged to a woman named Elena Cross.
Nora frowned.
“Who is she?”
Her mother began crying.
“Your father's first daughter.”
Nora froze.
“My sister?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“She died.”
“How?”
Her mother shook her head.
“She disappeared.”
Gabriel looked at the papers.
Elena had worked for Moretti Urban.
She had uncovered money laundering.
She had tried to expose it.
Then she vanished.
Nora stared.
“My father knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't he tell me?”
“He was afraid.”
“Of whom?”
Her mother looked at Gabriel.
“His father.”
Gabriel's face hardened.
“My father?”
Nora found a note.
Written in her father's handwriting.
If my daughter ever reads this, she needs to know that the Moretti family is not what the world believes.
Another page.
Gabriel is not his father's son in the way they think.
Gabriel went still.
“What does that mean?”
Nora didn't know.
Then she found a photograph.
Two babies.
One boy.
One girl.
Their mother standing behind them.
Gabriel stared.
“That woman.”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
Nora looked at the photograph.
The babies were wearing identical bracelets.
One had the letter G.
The other N.
Gabriel whispered:
“Twins.”
Nora looked at him.
“Who is N?”
He pointed.
“Me.”
“No.”
Gabriel's expression changed.
“My birth records say I was an only child.”
Nora continued reading.
The truth was worse.
Gabriel had been born with a twin sister.
Nina Moretti.
She had been declared dead at birth.
But the record had been falsified.
Nora looked at the photograph again.
The little girl was alive.
And she was Elena Cross.
Gabriel stared.
“Nina was Elena.”
Nora's hands shook.
“My father helped her disappear.”
“Why?”
“Because your father was trying to kill her.”
Gabriel looked at his mother in the photograph.
Then at Nora.
“How are our families connected?”
Nora turned another page.
Her father had written it clearly.
The Moretti family financed the Higgins shipping network.
When I tried to expose them, they took my daughter.
I agreed to disappear.
Nora felt sick.
“Then my father's death wasn't an accident.”
“No.”
“Neither was your mother's.”
“No.”
They looked at each other.
Two families.
Two deaths.
Two missing daughters.
One network.
And Bradley Jenkins had been hired to keep Nora quiet.
Gabriel closed the file.
“We end this.”
“How?”
“Publicly.”
Nora shook her head.
“They'll come after us.”
“They already have.”
At that moment, the lights in the house went out.
Nora froze.
Gabriel moved between her and the hallway.
A sound came from downstairs.
Glass breaking.
Then footsteps.
Three men entered.
Gabriel grabbed Nora.
“Back door.”
They ran.
A gunshot shattered the frame above them.
Nora screamed.
They escaped through the garden.
Behind them, the house burned.
Nora stood in the snow.
“My father's house.”
Gabriel looked at the flames.
“I'm sorry.”
She looked at him.
“This isn't your fault.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“But it is my family.”
He took her hand.
“We're ending it.”
Neither realized that someone was watching them from across the street.
A man lowered his binoculars.
Then made a call.
“They found the box.”
A pause.
“Do we take them?”
The answer came quietly.
“No.”
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“Then what?”
“Let them find Nina.”
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