Chapter 3 - The Secret In The Cottage
Alessandro didn't call for his doctor immediately,
instead,
he reached for the folder,
his fingers steady despite the thunder in his heart.
He flipped through the pages,
his eyes scanning the elegant,
slanted handwriting of a dead man.
It was a ledger,
but not of money or shipments,
it was a record of lineage,
a map of blood and betrayal.
He saw names he recognized,
men he had buried and men he still called brothers.
And there,
at the very bottom of a page dated three years ago,
was the name Sophia Rossi.
But it wasn't her real name,
according to the document,
she was Sophia Bianchi,
the youngest daughter of the man Alessandro’s father had killed.
She was a ghost hiding in plain sight,
scrubbing his floors while carrying the blood of his enemies in her veins.
He looked back at the woman on the bed,
seeing her now not as a servant,
but as a fugitive.
Why had she come here?
Why had she chosen the wolf's den as her sanctuary?
He heard a soft footfall behind him and turned to see Emma standing in the doorway.
She was looking at her mother,
her eyes filling with a wisdom no three-year-old should possess.
"Mama not wake up?"
she asked,
her voice a tiny silver thread.
Alessandro closed the folder,
tucking it under his arm,
feeling the weight of a hundred secrets.
"She will wake up,
Emma,"
he promised,
and for the first time,
he realized he would do anything to make that lie a reality.
He pulled his phone from his pocket,
dialing the private line of a man who asked no questions.
"Get the medical team to the cottage,"
he barked into the receiver.
"Full isolation.
Nobody talks to anyone but me."
"If a single word leaves this property,
I will burn the hospital to the ground."
He hung up and walked over to Sophia,
placing a hand on her burning forehead.
She moaned,
a soft,
broken sound,
and her eyes fluttered open for a brief second.
They weren't the eyes of a killer,
they were the eyes of a mother who was terrified for her child.
"Save... him..."
she whispered,
her voice barely a ghost of a sound.
"Save... the boy."
Alessandro froze,
the air leaving his lungs in a rush.
The boy?
He looked at Emma,
who was watching him with wide,
innocent eyes.
Then he looked back at the ledger,
realizing that the secret went deeper than a name.
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Sophia wasn't just hiding herself,
she was hiding a legacy that could trigger a war the city wasn't ready for.
