Chapter 4 - My Sister Clara Was Alive After Seventeen Years, and She Revealed That Julian Had Been Working for the One Enemy Our Father Could Never DefeatClara had changed.
Of course she had.
Seventeen years can transform a face.
But not a voice.
She sounded older.
Tired.
Still my sister.
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Father saved me.”
My mother cried.
Clara approached.
“You need to leave this house.”
“Why?”
“Because it's already compromised.”
I listened to her.
“Where have you been?”
“Everywhere.”
“Who protected you?”
“My father.”
“Our father is dead.”
“He isn't the only one.”
I froze.
“What does that mean?”
Clara handed me a document.
The signature was unmistakable.
Our father's.
But the date was six months after his supposed death.
I traced the paper.
“Fake?”
“No.”
My mother began crying.
“Your father survived the bombing.”
I turned.
“What?”
“He lived for three years after.”
I couldn't believe it.
“Where?”
“In hiding.”
“Why didn't he contact me?”
“Because Julian was watching you.”
I felt sick.
“My own cousin.”
“He believed you would eventually discover Helix.”
“What did Father know?”
“That Vittorio wasn't the mastermind.”
I listened.
“Then who?”
Clara said one name.
“Raffaele Moretti.”
My grandfather's brother.
An old name.
I remembered hearing it as a child.
He was supposedly dead.
He had disappeared forty years earlier.
Clara continued.
“Raffaele built the original network.”
“He created the system that became the Moretti empire.”
“And your father wanted to dismantle it.”
“He couldn't.”
“Why?”
“Because Raffaele controlled the judges.”
“The banks.”
“The police.”
“The politicians.”
“And Julian?”
“His grandson.”
My blood chilled.
Julian wasn't merely a traitor.
He was part of the bloodline behind the entire operation.
The reason he had been so patient.
The reason he believed the empire belonged to him.
It wasn't greed alone.
It was inheritance.
Clara continued:
“Raffaele believed the empire should return to his branch.”
“But Father gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he trusted you.”
“Then why didn't he tell me?”
“Because he wanted you out.”
“Out of what?”
“The criminal world.”
I laughed bitterly.
“I was born into it.”
“Father wanted to end it.”
“And he failed.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“He left Helix.”
The registry.
The evidence.
A mechanism capable of exposing everyone.
The red key opened the final layer.
I understood why Julian needed it.
But there was another question.
“Where is Annie?”
Clara looked down.
“I don't know.”
My blood froze.
“You said she wasn't here.”
“She isn't.”
“Then where?”
“Vittorio has her.”
I stepped forward.
“You told me Julian had her.”
“Julian ordered the kidnapping.”
“Vittorio took control.”
“Why?”
“Because Raffaele wants the key too.”
I understood.
There were three factions.
Julian.
Vittorio.
Raffaele.
Each wanted Helix.
Each wanted Annie.
And I was caught between them.
I asked Clara:
“Why come back now?”
She whispered:
“Because I found Father.”
I froze.
“He's alive?”
She nodded.
“Barely.”
“Where?”
“Under the old chapel.”
My father.
Alive.
For years, I believed I had lost both parents.
Now I discovered my father had been hiding.
And maybe he had the answer.
We went.
The old chapel was abandoned.
Clara led me beneath the altar.
A hidden staircase.
Down.
Down.
Down.
At the bottom was a small room.
A man breathed quietly.
My father.
Older.
Weak.
But alive.
I stepped closer.
“Dad.”
Silence.
Then:
“I knew you'd come.”
I sat beside him.
“Why didn't you find me?”
“Because you were never meant to know.”
“About Helix?”
“About everything.”
“Why did you let them take my sight?”
He said nothing.
Then:
“I failed you.”
I heard the shame in his voice.
“The bomb wasn't meant for you.”
“It was meant for Annie.”
I froze.
“What?”
“They knew she existed.”
Before I could ask anything else, the chapel door above us slammed.
Someone had followed us.
My father whispered:
May you like
“It's Raffaele.”
And the old man who had supposedly died forty years ago began walking down the stairs.
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