Chapter 5 - The Friend Who Buried My Husband
Daniel disappeared.
Every phone number dead.
Every bank account emptied.
Every address fake.
Dominic said Daniel had spent years building layers of protection.
“He was always planning for this,” he said.
“For murdering my husband?”
“For surviving it.”
We found his first safe house in Brooklyn.
It was empty.
The second in Newark.
Also empty.
The third contained photographs.
Hundreds.
Of me.
Lily.
Evan.
Dominic.
My mother.
He had been watching us for years.
There was a photograph of me asleep beside Lily.
Another of Evan holding Lily as a baby.
Another of Dominic standing outside our hospital.
That last one confused me.
“Why was he watching Dominic?”
Dominic looked at it.
“Because Daniel wasn't working for Rafael.”
“Then who?”
He turned over the photo.
A date.
Two weeks before Evan died.
Beneath it, one sentence.
Tell Dominic the girl is alive.
Dominic went still.
“What girl?”
I looked at him.
He didn't answer.
“Dominic.”
He stared at the photograph.
“I don't know.”
A sound came from the basement.
We went downstairs.
There was a locked room.
Inside was a wall covered in information.
Names.
Photos.
Dates.
The entire Moretti family.
The entire Hale family.
And one name repeated more than any other.
Isabella Moretti.
Dominic's mother.
I looked at him.
“Your mother isn't dead.”
He couldn't breathe.
“She's alive.”
At the center of the wall was a recent photograph.
A woman entering a church.
Dominic stared.
“I know this place.”
It was the church where his father had supposedly been buried.
We went there.
Beneath the chapel was a hidden room.
And inside was Isabella Moretti.
Alive.
Older.
Tired.
She looked at Dominic.
“I'm sorry.”
He stood frozen.
“Mother.”
She cried.
“I thought I could protect you.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“Your father wanted to kill me.”
Silence.
She explained.
Rafael had built the criminal network.
But he had eventually become too powerful even for his own allies.
Isabella had tried to leave.
She discovered that Daniel Mercer was working with Rafael.
Evan found out.
They worked together.
Then Evan was captured.
Isabella helped him escape once.
The second time, she couldn't.
“He asked me to protect Mara.”
I stared.
“Why me?”
Isabella looked at me.
“Because you were the only person Daniel would never suspect.”
I didn't understand.
Then she explained.
Daniel had been obsessed with controlling Evan's life.
He wanted access to Evan's hidden accounts.
He manipulated him.
He manipulated me.
He even arranged my first meeting with Dominic.
My blind date.
It hadn't been random.
Daniel had sent the original message to my phone months earlier.
He had chosen Beluchi's.
He knew Dominic would be there.
He knew Lily might accompany me.
But he hadn't expected Lily to arrive alone.
That was the one part he couldn't control.
Dominic looked at Isabella.
“What is Daniel after?”
She answered:
“Your father's vault.”
“What is inside?”
“The proof of everything.”
“Where?”
She looked at me.
“Inside Mara's wedding ring.”
I stared at my hand.
The old ring had belonged to Evan.
I had never removed it.
Dominic noticed.
“Let me see.”
I took it off.
Inside was a tiny seam.
He examined it.
A hidden compartment.
Inside was a microfilm strip.
My heart pounded.
Evan had left evidence with me without telling me.
Because he trusted me.
We took it to a lab.
The information was catastrophic.
Names.
Accounts.
Judges.
Politicians.
Doctors.
Police.
The network was enormous.
Dominic stared at the documents.
“This could bring down half the city.”
I looked at him.
“Then let's bring it down.”
He smiled.
“That's what I was hoping you'd say.”
Then the door opened.
Daniel stood there.
Gun raised.
Lily was behind him.
My heart stopped.
“Let her go.”
Daniel smiled.
“Of course.”
He looked at Dominic.
“You still think you're in control.”
Dominic raised his gun.
Daniel laughed.
“You have five seconds.”
“What do you want?”
“The film.”
“Take it.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I want her to give it to me.”
He pointed at my head.
“And then I want Dominic to make the decision he never could make before.”
“What decision?”
“Choose the woman he loves.”
Dominic's expression changed.
May you like
Daniel smiled.
“And choose between her life and the empire.”
