Chapter 8 - The Sister No One Knew Dante Had
Dante did not have a sister.
At least that was what he had believed for thirty-five years.
Salvatore stared at Vittorio’s note.
Lena sat wrapped in a fire blanket.
Mei held Sophie.
Sophia arrived under Enzo’s protection twenty minutes later and ran straight into her twin’s arms.
The woman on the phone spoke again.
“Ask Salvatore about Lucia.”
Dante turned slowly.
Salvatore’s face went gray.
“Who is Lucia?”
Salvatore looked old.
For the first time in Dante’s life, truly old.
“My sister.”
Dante frowned.
“You and my father had a sister?”
Salvatore nodded.
“She was older than Vittorio.”
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared.”
“When?”
“Before you were born.”
“Why have I never heard her name?”
“Because Vittorio erased it.”
Dante’s voice hardened.
“Why?”
Salvatore looked at the girls.
“Because Lucia was supposed to inherit.”
Silence.
Salvatore continued.
“The Moretti business was smaller then. Your grandfather trusted Lucia more than Vittorio. She was brilliant. Calm. People followed her.”
“And my father?”
“Hated it.”
Dante understood before the story ended.
“He got rid of her.”
Salvatore nodded.
“Vittorio accused her of stealing. My father believed him.”
“What happened?”
“She ran.”
“Where?”
“I never knew.”
The woman on the phone laughed softly.
Then she said, “You never looked hard.”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
“Lucia.”
The line went silent.
Then the woman said, “Hello, little brother.”
Every person in the ambulance bay froze.
Salvatore gripped the phone.
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
“Did you burn the safe house?”
“No.”
“Are you the last wolf?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Dante took the phone.
“You know my daughters?”
“I know what was done to them.”
“Did you help?”
“No.”
“Then why did my father name you?”
“Because he thought hatred made people predictable.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“What do you want?”
“To finish what Isabella started.”
“Then stop speaking in riddles.”
Lucia laughed.
“You sound exactly like him when you’re angry.”
Dante’s face changed.
“Do not compare me to my father.”
“Then don’t become him.”
The line went dead.
Two hours later, Lucia Moretti walked into a federal office in Manhattan.
She was sixty-eight.
Tall.
White hair cut to her jaw.
No bodyguards.
No weapon.
A black wolf tattoo on her wrist.
Dante stood across the conference table.
She looked at him for a long time.
“You have Isabella’s eyes when you’re tired.”
Dante stared.
“You met her?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before she died.”
Salvatore stepped forward.
“Lucia.”
She looked at him.
Decades moved between them.
“You got old.”
Salvatore laughed and cried at the same time.
“So did you.”
They embraced.
Dante watched, unmoved.
Family reunions meant less to him after six years of lies.
Lucia sat.
“The Black Wolf began before Vittorio. It was supposed to protect the family from betrayal.”
She looked at the tattoo.
“Then Vittorio turned it into a machine for controlling succession.”
“Why did he trust you?”
“He didn’t.”
“Then why call you the last wolf?”
“Because he believed I hated him enough to follow his final instruction if it hurt his bloodline.”
Dante frowned.
“What instruction?”
Lucia opened her bag.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
She slid it across the table.
Dante opened it.
Vittorio’s handwriting.
Lucia,
If there are two girls, choose the stronger one.
Remove the weaker.
Dante stopped reading.
Lucia’s face was stone.
“He thought I would obey because he stole my inheritance.”
“Would you?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you help six years ago?”
“I was in hiding.”
“Convenient.”
Lucia accepted the blow.
“Yes.”
Dante continued.
“My wife found you.”
“Through Lena.”
“And?”
“Isabella asked me to take both twins out of the country.”
Dante’s breath caught.
“I refused.”
“Why?”
“Because she refused to leave you.”
Pain cut through him.
Lucia continued.
“She believed if she disappeared, you would start a war looking for her. She was right.”
Dante looked down.
Lucia said, “So we made another plan. Lena would move one baby. Isabella would expose Bellandi after the birth.”
“She never got the chance.”
“No.”
“Then what have you been doing for six years?”
“Collecting people Bellandi ruined.”
Lucia opened another folder.
Witnesses.
A former accountant.
A hospital pharmacist.
A retired detective.
Daniel Carter’s former dispatcher.
Dante looked up.
“You know who killed Daniel.”
“Yes.”
Mei stepped forward.
“Who?”
Lucia looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Who?”
“Detective Raymond Cole.”
Dante knew the name.
NYPD organized crime liaison.
A man who had sat in Dante’s kitchen.
A man who warned him about raids.
A man who attended Isabella’s funeral.
Marco swore.
Lucia nodded.
“Cole was Bellandi’s last active enforcer.”
“Where is he?” Dante asked.
Lucia’s face tightened.
“Gone.”
“What does gone mean?”
“He disappeared after the gala.”
Dante’s phone rang.
Marco answered his own first.
Then his face changed.
“Boss.”
Dante looked at him.
“Cole just checked into a motel near LaGuardia under an alias.”
Lucia stood.
“It’s a trap.”
Dante reached for his coat.
“Probably.”
Mei blocked him.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You just spent six years finding one daughter. You have two now. Stop walking into bullets like you’re the only person who gets to decide what matters.”
Dante stared.
She did not move.
Lucia watched with interest.
Mei continued.
“You want to be different from your father? Then act like their father, not his son.”
That stopped him.
For once, Dante did not go.
He sent federal agents.
Cole was arrested alive.
In his motel room they found the tool used to cut Daniel Carter’s brake line.
A payment ledger.
And a burner phone containing one unsent message.
It was addressed to Anthony Bellandi.
I HAVE THE BACKUP PLAN READY. THE CHILDREN WILL NEVER GROW UP TO TESTIFY.
Mei read it and went cold.
Dante looked at his daughters playing cards with Ava down the hall.
He closed the phone.
“That’s over.”
Lucia shook her head.
“No.”
Dante looked at her.
“Bellandi built systems, not men. Systems survive.”
“What system?”
Lucia pointed to the children’s charity list.
“The foundation.”
The Moretti-Bellandi Children’s Trust.
Hospitals.
Schools.
Shelters.
Foster agencies.
A machine that had quietly moved money and people for decades.
Lena whispered, “They could have hidden children.”
Lucia nodded.
“Not just money.”
Dante understood.
Records.
Birth certificates.
Custody transfers.
Disappearances.
Mei stared.
“How many?”
Lucia’s face broke.
“We don’t know.”
Dante looked at the girls.
His daughters had been one case.
There might be others.
He made a decision.
“Then we open everything.”
Marco stared.
“Boss?”
“Every server. Every account. Every foundation record we control.”
“That exposes us too.”
“I know.”
“It could destroy the Moretti organization.”
Dante looked at Sophia and Sophie.
“Good.”
Lucia’s return did more than reveal another secret.
It forced the Moretti family to hold its first honest dinner in living memory.
No guards in the dining room.
No business discussed in code.
No seats assigned by rank.
Lucia sat beside Salvatore.
They argued over bread.
Sophia sat beside Sophie.
They argued over whether identical twins could have different favorite colors.
Mei sat across from Dante.
Lena joined late.
Marco refused to sit until Dante ordered him to.
“I’m working.”
“You’re eating.”
“That is not the same.”
“It is tonight.”
Marco sat.
For one hour, they tried to behave like normal people.
It went badly.
Salvatore told a childhood story about Vittorio stealing peaches.
Lucia corrected every detail.
Lena revealed that Isabella once threatened to name Sophia “Gertrude” just to frighten Dante.
Sophia looked horrified.
“Why?”
Dante stared at Lena.
“She never told me that.”
“She laughed for ten minutes.”
Sophie asked, “What was my name supposed to be?”
The table went quiet.
Lena looked at her.
“Isabella had two names written down.”
She reached into her old notebook.
“Sophia Isabella.”
Sophia smiled.
“And Sophie?”
Lena’s eyes softened.
“Serafina Grace.”
Sophie blinked.
“Serafina?”
Mei looked at her.
“You like Sophie.”
“I do.”
Dante said, “Then Sophie stays.”
Lucia watched him.
“No argument about family names?”
“No.”
“No Moretti tradition?”
Dante looked at her.
“I’m developing an allergy to tradition.”
Lucia laughed.
Sophie thought.
“Can Serafina be a secret middle name?”
Mei smiled.
“If you want.”
Dante nodded.
“Your choice.”
The words became a theme.
Your choice.
School.
Name.
Clothes.
Whether to see reporters.
Whether to speak in court later.
Whether to spend a weekend at the mansion or Mei’s apartment.
Dante had been raised in a family where choices flowed downward from the oldest man.
He began reversing the direction.
At the end of dinner, Lucia lifted her glass.
“To the collapse of bad traditions.”
Salvatore lifted his.
“To surviving long enough to be embarrassed by them.”
Mei raised hers.
“To children who ask inconvenient questions.”
The twins raised juice glasses.
Dante looked around the table.
For the first time, Moretti power did not sit at the head.
It sat everywhere.
May you like
That frightened him less than he expected.
The next morning, he signed the cooperation agreement that would dismantle half his inherited empire.
