Chapter 3 - Room 317
We arrived at St. Vincent Medical Center before sunrise.
The old hospital had been closed for nearly fifteen years.
Its windows were boarded.
Its signs were covered with rust.
Room 317 was on the third floor.
Marco checked the corridor twice.
“No movement.”
I opened the door.
Inside was a child's room.
A faded bed.
A broken lamp.
A wooden rocking chair.
And a mural of stars painted across the wall.
Lily stepped inside.
“It smells like my mommy's perfume.”
I said nothing.
Then I noticed the wall.
There were names scratched into the paint.
Elena.
Sofia.
Dante.
Maria.
Lily.
My chest tightened.
Someone had been here.
Recently.
I walked toward the rocking chair.
Under the cushion was a cassette tape.
Marco found an old recorder in a cabinet.
I pressed play.
Static crackled.
Then I heard a woman's voice.
My mother's.
“Dante, if this reaches you, you are no longer the little boy I remember.”
I gripped the table.
“Please forgive me.”
Her voice shook.
“I watched you from a distance for years.”
I froze.
“What?”
“I saw what you became. I saw the men around you. I saw the violence. I saw how much pain you carried.”
The recording continued.
“I wanted to come home.”
My eyes burned.
“But every time I tried, Carlo found me.”
Marco cursed under his breath.
My mother continued.
“He told me that if I contacted you, Sofia would die.”
The tape crackled.
“I believed him.”
Then came another voice.
A man's.
Carlo.
“Dante Romano is dangerous.”
The recording changed.
“He must never know Sofia survived.”
My fists clenched.
Then my mother's voice returned.
“But I found a way to protect my children.”
The tape stopped.
Marco looked at me.
“There's more.”
A second tape was hidden under the floorboard.
This one contained a conversation.
Carlo was speaking to someone I did not know.
“The boy escaped.”
“Then find him.”
“He'll come back eventually.”
“And the girl?”
“Sofia is useful.”
“How?”
“She can inherit what the Romanos left behind.”
I stopped the tape.
“What inheritance?”
Marco shook his head.
“I don't know.”
I searched the room.
Behind the mural was a metal safe.
The key from Maria's hospital room opened it.
Inside was a ledger.
Names.
Bank numbers.
Property deeds.
And one photograph.
A woman in her twenties standing beside Carlo Bellini.
On the back:
Sophia Bellini.
My sister had been raised under the Bellini name.
She was alive.
Or had been.
And Maria was not her daughter.
The room suddenly made sense.
Maria Bellini had been protecting Sofia's daughter.
Lily.
But if Sofia was Lily's mother, why had everyone called her Maria?
I checked the documents.
The answer was buried in a legal adoption record.
Sofia Romano had changed her identity.
Sofia Bellini.
Then another document fell out.
A death certificate.
Sophia Bellini.
Dead at twenty-four.
Cause: vehicle accident.
Date: sixteen years ago.
I stared at it.
Sixteen years ago.
That would make Lily eight.
Her mother would have been sixteen when Lily was born.
Impossible.
Unless the dates had been fabricated.
A noise came from the hallway.
We drew our weapons.
A bullet shattered the glass beside my head.
“Down!”
We returned fire.
Three men entered.
Two fell.
One escaped through a stairwell.
Marco chased him.
I stayed with Lily.
She was hiding beneath the bed.
I crouched.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
Then she pointed to the wall.
“Dante.”
“What?”
“There.”
A small symbol had been drawn beneath the mural.
A bird holding a key.
I knew that symbol.
My father used it in his private documents.
It meant inheritance.
I touched the painted mark.
A panel clicked.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was another photograph.
My father.
My mother.
Sofia.
And a fourth person.
A woman I did not recognize.
The photograph was recent.
Taken only three years ago.
On the back:
The guardian.
Find her before the Bellini heir does.
I felt the blood leave my face.
There was a final envelope.
Inside was an address.
A children's shelter on the edge of the city.
And one name.
Claire Moretti.
Marco returned.
“The shooter is dead.”
“Who sent them?”
“Bellini men.”
I handed him the photograph.
“What do you know about Claire Moretti?”
Marco stared.
“Nothing.”
“Then find everything.”
By the next evening, we were outside the shelter.
Claire Moretti was the director.
She was fifty-six, kind-faced, and carried herself like someone who had learned to hide fear.
When she saw Lily, she froze.
“You found her.”
I stepped forward.
“You know my niece?”
Claire's eyes filled with tears.
“You came too late, Dante.”
“Where is Sofia?”
She shook her head.
“Dead.”
I felt something inside me collapse.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“How?”
“She came here to hide Lily.”
“From whom?”
“The Bellinis.”
Claire led us into a small office.
She locked the door.
Then she opened a drawer.
Inside was a second silver pendant.
I stared at it.
“It belonged to Sofia.”
Claire whispered, “Your sister did not die in a car accident.”
“Who killed her?”
“No one.”
I frowned.
“She disappeared by choice.”
“Why?”
“Because she knew someone inside your organization had betrayed you.”
The room became silent.
Claire continued.
“She believed you had become the same kind of monster as the people who destroyed your family.”
I looked at Lily.
Claire lowered her voice.
“Sofia was afraid that if she returned to you, you would bring war to her daughter.”
I clenched my jaw.
“Why did she contact me now?”
“She didn't.”
Claire slid a letter across the desk.
“This was delivered yesterday.”
The letter was addressed to me.
Dante,
I know you've found Lily.
That means the Bellini family has probably found you too.
There is only one person who knows where I am.
Find the traitor inside your house.
Not among the Bellinis.
Inside yours.
I read the last line twice.
The traitor is the man who has protected you the longest.
I looked at Marco.
He was standing still.
Neither of us spoke.
Back at the warehouse, I gathered every senior member of my organization.
There were twelve.
Only five knew about Lily.
One of them had leaked the location.
I looked around the table.
Then I saw him.
Victor Salazar.
My head of security.
The man who had saved my life eight years earlier.
The man who had stood beside me every day since.
He met my eyes.
And for the first time, I saw fear there.
Not surprise.
Fear.
“Victor,” I said.
“Yes, boss?”
“Where were you at four yesterday?”
“At the south docks.”
I placed a photograph on the table.
It showed him entering the hospital where Maria disappeared.
He went pale.
“I can explain.”
“Then explain.”
Victor swallowed.
“I wasn't working for the Bellinis.”
“Who were you working for?”
He looked at Lily.
May you like
Then at me.
“Your sister.”
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