Chapter 3 - Matteo stared at the photograph until his eyes burned.A second baby.
Sofia had been holding two children.
Yet only Elena had grown up.
Luca zoomed the photograph.
“Can you recognize the hospital?”
Matteo nodded slowly.
“Santa Lucia.”
“Wasn't that where Marco was treated after the explosion?”
“Yes.”
“And Elena was born there?”
“No.”
Luca looked confused.
Matteo's voice dropped.
“She wasn't born there.”
He remembered now.
Elena's birth certificate said October 17, 1999.
But the hospital on the photograph was dated October 18.
One day after her birth.
Why had Sofia been there?
And why was Matteo standing beside her?
He studied his younger face in the picture.
He remembered that day.
Or at least he thought he did.
The problem was that for twenty-seven years, several months of his memories had been fractured by pain medication, violence, and grief.
He had always assumed the gaps were trauma.
Maybe they weren't.
A sound came from the darkness.
Matteo raised his gun.
“Come out.”
A slow clap echoed.
A man stepped from behind a concrete column.
Older.
Thin.
Wearing a gray suit.
Matteo recognized him immediately.
“Father Bellini.”
The old priest smiled.
“Matteo.”
“You're dead.”
Father Bellini laughed quietly.
“Apparently everyone is.”
Matteo lowered his weapon slightly.
“You know where Elena is.”
“I know where everyone is.”
“Then start talking.”
The priest looked toward the photograph.
“You finally saw it.”
“You knew about the second child.”
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
The priest hesitated.
“Her name was Isabella.”
Matteo's breathing changed.
“Where is she?”
Father Bellini looked at him.
“Closer than you think.”
A gunshot ripped through the depot.
The priest collapsed.
Matteo caught him.
Blood spread across the white collar.
“Who shot you?”
Father Bellini gripped Matteo's coat.
“She is not the one they told you she was.”
“Who?”
“Your daughter.”
The priest died.
Matteo slowly stood.
Luca stared toward the rooftop.
“Sniper.”
Matteo looked back at the photograph.
Your daughter.
Which one?
His phone buzzed.
A new photograph.
Elena tied to a chair.
Next to her sat Sofia.
But both women were looking directly into the camera.
A message appeared.
YOU HAVE THREE HOURS.
Then another.
BRING THE TRUTH.
Matteo slammed the phone onto the table.
“What truth?” Luca asked.
Matteo looked at the old photograph again.
“I don't know.”
“Then find out.”
Matteo drove directly to his private archive.
Bellavita was not his real headquarters.
Everyone in his organization knew that.
The restaurant was simply the mask.
His actual records were stored beneath an old villa outside Naples.
Paper files.
Hospital records.
Financial ledgers.
Blackmail material.
Birth certificates.
Names of people who had died.
Names of people who were supposed to be dead.
Matteo entered the archive alone.
He found Sofia Marino.
There were eleven files.
The first documented her employment.
The second her disappearance.
The third involved a man named Marco Bellini.
The fourth was sealed.
Matteo broke the seal.
Inside was one document.
A DNA report.
He read the first line.
Then the second.
Then the third.
His hand began shaking.
The test compared Matteo De Luca to Elena Marino.
Probability of biological relationship:
99.9987%.
He sat down.
“So she is mine.”
A voice spoke from the doorway.
“Yes.”
Matteo turned.
Sofia stood there.
He raised his gun.
“You have ten seconds.”
Sofia didn't move.
“You have always been impatient.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe Marco was dead.”
“Yes.”
“You took my daughter.”
Sofia's eyes filled with tears.
“I did not take your daughter.”
“You vanished.”
“I was protecting her.”
“From whom?”
Sofia looked directly at him.
“From you.”
Matteo stared.
“Why?”
“Because twenty-seven years ago, you ordered Marco killed.”
Matteo's face went still.
“I never ordered that.”
Sofia shook her head.
“You don't remember.”
“I remember everything.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“You remember what they allowed you to remember.”
Matteo's gun lowered by an inch.
Sofia whispered.
“On October 17, 1999, Elena was born.”
“Yes.”
“You held her.”
“Yes.”
“You cried.”
“I know.”
“You promised you would protect her.”
Matteo's eyes narrowed.
“What happened?”
Sofia swallowed.
“Three hours later, your father arrived.”
Matteo froze.
“My father was dead by then.”
“He wasn't.”
Silence filled the archive.
Sofia continued.
“He told you the child was not yours.”
Matteo slowly shook his head.
“I would remember that.”
“You don't.”
“Why not?”
Sofia reached into her coat.
She pulled out an old cassette tape.
Then she placed it on the table.
“You asked me once why you could not remember the last night you saw Marco.”
Matteo stared at her.
“Because someone drugged you.”
Sofia whispered.
“Your father.”
Matteo's expression changed.
“And the second baby?”
Sofia's face crumbled.
“That was Isabella.”
“Where is she?”
Sofia looked at him.
“She died.”
Matteo exhaled.
For one second, everything seemed to make sense.
Then Sofia said:
“No.”
Matteo looked up.
“She didn't.”
His blood went cold.
“She is alive.”
The archive lights suddenly went out.
A gunshot exploded somewhere in the darkness.
When emergency power returned, Sofia was gone.
May you like
So was the DNA report.
And on the table lay a single black stone ring.
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