Chapter 14 - The Real TraitorVictor explained.
He had been working for Antonio.
Then for Marina.
Then for Luca.
Then, eventually, for himself.
He had manipulated the family for years.
He knew about the hidden room.
He knew about Gabriel.
He knew about Lily.
But he had underestimated one thing.
A three-year-old girl who remembered faces better than adults.
Victor had used the cake as bait.
The false timer.
The decoy device.
The blackout.
Every detail was designed to force the Moretti family to accuse itself.
Because fear made people reveal secrets.
Alessandro stared at him.
“Who ordered the attack?”
Victor smiled.
“That's the wrong question.”
“Then what is the right one?”
“Who benefits?”
Alessandro looked at Lily.
Victor nodded.
“Exactly.”
The child was the key.
Not because she was an heir.
Because she had something hidden inside her memory.
A sentence she had heard years earlier.
A sentence that could reveal where Antonio had hidden the ledger.
Victor had spent years searching.
But the child had unknowingly memorized the location.
Alessandro asked:
“What did my father tell her?”
Victor's smile disappeared.
“He told her a nursery rhyme.”
Lily began humming.
A simple melody.
Sophia gasped.
She recognized it.
Daniel used to sing it.
The rhyme contained directions.
A room.
A clock.
A painting.
A secret compartment.
Alessandro suddenly realized.
The old family library.
The grandfather clock.
He ran.
Everyone followed.
Behind the clock was a compartment.
Inside was a ledger.
Old.
Black.
Heavy.
Alessandro opened it.
Names filled the pages.
Judges.
Police officers.
Politicians.
Businessmen.
And one name appeared hundreds of times.
Luca Moretti.
Alessandro looked up.
“Luca was working with Father.”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
“Then what?”
Victor's smile returned.
“Luca was working against him.”
Alessandro turned another page.
A photograph fell out.
It showed Luca as a teenager.
Standing beside Daniel Romano.
And beside them was a young woman.
Sophia.
Alessandro looked at her.
She began to cry.
“There is something I never told you.”
The room went quiet.
“I knew your real mother.”
Alessandro stepped closer.
“Who was she?”
Sophia whispered:
“Her name was Isabella.”
Then Victor laughed.
“That's impossible.”
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“Why?”
“Because Isabella Moretti is alive.”
