Chapter 3 - The Second WomanThe photograph that should not existThe photograph was old.
Yellowed at the edges.
Elena was visibly pregnant.
My father stood beside her.
And beside him was another woman who looked exactly like her.
I stared at the picture.
“Who is she?”
Sloane folded her arms.
“You've never heard the name Isabella Vale?”
I shook my head.
“She was Elena's twin.”
Marco looked away.
I turned on him.
“You knew.”
“I knew about the family.”
Sloane smiled faintly.
“Elena wasn't the woman your father feared.”
I looked back at her.
“She was.”
“No.”
Sloane leaned forward.
“Isabella was.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did she do?”
“She stole from the Morettis.”
“That's it?”
“No.”
She lowered her voice.
“She stole something worth more than money.”
“What?”
“The Black Ledger.”
Every muscle in my body went still.
The Black Ledger wasn't supposed to exist.
At least not anymore.
It supposedly contained names, accounts, offshore holdings, political favors, judges, police officers, and every secret the Moretti family had collected over three generations.
My father had spent years denying it existed.
Sloane continued.
“Isabella took it six years ago.”
“Then where is it?”
She looked at the folder.
“That's what Elena knows.”
I stared at her.
“You expect me to believe Elena spent six years hiding because of a ledger?”
“No.”
Sloane's eyes hardened.
“She hid because someone wanted the boys.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
My chest tightened.
“That's impossible.”
“Your father believed the ledger had been copied.”
“By whom?”
Sloane didn't answer.
Marco did.
“By Elena.”
The room fell silent.
I looked at him.
“You said the boys weren't supposed to survive.”
“They weren't.”
“And Elena?”
He lowered his voice.
“She wasn't supposed to survive either.”
I stepped toward him.
“Why?”
“Because she saw the list.”
“What list?”
Marco's face turned pale.
“The names of everyone your father planned to eliminate.”
I felt the room tilt.
Sloane slid another photograph across the table.
This one showed a hospital hallway.
Six years earlier.
Elena was being wheeled toward an operating room.
A man stood beside her.
I recognized him.
My father's chief enforcer.
He had died three years ago.
Or so I'd been told.
“That's impossible.”
Sloane smiled.
“Everything you've been told about six years ago is impossible.”
My phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
COME TO THE OLD MORETTI MANSION.
COME ALONE.
A second message arrived.
BRING THE RING.
I looked at my engagement ring.
Then at Sloane.
“You've been playing me.”
“I've been protecting you.”
“From what?”
“Your family.”
She came closer.
“You think I'm the villain because I'm standing between you and Elena.”
“You are.”
Her expression changed.
For the first time, fear appeared in her eyes.
“No, Dominic.”
She whispered.
“I'm the reason you're still alive.”
Before I could respond, the lights went out.
Marco shouted.
Gunfire erupted.
I fired toward the muzzle flashes.
When the emergency lights returned, Marco was on the floor.
Sloane was gone.
And the folder was missing.
But the engagement ring was still in my hand.
Except it wasn't my ring.
Someone had switched it.
The ring I was holding had a tiny engraving inside.
Four initials.
L.
N.
M.
A.
The names of my four sons.
I turned the ring over.
There was another message engraved beneath them.
FIND THE FIFTH.
My blood ran cold.
Four boys.
One missing child.
And suddenly I remembered Elena's face in the bathroom.
May you like
She hadn't looked terrified when she saw me.
She had looked guilty.
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