Chapter 9 - The Man at the Head of the TableMiguel's confession fractured the little remaining trust I had in the world.
Our daughter's godfather was Dominic Rourke.
He had attended Miguel's funeral.
He had carried flowers to our apartment.
He had knelt beside Sophie when she was two and promised to protect her if anything ever happened to her father.
Now I understood why he had known about the funeral.
Why he had known about the job.
Why he had access to our cottage.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
Miguel sat on the edge of the cot.
“Rourke worked with Victor for years. He managed security, transport, and private communications. I discovered that they were using the Moretti accounts to move money through shell companies. Some of those transfers were connected to stolen identities and people who had disappeared.”
“People?”
“Witnesses. Informants. Anyone who knew too much.”
Dante's expression darkened.
“My father built an organization that relied on loyalty. Victor learned to use that loyalty as a weapon.”
Miguel nodded.
“I copied the records and planned to meet Dante privately. Rourke intercepted the message. He told Victor I was preparing to expose them.”
“And the bakery?” I asked.
“They knew I would be there. I escaped through the back alley, but someone else was caught in the attack. A man whose identity had been stolen. They used his body to make everyone believe I was dead.”
I stared at him.
“You let me bury an innocent man.”
Miguel looked down.
“I didn't know until later.”
“And when you did?”
He closed his eyes.
“I wanted to come home. Every day, I wanted to come home.”
“But you didn't.”
“No.”
The single word was unbearable.
“Why?”
“Victor had people watching you. I thought if I stayed away, he would eventually stop searching. Then Rourke found out you were working for Dante, and I learned the estate had a network of passages no one had fully mapped.”
“So you started entering my daughter's bedroom?”
Miguel flinched.
“I never wanted to frighten her.”
“You climbed through our window!”
“I know.”
“You stood over her while she slept!”
“I know, Isabel.”
“Stop saying that!”
My voice echoed through the chamber.
Miguel lowered his head.
“I was trying to see if she still had the star. I couldn't approach you without revealing myself. Elias offered to help me recover it, but Rourke discovered the route. That's when we started using the tunnels.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“You used our daughter as a hiding place for evidence?”
“The pendant contains a key to the encrypted records. It doesn't contain the records themselves. I hid the original files somewhere else.”
“Where?”
He looked toward Dante.
“Inside the Moretti estate.”
Dante folded his arms.
“Of course.”
Miguel explained that the six tunnel entrances formed a network around the estate and Blackthorn House. The passages had been built decades earlier, originally for servants and emergency escape. Victor and Rourke had repurposed them to move people and documents without triggering the estate's security systems.
Their final objective was the anniversary dinner.
Every year on October 14, influential business associates gathered at the Moretti mansion. Tonight, Victor intended to seize the remaining evidence, remove Dante from power, and use the confusion of the gathering to eliminate anyone who could testify against him.
“Why tonight?” I asked.
“Because tomorrow morning, several offshore accounts will automatically release their transaction histories to investigators. Victor has been trying to erase the records before then.”
Dante checked his watch.
“Then we have less than an hour.”
Miguel looked at me.
“I need your help.”
I laughed without humor.
“You need my help?”
“I know I have no right to ask.”
“You're correct.”
“But Sophie is in danger. And Victor won't stop until he finds the key.”
“You had three years to protect her. You don't get to walk back into my life because your plan has gone wrong.”
He accepted that, too.
Then he reached into his coat and placed a small photograph on the desk.
It showed Sophie at the age of two, sitting on my lap in our old apartment.
On the back, Miguel had written a single sentence.
I chose the lie because I thought it would keep you alive. I never understood that the lie was killing you anyway.
I stared at the words.
Then I folded the photograph and slipped it into my pocket.
“I'm not helping you because I forgive you.”
“I understand.”
“I'm helping because no one will touch my daughter again.”
Dante opened the chamber door.
“Then we'd better move.”
A sudden vibration came from his phone.
A message appeared on the screen.
It was a photograph of Sophie sitting alone in the Moretti mansion's ballroom.
Bruno was nowhere to be seen.
May you like
Underneath it were four words.
WE HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER.
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