Chapter 3 - I stared at the photograph until the faces blurred.My father.
Richard Moretti.
And Victor Cole.
Two men smiling beside a black limousine.
The date on the photograph was twenty-three years old.
I had never seen it.
My father had never mentioned Victor Cole.
Not once.
“What kind of partners?” I asked.
Nico didn't answer immediately.
He looked toward Gabriel.
Gabriel closed his laptop.
“That's what we're trying to determine.”
Adrian was still being held by security.
His face had changed from anger to confusion.
“My father never worked with your family.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Your father worked with everyone.”
Adrian shook his head.
“My father was a businessman.”
Matteo smiled without humor.
“So was ours.”
I turned to Nico.
“Take me home.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“You're coming with us.”
Adrian moved again.
“Elena, wait.”
I stopped.
He stared at me.
“You knew all this?”
“No.”
“Then why did you hide the trust?”
“Because I wanted a marriage, not an acquisition.”
His mouth tightened.
“I loved you.”
That almost made me laugh.
“You loved the version of me you thought was poor.”
His face fell.
I walked away.
Outside, the night air hit my face.
I expected relief.
Instead, I felt something worse.
Uncertainty.
Because my marriage wasn't the biggest secret anymore.
My family had spent decades hiding something from me.
And I was starting to suspect that secret had something to do with why Adrian had married me.
Twenty minutes later, I sat in the back of Dominic's SUV.
Nico sat opposite me.
Gabriel was beside him, scrolling through files.
“Tell me everything.”
Nico handed me a folder.
Inside were copies of old contracts.
Most were incomplete.
Some had signatures.
Some had names blacked out.
At the top of one page was a company name.
Moretti-Coles Holdings.
My throat tightened.
“This existed?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Twenty years ago.”
“What happened?”
“The company collapsed.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Officially, financial misconduct.”
“And unofficially?”
Nico answered.
“Someone stole thirty-eight million dollars.”
I stared at him.
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
A strange feeling crept over me.
“Was my father accused?”
“No.”
“Victor Cole?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Nico placed another document in front of me.
The final line contained one name.
Unknown beneficiary: E.M.
I stared at the initials.
“Elena Moretti.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Too early. You were six.”
Silence filled the SUV.
“Then who is E.M.?”
No one answered.
When we reached the Moretti estate, I expected my mother to be waiting.
She was.
She stood at the front entrance in a dark blue robe, her face pale.
The moment she saw the folder in my hand, she knew.
“Who told you?”
I stopped.
“You knew.”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“All your life.”
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
“Why?”
She looked at my brothers.
Dominic lowered his gaze.
Even he knew.
My voice cracked.
“What was my father doing with Victor Cole?”
My mother hesitated.
Then she said,
“They built something together.”
“What?”
“A private investment network.”
Gabriel frowned.
“That isn't what the records say.”
My mother looked at him.
“Because the real records were destroyed.”
Nico stepped closer.
“By whom?”
She whispered,
“Your father.”
I stared at her.
“Why would he destroy his own records?”
“Because someone inside the company was selling information.”
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
My mother looked directly at me.
“We thought it was Victor.”
I felt a cold pressure in my chest.
“And then?”
“Your father was killed before he could prove it.”
Silence.
I had always believed my father's death was an accident.
A car crash.
A wet road.
A terrible night.
Nothing more.
“You told me it was an accident.”
My mother began to cry.
“It was the story we gave everyone.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever caused it never stopped.”
The room became silent.
I whispered,
“You knew someone was still watching us.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you let me marry Adrian?”
My mother froze.
“I didn't know it was him.”
That sentence struck harder than any lash.
Adrian.
I had married into the same family my father once worked with.
My mother sank into a chair.
“We hoped the old conflict was buried.”
Nico looked at his phone.
“It's not.”
“What?”
He showed me a message.
Unknown number.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET THE COLES KEEP THEIR SECRETS.
My stomach turned.
Dominic took the phone.
“Track it.”
Nico was already moving.
Then another message arrived.
This one contained a photograph.
A photograph of me leaving the Cole estate twenty minutes earlier.
Taken from across the street.
I felt every hair on my arms rise.
Someone had been watching.
Not tonight.
For longer.
Gabriel looked at the image.
“When was this taken?”
“Exactly twenty-one minutes ago.”
Dominic's face hardened.
“So they knew she would leave.”
Matteo stepped toward the windows.
Security staff were already checking the grounds.
I whispered,
“Who are they?”
No one answered.
Then Nico's phone rang.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“Found something.”
“What?”
He looked at me.
“The vehicle in the photograph.”
“Whose is it?”
He hesitated.
“Adrian's.”
My heart sank.
“What?”
Nico turned the screen.
The license plate belonged to a black sedan registered under one of Adrian's private companies.
I stared.
“But Adrian was inside the estate.”
Nico nodded.
“Exactly.”
I felt cold.
“So someone has access to his vehicles.”
“Or,” Dominic said quietly, “Adrian has another driver.”
My mind raced.
Then the front security alarm went off.
Every light on the estate switched to red.
Someone had breached the outer perimeter.
Dominic turned toward the doors.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I’m done being told to stay somewhere.”
For the first time that night, Dominic almost smiled.
Then the security feed appeared on the wall.
A figure was walking across the garden.
Slowly.
Toward the house.
Nico zoomed in.
The face became visible.
I stopped breathing.
I knew that man.
He had stood beside my father in the photograph.
May you like
But according to my mother...
He had died twenty years ago.
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