Chapter 3 - The Daughter Everyone BuriedThe mansion erupted.
Guards rushed through the hallway.
Doors slammed.
Shouts echoed from the west wing.
Dominic pushed Norah behind a stone column.
“Stay here.”
“I'm a nurse.”
“I don't care.”
He disappeared around the corner.
Norah heard two gunshots.
Then silence.
She hated silence.
Silence inside the Moretti house never meant safety.
It meant someone was waiting.
Elena stumbled into the room.
Blood covered one sleeve.
Norah ran toward her.
“You're hurt.”
“Not mine.”
Elena pointed toward the kitchen.
“Frank.”
Norah froze.
The old guard lay near the doorway.
Alive.
Barely.
A bullet had grazed his shoulder.
Dominic came in seconds later.
“Lock the mansion.”
“Already done,” Elena said.
Dominic looked at Norah.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He looked relieved for half a second.
Then his expression closed again.
“Good.”
Norah turned to Salvatore.
The old man was still pointing toward the wooden box.
“You wanted me to know.”
Salvatore nodded.
“You knew who I was.”
Another nod.
“Did you know my grandmother?”
His lips moved.
“Rosa.”
Norah swallowed.
“Did she leave me with you?”
Salvatore shook his head.
Dominic looked at his father.
“Why did you tell me she died?”
Salvatore struggled for the words.
“Victor.”
The room went silent.
Dominic's face became unreadable.
“Victor told me Rosa betrayed us.”
Salvatore nodded.
“He said she stole money.”
Another nod.
“He said she took my daughter.”
Salvatore's eyes closed.
Norah felt something inside her collapse.
“My mother.”
Salvatore opened his eyes.
“Dead.”
Norah stared.
“What?”
Salvatore looked toward Dominic.
Then back at Norah.
“Your mother…”
His breath broke.
“Dead.”
Dominic's voice was low.
“When?”
Salvatore tried again.
“Night.”
“What night?”
“Bridge.”
Dominic went rigid.
“The Blackwater Bridge.”
Norah looked between them.
“What happened there?”
Dominic stared at the floor.
“My daughter was reported dead twenty-six years ago.”
He looked at Norah.
“Rosa vanished the same night.”
Norah's hands trembled.
“You were there?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because I was told.”
“By Victor.”
“Yes.”
Norah stepped toward him.
“And you believed him?”
Dominic didn't answer.
She understood.
A man who had spent his life controlling people had allowed one person to control him.
That might have been the real secret.
Suddenly Salvatore made a harsh sound.
He pointed toward Norah's pendant.
Dominic looked at it.
Then at her face.
“There was something else.”
“What?”
“Your name.”
“My name is Norah.”
“The name Rosa gave you.”
Norah's heartbeat accelerated.
Salvatore forced the word out.
“Nora.”
She stared.
Not Norah.
Nora.
A small difference.
A deliberate one.
Dominic suddenly remembered something.
“Your grandmother called you Nora?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“I thought it was a nickname.”
Dominic sat down.
He looked genuinely shaken.
“My mother's favorite name was Elena.”
Norah frowned.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Dominic reached inside his jacket.
Pulled out his phone.
He opened a photograph.
A little girl stood beside a Christmas tree.
Maybe five years old.
Dark hair.
Pale skin.
Silver pendant.
Norah stared.
“That’s me.”
Dominic's eyes filled with something she had never seen there before.
Pain.
“You were three in this picture.”
Norah shook her head.
“My grandmother said I was five.”
“She lied.”
“Why?”
“To hide your age.”
Dominic enlarged the image.
In the background stood Rosa.
Older.
Tired.
Alive.
Norah's breath stopped.
“That photograph was taken where?”
Dominic whispered.
“In this house.”
Her stomach tightened.
“No.”
“My mother brought you here.”
“When?”
“Twenty-six years ago.”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
Norah took a step back.
“You're saying I was inside this mansion?”
Dominic nodded.
“For one night.”
“What happened?”
His voice became almost inaudible.
“An order was given to kill everyone in the west wing.”
Norah stared.
“Who gave it?”
Dominic looked at Salvatore.
Salvatore looked away.
Norah understood.
Her grandfather had ordered it.
But before she could speak, Dominic said something that changed everything.
“My father didn't order the massacre.”
Norah stared at him.
“Then who did?”
Dominic looked toward the locked western corridor.
“Victor.”
A phone rang.
All three turned.
It was coming from inside the wooden box.
Dominic opened it.
There was a second phone hidden beneath the letters.
An old one.
The screen showed one word.
CALLING.
Dominic answered.
For three seconds, nobody spoke.
Then a woman's voice came through.
Weak.
Older.
But unmistakable.
“Dominic?”
He stopped breathing.
Norah heard the whisper.
“Rosa?”
The woman on the phone began to cry.
Then she said:
May you like
“Your daughter is in danger.”
The call ended.
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