Chapter 6 - The Enemy Inside the HouseNobody spoke.
The laugh came again.
Closer.
Ricardo raised his gun.
“Spread out.”
The guards moved.
Leo clung to me.
I held him against my chest.
Ricardo stared at the hidden wall.
“Come out.”
A voice answered.
“You always were impatient.”
The wall opened.
A man stepped through.
Not Matteo.
Someone older.
Gray-haired.
Wearing an expensive suit.
Ricardo stared at him.
“Vittorio.”
The man's smile was calm.
Vittorio Moretti.
The family's patriarch.
Ricardo's father.
The man everyone believed had died twelve years earlier.
I looked at Ricardo.
“You said your father was dead.”
“He was.”
Vittorio smiled.
“I've been dead to you.”
Ricardo pointed his gun.
“You killed Sofia.”
“I saved this family.”
“You tried to kill my son.”
“No.”
Vittorio looked at Leo.
“I tried to retrieve my grandson.”
Leo screamed.
I pulled him closer.
Vittorio’s eyes moved to me.
“And you…”
He smiled.
“You're the one Sofia was protecting.”
Ricardo stepped between us.
“Stay away from her.”
Vittorio laughed.
“Still protecting people who betray you.”
“What did Sofia do?”
“She stole something.”
“What?”
“The ledger.”
Ricardo's eyes narrowed.
“What ledger?”
“The original one.”
Vittorio gestured around the room.
“Everything you have seen was a copy.”
He walked toward a safe.
“The real ledger contains every secret the Moretti family buried for thirty years.”
He opened it.
Empty.
His smile vanished.
“Where is it?”
No one answered.
Vittorio looked at Leo.
Then at me.
“You don't know, do you?”
I shook my head.
He laughed.
“Sofia gave it to you.”
“I've never seen it.”
“She hid it in something you carried for years.”
My mind raced.
The silver ring.
The wooden box.
The key.
I suddenly remembered my father.
After Sofia disappeared, he had given me the ring.
He told me never to remove it.
I looked down at my hand.
The ring was still there.
Vittorio stared.
“There.”
Ricardo saw it too.
“Take it off.”
I pulled.
It wouldn't move.
I tried harder.
Nothing.
Vittorio's eyes widened.
“Of course.”
“What?”
He pointed.
“It's a key.”
He lunged.
Ricardo tackled him.
Gunfire erupted.
Guards fired toward the ceiling.
Someone screamed.
The lights went out.
I grabbed Leo.
We ran.
A hidden staircase led upward.
Ricardo followed.
“Keep moving!”
We burst into the alley behind the restaurant.
Rain poured down.
Leo was shaking.
I looked at the ring.
“There has to be a way to open it.”
Ricardo grabbed my wrist.
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“My house.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You're already involved.”
“You think?”
He stared at me.
Then said something so quietly I almost missed it.
“I need to protect my daughter.”
I froze.
“My daughter?”
Ricardo looked at me.
“Yes.”
For one second, the world stopped.
Then a car screeched around the corner.
Bullets tore through the brick wall.
Ricardo dragged me down.
The shooters sped away.
One of his men ran toward us.
“Boss!”
“What?”
He held up an envelope.
“It was inside the car they abandoned.”
Ricardo opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Me.
Standing beside my mother.
And written on the back:
You have one sister left.
I stared at Ricardo.
“I thought I was the twin.”
He looked at the photograph.
“You are.”
“Then who is my sister?”
Ricardo turned the photograph over again.
A name was written beneath the message.
ELENA MORETTI.
The woman who looked exactly like me.
And suddenly I understood.
May you like
There weren't two sisters.
There were three.
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