Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
For seven years, I had believed my brother was buried beneath a marble headstone in a cemetery outside Milwaukee.
I had visited that grave every Christmas.
I had brought flowers.
I had told him about my wedding, my pregnancy, and the four babies I hoped he somehow knew about.
Now Luca stood in front of me, alive.
“Get in the vehicle,” he said.
I shook my head.
“No. You don't get to do this.”
“Sophia—”
“You don't get to come back from the dead and start giving me orders.”
Emma placed a hand on my shoulder.
“We have to move. The babies are ready.”
Luca glanced toward the hospital entrance.
“Then we'll talk on the way.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I let Emma help me into the medical transport vehicle.
The four incubators were secured in separate positions, each with a neonatal specialist monitoring the baby inside.
Luca followed in another vehicle with our attorney, Rebecca Sloan.
The transfer was quiet, documented, and medically supervised.
For once, no Moretti guards controlled the doors.
By dawn, we reached a private neonatal center near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
The facility was operated by a nonprofit medical organization with no financial connection to the Morettis.
Emma had arranged the admission weeks earlier.
I didn't understand how she'd managed it.
I understood even less when Luca walked into my room an hour later.
“Start talking,” I demanded.
He sat beside the bed.
“You remember the warehouse fire?”
Of course I remembered.
Seven years earlier, Luca had supposedly died when a warehouse belonging to our father's shipping company exploded.
Our parents had already passed away.
Luca was the last family I had.
Or so I'd thought.
“The fire was staged,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I found evidence that our father's company was being used to move illegal shipments.”
I stared at him.
“Our father?”
“He wasn't involved. Someone used his business after he died.”
“Who?”
Luca hesitated.
“The Morettis.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“No.”
“Not Dante. His father, Vittorio.”
Vittorio Moretti had died two years before my wedding.
Dante spoke of him with complicated admiration.
He called him ruthless but brilliant.
Luca continued.
“I discovered financial records connecting Vittorio's operations to a group of corrupt officials. I was going to give them to federal investigators.”
“And someone tried to kill you.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me you were alive?”
“Because the people hunting me knew you were my weakness.”
I stared at him for a long time.
Then I slapped him.
Not hard.
I was too weak.
But enough to make him stop talking.
“You let me bury you.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
“You let me marry into that family.”
“I tried to warn you.”
“How?”
“Anonymous letters. Calls. Messages that never reached you.”
A terrible memory surfaced.
During my engagement, Dante's security team had intercepted several threatening letters addressed to me.
Dante told me they came from enemies trying to frighten me away.
I had believed him.
“Did Dante know?” I whispered.
“I don't know.”
That answer hurt more than I expected.
Luca reached into his coat and removed a photograph.
It showed Vittorio Moretti standing beside a younger man.
I recognized the man immediately.
Carlo Moretti.
Dante's uncle.
The smiling, silver-haired family patriarch who had kissed my forehead at our wedding and called me his favorite daughter.
Luca tapped the photograph.
“Carlo helped arrange the warehouse fire.”
My throat tightened.
“And now?”
“Now he's trying to take your children.”
“Why?”
Luca's expression darkened.
“Because those four babies aren't just Dante's heirs.”
I waited.
“They're the legal beneficiaries of a trust your father created before he died.”
I blinked.
“What trust?”
“A trust tied to land and shipping assets worth almost four hundred million dollars.”
I couldn't speak.
“Your father placed it in a protected structure for his future grandchildren. You were never told because the records were sealed during the investigation into the company.”
“And Carlo knows?”
“He knows enough to want control.”
I looked through the nursery window at my four sleeping babies.
Grace.
Oliver.
Benjamin.
Lily.
I had thought Dante wanted them because they were Morettis.
But someone wanted them because they were Romanos.
My phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
I answered before Emma could stop me.
Dante's voice filled the room.
“Sophia.”
I gripped the phone.
“Dante.”
“Where are my children?”
“Safe.”
His breathing changed.
“Tell me where they are.”
“No.”
“Sophia, you have no idea what you've done.”
“I know exactly what I've done. I protected them.”
“From me?”
I looked at Luca.
“Maybe.”
There was a long silence.
Then Dante spoke so quietly I almost missed it.
“Listen to me carefully. Don't trust my uncle.”
My blood turned cold.
“Why?”
“Because I just found out he ordered a car to intercept the babies' transfer.”
I stared at the phone.
May you like
Dante continued.
“And Isabella is missing.”
