Chapter 4 - The Son Our Family Erased
Marco Moretti was fourteen years older than me.
That alone made the story impossible.
My uncle Vittorio had never married. The family story was that he had spent his life serving my father and preserving the Moretti empire.
Sacrifice.
Duty.
Loyalty.
All the words men like us use when the truth would sound uglier.
Valentina knew because our mother told her during the final months of her illness.
Why she told Valentina instead of me was obvious.
She knew what I did with threatening information.
I acted.
Marco had been born to a woman named Elena Marchesi when Vittorio was twenty-one. Vittorio’s father—my grandfather—considered Elena unsuitable and arranged money for her to disappear.
Vittorio never acknowledged the child publicly.
“What happened to Marco?” I asked.
Valentina stared at the fireplace.
“He came back.”
“When?”
“Twenty-five years ago.”
I would have been seventeen.
“He wanted recognition. Money. Maybe revenge.”
“And?”
“He disappeared again.”
No body.
No police report.
No family discussion.
“Chiara found him?”
“Records of him.”
Valentina explained that Chiara’s financial investigation uncovered a property outside Milwaukee transferred to a company under Marco Marchesi’s name.
Annual payments continued for nearly twenty years.
Then stopped abruptly.
Three months before my father died.
“Why does that matter?”
“I don't know.”
Giulia answered quietly:
“My mother said Chiara believed Marco knew something about Salvatore.”
My father.
Everything kept circling him.
Detective Collins dug into public records.
Marco Marchesi had not disappeared completely.
A man matching his age and identifiers had been arrested in Nevada twelve years earlier under another surname.
Charges dismissed.
Later address in New Mexico.
Then nothing.
Luca’s note—ASK ABOUT MARCO—suggested he knew more.
The question was why he ran instead of telling me.
We got the answer that afternoon.
Luca called Detective Collins.
Not me.
Smart.
He offered to surrender at a police station outside Indianapolis.
I wanted to go.
Collins said no.
We argued.
She won because she had legal authority and no fear of disappointing me.
Luca returned to Chicago that night under protective custody.
His first words to me during the supervised interview were:
“I didn't kill Chiara.”
I stared through the table.
“Interesting opening.”
“I know what you think.”
“You ran.”
“Because Vittorio knows the first tape surfaced.”
“How?”
“He has someone inside your estate.”
My pulse slowed.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Then you're useless.”
“Dante.”
Collins warned me with one look.
I leaned back.
“Talk.”
Luca had worked for Vittorio before he worked for me.
Not unusual.
Half the older people around me had.
But eight years earlier, Vittorio ordered him to follow Chiara.
“Why?”
“He said she was meeting federal people.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
“Then why keep following?”
“Because I was afraid of him.”
I almost laughed.
Everyone was afraid.
Fear had apparently built my family more effectively than concrete.
Luca followed Chiara to Teresa’s apartment and later to the conservatory.
The photograph proved it.
“Did you tell Vittorio?”
“Yes.”
My fist tightened.
“But not immediately.”
“Why?”
“I heard Chiara talking to Teresa.”
“What did she say?”
“That if Dante learned the truth about his father, he'd destroy the family and himself.”
I stared.
“Which truth?”
Luca breathed slowly.
“Salvatore didn't die because Vittorio wanted control.”
“What?”
“That’s what Chiara first believed.”
“What actually happened?”
“Marco sabotaged the boat.”
Silence.
Valentina covered her mouth.
My father had been killed by Vittorio’s hidden son.
“Why?”
“Revenge.”
Luca continued.
“Marco believed Salvatore helped your grandfather force his mother away. Years later Salvatore discovered Marco was extorting Vittorio and threatened him.”
“So Marco killed him.”
“Yes.”
“And Vittorio covered it up.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because admitting the truth meant admitting Marco existed.”
I laughed bitterly.
Pride.
Always pride.
“But why kill Chiara?”
Luca looked down.
“She found Marco.”
My breathing stopped.
“Alive?”
“At the time.”
“Where?”
“Wisconsin.”
“Did she meet him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he tell her?”
“That Vittorio had paid him to disappear after Salvatore’s death.”
“And?”
“That Vittorio had later decided Marco was too dangerous to keep alive.”
I stared.
“Did he kill his own son?”
Luca’s expression answered.
“Marco disappeared six weeks after meeting Chiara.”
God.
“Chiara recorded Vittorio admitting it?”
“Yes.”
“The second tape.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why leave the note?”
“Because Vittorio knows somebody moved it.”
“Who?”
Luca looked toward Giulia.
“Teresa.”
Giulia went pale.
“My mother?”
“After Chiara died, Teresa found the original hiding place compromised. She moved the second cassette.”
“To where?”
“She told me only that it would remain near ‘the first song.’”
The conservatory.
But the locker was empty.
“Someone got there before us.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I think Vittorio.”
I stood.
“If he has the tape, why threaten us?”
“Because he doesn't.”
That stopped me.
“How do you know?”
“He called me yesterday.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked where Teresa’s daughter was living.”
Giulia moved closer to Mia.
My stomach turned.
“Why?”
“Because he believes Teresa passed the tape to Giulia.”
Giulia shook her head.
“I don't have it.”
“I believe you.”
“Vittorio doesn't.”
Collins leaned forward.
“Why run, Luca?”
“Because Vittorio ordered me to bring Giulia and the child to him.”
The room went silent.
My hands curled.
“You were going to?”
“No.”
“That’s why you left?”
“I wanted him to believe I was following orders while I found a way to get them somewhere safe.”
“You could have told me.”
Luca looked at me sadly.
“Eight years ago, would you have listened before killing him?”
I could not answer.
“Yesterday?”
Still silence.
“Exactly.”
The truth was humiliating.
Everyone who loved me feared my reaction more than they trusted my judgment.
Chiara.
Valentina.
Luca.
Maybe even Giulia.
My power had trained people to hide truths from me.
I sat again.
“Where is Vittorio now?”
“His lake property.”
Collins interrupted.
“Nobody goes anywhere. We build a case.”
Old Dante wanted to reject that.
New Dante was still mostly theoretical.
Then Mia tugged Giulia’s sleeve.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I know the song.”
We all looked at her.
“What song?”
“The lady song.”
“What lady?”
Mia pointed toward the ballroom.
“The piano lady.”
My heart stopped.
Giulia crouched.
“Mia, what do you mean?”
“When I found tape, music box played.”
“There is no music box beneath the piano,” I said.
Mia shook her head.
“Tiny one.”
She hummed four notes.
I knew them instantly.
Chiara’s first composition.
A simple melody she wrote at seventeen.
First Light.
The first song.
I ran to the ballroom.
Not to the piano.
To the framed sheet music hanging beside it.
Chiara’s handwritten original of First Light had remained on that wall for twelve years.
I removed the frame.
Behind the backing board was a narrow cavity.
Inside—
nothing.
Except fresh adhesive.
Someone had removed something recently.
Then Giulia gasped.
She picked up the old cloth doll Mia had carried for months.
“Rosie.”
“What?”
“My mother made this doll.”
She stared at the stitched back seam.
“My mother repaired it before she died.”
Giulia slowly opened the loose stitching.
A cassette fell onto the marble floor.
For eight months, the second tape had been inside a four-year-old child’s favorite doll.
Teresa had hidden Chiara’s most dangerous secret in the one place no Moretti man would ever think to search.
Mia clapped.
“More treasure!”
Nobody smiled.
Because outside the ballroom windows, headlights appeared beyond the gates.
Black cars.
Three.
Luca stared.
May you like
“Vittorio.”
And this time, my uncle had not come for Sunday dinner.
