Chapter 9: Daniel’s Second Life
I stared at the photograph until the faces blurred.
Daniel wore a dark jacket and the same crooked smile I remembered from our wedding day.
He looked older.
Thinner.
But alive.
The date printed on the photograph was six months earlier.
After the police arrived, Lila was taken into emergency surgery. Alessandro’s guards moved us to a secure apartment that did not belong to the Moretti family.
I placed the photograph on the kitchen table.
“He abandoned us.”
“We do not know that,” Alessandro said.
“He let me bury an empty coffin.”
“Perhaps he believed you were safer if everyone thought he was dead.”
“I stood beside his grave holding our baby.”
My voice broke.
“He let me tell Emma stories about a father she would never meet.”
Alessandro remained silent.
He understood betrayal too well to defend a man he had never known.
Marco enlarged the photograph.
A road sign in the background identified the location as Bellweather, Maine.
We flew there under false names.
Bellweather was a fishing town with fewer than two thousand residents. The photograph had been taken outside an abandoned cannery.
Inside, we found a hidden apartment.
There were men’s clothes in the closet.
Food in the cabinets.
Newspaper articles about Alessandro and Vanessa covered one wall.
Photographs of Emma covered another.
Daniel had watched her grow from a distance.
On the table was a birthday card for her fourth birthday, which was still three months away.
I opened it.
My sweet Emma, someday you will understand why loving you required me to disappear.
My knees weakened.
A floorboard creaked behind us.
Alessandro reached for his gun.
A bearded man stood in the doorway.
I knew his eyes immediately.
“Daniel.”
He stared at me as though seeing a ghost.
“Sofia.”
I crossed the room and slapped him.
Then I hit his chest until every year of grief left my body.
He did not stop me.
Finally, I collapsed against him.
“Why?”
“They were going to kill you.”
“Who?”
“Vittorio.”
Daniel explained that the Harbor Tower accident had been staged. Antonio’s people pulled him from the wreckage and reported him dead.
Daniel stayed hidden while gathering evidence.
“Why did Antonio fake his death?”
“Because Vittorio controlled the police, the courts, and half the Moretti security force. Antonio needed Vittorio to believe he had won.”
“Where is Antonio now?” Alessandro asked.
Daniel’s expression changed.
“Vittorio found him three months ago.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel walked to the wall and removed a map.
Red marks covered the Moretti waterfront properties.
“Vittorio and Charles Cole are moving something through the old tunnels.”
“What?”
“People,” Daniel said. “Workers without documents. Witnesses. Anyone they need to disappear.”
A light appeared beneath the apartment door.
Daniel smelled the air.
“Gasoline.”
Flames climbed the staircase outside.
May you like
Someone had followed us.
And there was only one window in the room.
