Chapter 3 - THAT WOMAN WAS MY SISTER
Dante did not bring the photograph to the hospital.
He brought Sofia to the photograph.
Technically, Sofia brought herself.
She refused his car twice.
On the third offer, when rain started hammering Chicago and her injured shoulder made holding an umbrella nearly impossible, she agreed.
Dante’s driver took them to a brownstone in the Gold Coast.
Not the fortress Sofia expected.
Elegant.
Old.
Quiet.
The Moretti home felt inherited rather than purchased.
Dark wood.
Stone fireplace.
Paintings that looked older than the city’s skyscrapers.
Dante led her into a study.
Matteo’s drawing of a dinosaur sat beside expensive leather-bound books.
That detail unsettled Sofia more than the security cameras.
Dante stopped before a framed photograph.
A young woman stood near Lake Michigan.
Dark brown hair.
Strong brows.
A smile tilted slightly to one side.
The pendant rested at her throat.
Sofia forgot how to breathe.
“That’s my mother.”
Dante said nothing.
Sofia stepped closer.
The woman in the photo was younger than Sofia remembered Elena.
But unmistakable.
Same eyes.
Same small scar beside her eyebrow.
Same crooked smile.
Sofia touched the glass.
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“No, that’s…”
She looked at Dante.
“Where did you get this?”
“I took it.”
“When?”
“1998.”
Sofia calculated.
A year before her birth.
Her knees felt weak.
She sat.
Dante remained standing.
“What was her name?”
“You already know.”
“Say it.”
“Luciana Isabella Moretti.”
Sofia shook her head.
“My mother’s name was Elena Rose Vale.”
“What did her birth certificate say?”
“I never saw it.”
“Social Security records?”
“I wasn’t auditing my mother.”
Dante ignored the sarcasm.
“Where were you born?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Hospital?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“My mother said it closed.”
Dante looked toward the photograph.
“What about your father?”
“Peter Vale.”
“From Wisconsin?”
“Indiana originally.”
“Occupation?”
“Electrician.”
Sofia stood.
“Stop.”
Dante looked at her.
“You’re interrogating me like I’m lying.”
“I’m trying to build a timeline.”
“Well, I’m trying not to have my entire childhood erased in one afternoon.”
That landed.
Dante’s expression shifted.
He took a step back.
“You’re right.”
Sofia stared at him.
The feared Dante Moretti apologized more easily than some restaurant customers.
She hated that too.
Dante poured water.
Not whiskey.
He handed her a glass.
“My sister was four years older than me.”
Sofia listened despite herself.
“She hated dresses. Loved old movies. Could beat most of my cousins at cards and cheated whenever she started losing.”
Sofia’s mouth opened slightly.
“My mother cheated at cards.”
Dante looked at her.
“She said rules made games boring.”
He almost smiled.
“Luciana said rules were designed by people who were already winning.”
Sofia sat again.
That was something Elena used to say.
Almost exactly.
The room seemed to tilt.
“What happened before the accident?”
Dante’s face darkened.
“My family fought.”
“About?”
“I didn’t know then. I know pieces now.”
“Tell me.”
“Luciana wanted out of several family businesses. My father refused.”
“Why?”
“Our legitimate holdings were tangled with older arrangements.”
Sofia heard the careful wording.
“You mean crime.”
Dante met her eyes.
“Yes.”
No denial.
No euphemism beyond that.
Sofia appreciated it unwillingly.
“Were you involved?”
“At fourteen?”
“Now.”
“Yes.”
The answer was again direct.
“How involved?”
“Enough that you should not romanticize who I am.”
Sofia looked at the photograph.
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
Dante continued.
“Luciana hated what our family was becoming. She argued with our uncle Vittorio most of all.”
“The same uncle who handled her funeral.”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“I’m beginning to think so.”
Sofia stood and paced despite the pain.
“My mother never mentioned Chicago.”
“Never?”
“She refused to visit. Even when I wanted to see museums here as a kid, she’d say no.”
“Why?”
“She said cities had memories.”
Dante looked at her sharply.
“Luciana said that.”
Sofia stopped.
“What?”
“When we were children, after our mother died. She told me houses and cities keep memories longer than people do.”
A cold tremor moved through Sofia.
Too many coincidences.
Dante opened a desk drawer.
He removed another photograph.
Luciana standing beside a young man.
Tall.
Light brown hair.
Work jacket.
Sofia grabbed it.
“That’s my dad.”
Dante stared.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
Peter Vale.
Younger, but unmistakable.
Dante sat down hard.
“I never knew his name.”
“You have a picture of him.”
“Luciana told us he was a friend.”
Sofia turned the photograph over.
Nothing written.
“When was this?”
“About six months before she died.”
“She didn’t die.”
Dante looked at her.
“No.”
For the first time, he said it as fact.
Not possibility.
“She didn’t.”
Sofia’s eyes filled.
“My mother lied to me my whole life.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Dante’s voice became quieter.
“She may have been surviving.”
Sofia looked at him.
That distinction hurt more.
Elena—Luciana—had spent twenty-five years raising Sofia under another name.
Never returned to Chicago.
Never told her daughter she was a Moretti.
Never once said Dante existed.
What could make a mother erase an entire family?
Dante turned toward the photograph again.
“I thought she abandoned us before the accident.”
“Why?”
“Vittorio said she had become unstable.”
Sofia laughed bitterly.
“That sounds convenient too.”
“Yes.”
“He said she was ashamed of the pregnancy. That she blamed my father. Then the accident happened.”
“And you believed him.”
“I was fourteen.”
There was old anger in his voice.
Mostly at himself.
Sofia softened slightly.
Then remembered something.
“My mother left me a box.”
Dante turned.
“What kind of box?”
“Metal lockbox. She made me promise not to open it unless…”
Sofia stopped.
“Unless what?”
She looked at him.
“Unless someone from Chicago came looking for me.”
Dante became completely still.
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
“Who knows?”
“No one.”
Dante walked toward the door.
“We’re going now.”
Sofia frowned.
“You don’t give orders to me.”
He stopped.
“You’re right.”
Then:
“Please.”
That was somehow more alarming.
They drove north through rain.
Halfway to Uptown, Dante’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
He looked at Sofia.
Then told the driver:
“Faster.”
Sofia’s pulse quickened.
“What happened?”
Dante ended the call.
“Your apartment building’s fire alarm was triggered twenty minutes ago.”
Sofia stared.
“Fire?”
“No fire.”
“Then what?”
“Someone entered your apartment while the building was evacuated.”
Her stomach dropped.
“The box.”
Dante’s eyes turned cold.
“Exactly.”
Someone else knew Sofia had inherited something.
May you like
And they were willing to search for it before she understood what it was.
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