Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN INSIDE THE PHOTOGRAPH
The lights returned thirty seconds later.
Nothing had moved.
Nothing had been stolen.
Nothing appeared broken.
And somehow that frightened Emma more.
Dante stood perfectly still.
“Who was that?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
Emma's heart sank.
“Then tell me.”
“I don't know who called.”
“But you know what they meant.”
Dante didn't answer.
“Dante.”
He walked toward the security console.
“Someone bypassed the external system.”
“Can they get inside?”
“They already did.”
Emma's blood turned cold.
“What?”
He pointed to the screen.
A single line of code flashed across it.
ACCESS GRANTED — M
Emma stared.
“M?”
“Moretti.”
“You mean someone inside your family?”
Dante's expression hardened.
“Possibly.”
“Who?”
“My uncle.”
Emma blinked.
“You have an uncle?”
“I have several.”
“Which one?”
“Lucian.”
The name seemed to carry weight.
“What does he want?”
Dante looked at the screen.
“Everything.”
Lucian Moretti was seventy-one years old.
He had never been convicted of anything.
He had never been photographed committing a crime.
He had never been publicly accused of running anything illegal.
Yet people lowered their voices when his name was spoken.
He lived alone in a mansion outside Greenwich.
He rarely appeared at public events.
And according to Dante, he had spent the last decade trying to destroy the Moretti empire from within.
“Why?” Emma asked.
“Because he believes it belongs to him.”
“Does it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because my father chose me.”
Emma looked at him.
“So this is about inheritance?”
“Partly.”
“What else?”
Dante didn't answer.
Emma folded her arms.
“You said you wanted honesty.”
“I do.”
“Then give it to me.”
Dante finally turned.
“My father left something behind.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Emma frowned.
“A financial ledger?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Names.”
Emma felt uneasy.
“Whose names?”
“People who paid him.”
“For what?”
Dante's eyes hardened.
“Protection.”
Emma understood.
“And your uncle wants it?”
“He believes I have it.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then who does?”
Dante looked at her.
“We may have just found the answer.”
Emma's stomach tightened.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“My father had the ledger?”
“We don't know.”
“But the photograph…”
“The photograph proves they worked together.”
“And the note?”
“Suggests they were hiding something.”
Emma slowly sat down.
Her entire childhood had been built around a simple story.
Her father was a good man.
He worked hard.
He loved his daughter.
He died too young.
Now Dante was forcing her to question all of it.
“Do you think my father was a bad man?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
Emma looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because my father trusted him.”
“That doesn't prove anything.”
“No.”
Dante sat across from her.
“But my father trusted very few people.”
Emma looked down.
“Then why did he leave me?”
Dante's expression softened.
“I don't know.”
That honesty hurt more than a lie.
Emma swallowed.
“Maybe he didn't.”
Dante looked at her.
“What?”
“Maybe he didn't choose to leave.”
The room went silent.
Emma looked at the photograph again.
“Maybe someone made him.”
Dante didn't disagree.
At 10:41 p.m., Dante received another call.
This time from his security chief.
He listened.
Then said:
“Send the file.”
A document appeared on his tablet.
Dante read it.
His expression became unreadable.
Emma noticed.
“What?”
He handed her the tablet.
She looked at the screen.
A photograph.
A hospital.
A woman.
A baby.
Emma's breath caught.
The woman was young.
Maybe twenty-five.
She stood beside a hospital bed.
The baby was wrapped in a white blanket.
Emma stared.
“I don't know her.”
Dante pointed toward the woman's wrist.
A bracelet.
Small silver charms.
Emma touched the screen.
“That…”
“What?”
“My mother had one like that.”
Dante's eyes narrowed.
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
Emma stared at the photograph.
Her mother had died when Emma was nineteen.
Cancer.
At least, that's what she had been told.
But the woman in the photograph looked exactly like her.
Younger.
Healthier.
Alive.
Emma whispered:
“Where was this taken?”
Dante read the file.
“St. Vincent's Hospital.”
“When?”
He looked at the date.
His face changed.
“Twenty-nine years ago.”
Emma's pulse accelerated.
“That was the year I was born.”
Neither spoke.
Dante enlarged the photograph.
The baby had a tiny birthmark behind the left ear.
Emma's fingers moved instinctively toward her own.
She had the same birthmark.
Dante looked at her.
“Emma…”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“No, that's impossible.”
He didn't respond.
She stood.
“My mother couldn't have been there.”
“Why?”
“Because she told me she gave birth to me at Lenox Hill.”
Dante's eyes hardened.
“Your birth records say Lenox Hill?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the photograph again.
Then at Emma.
“Someone changed your birth records.”
Emma felt the floor disappear beneath her.
“Why?”
Dante didn't answer.
The question remained between them.
Then Emma noticed something else.
A man stood in the background of the photograph.
His face was partially obscured.
But she knew the suit.
She knew the posture.
She knew the ring on his hand.
David.
“No.”
Dante looked up.
“What?”
Emma pointed at the photograph.
“That man.”
Dante zoomed in.
The face became clearer.
It wasn't David.
It was someone who looked remarkably like him.
Older.
Broader.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
Emma whispered:
“Who is that?”
Dante stared at the screen.
Then his face went completely still.
“My uncle.”
Emma looked at him.
“Lucian?”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to contract.
Dante studied the photograph again.
His voice became quiet.
“My uncle was there when you were born.”
Emma's breathing became shallow.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
She looked at the baby.
Then at the woman.
Then at Lucian.
And finally at Dante.
“Maybe your family already knew me.”
Dante didn't answer.
Emma's voice broke.
“Maybe that's why you chose me.”
He looked at her.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Dante said the words she had been afraid to hear.
“Yes.”
Emma's heart stopped.
“You knew who I was?”
“I suspected.”
“How long?”
“Before I approached you.”
She stepped backward.
“So our marriage wasn't a coincidence.”
“No.”
“You knew about my father.”
“Yes.”
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
“And the photograph?”
“I didn't know about the photograph until tonight.”
Emma stared at him.
“You lied to me.”
“I protected you.”
“You manipulated me.”
“I did.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“You used me.”
Dante stood.
“I chose you because I believed someone was coming for you.”
“And you thought marrying me would protect me?”
“Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
“I was afraid if you knew, you'd run.”
Emma laughed bitterly.
“So you took away my choice.”
Dante didn't defend himself.
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“I did.”
Emma turned away.
For six months, she had believed their marriage was a strange arrangement.
A transaction.
A contract.
Now she realized it had begun long before the signatures.
Dante had known something about her.
Something she didn't know about herself.
And he had chosen to keep it hidden.
She walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Emma—”
“No.”
She turned.
“Don't follow me.”
Dante stopped.
She opened the door.
Then he said:
“I never expected you to forgive me.”
Emma looked back.
“Good.”
She walked away.
At 1:13 a.m., Emma sat alone in Maya's apartment.
She hadn't told Maya everything.
She didn't know how.
She simply said she needed somewhere safe.
Maya gave her the spare bedroom without asking questions.
Emma lay awake staring at the ceiling.
Her phone vibrated.
One message.
From Dante.
I won't come after you.
Another.
But there is something you need to know.
Emma stared at the screen.
A photograph appeared.
It was an old document.
At the bottom was a signature.
Her father's.
And beneath it:
Thomas Morrison — Witness
Above the signature was a sentence.
Emma read it once.
Then again.
Her hands began to shake.
THE GIRL WILL BE PROTECTED BY THE MORETTI FAMILY UNTIL HER TWENTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY.
Emma looked at the date.
Her birthday was in eleven days.
She stopped breathing.
A final message appeared.
Emma, your twenty-ninth birthday is why they have started moving now.
She stared at the screen.
May you like
Then another message arrived.
And I am afraid we are already too late.
