Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO EMMA
At 5:30 a.m., Lucian Moretti stood before an old safe.
He entered six numbers.
The door opened.
Inside were photographs.
Documents.
A necklace.
And one envelope.
He removed it.
The name on the front was written in his own handwriting.
EMMA.
He stared at it for several seconds.
Then put it back.
Not yet.
It was too early.
Emma spent the next morning searching through every document from the blue room.
She had barely slept.
Dante had stayed in the next room all night.
He had not touched her.
He had not tried to comfort her.
He simply remained nearby.
It was strange.
For the first time since their marriage began, his presence didn't feel like surveillance.
It felt like protection.
Emma looked up from the table.
“Dante.”
He raised his eyes.
“Yes?”
“Did my father trust you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he knew my father.”
“That isn't enough.”
Dante leaned back.
“My father saved his life.”
Emma waited.
“When?”
“1997.”
“The year I was born.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Dante was silent.
Then he said:
“Your father discovered Lucian was planning to remove my father.”
“Remove him?”
“Kill him.”
Emma's breath caught.
“Why?”
“Power.”
“And my father stopped it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He gave my father the ledger.”
Emma stared.
“So the ledger wasn't just names.”
“No.”
“What was it?”
“Proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“Who had ordered what.”
Emma understood.
“And Lucian wanted it.”
“Yes.”
“So my father hid it.”
“Yes.”
“Then Lucian killed him.”
Dante looked at her.
“We don't know.”
“You said the people who killed him.”
“I said someone killed him.”
Emma stared.
“Do you believe my father was murdered?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the doctor who signed his death certificate disappeared three days later.”
Emma closed her eyes.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, she asked:
“What happened to my mother?”
Dante's expression changed.
“We're going to find out.”
That afternoon, Vanessa called Emma.
Emma almost didn't answer.
Then she remembered something.
Vanessa had been beside David at the gallery.
She might know something.
“Hello?”
“Emma?”
“Yes.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“David.”
Emma went silent.
“What did he do?”
“I'm not sure.”
Vanessa's voice trembled.
“But I found something.”
“What?”
“A folder.”
“Where?”
“At David's apartment.”
Emma stood.
“What was inside?”
“Your name.”
Emma's heart accelerated.
“What kind of folder?”
“I don't know.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“Because I'm scared.”
Emma looked toward Dante.
He had heard everything.
His expression hardened.
“Where are you?” Emma asked.
“Central Park.”
“Stay there.”
The call ended.
Dante stood.
“No.”
Emma looked at him.
“She has information.”
“She could be bait.”
“She could.”
“You're not going alone.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
Dante picked up his coat.
“I'll come.”
Vanessa was waiting near the fountain.
She looked nervous.
The moment she saw Dante, her expression changed.
“Oh.”
Dante stopped beside Emma.
Vanessa swallowed.
“I didn't know you would come.”
“He goes where I go.”
Emma heard herself say it.
Dante glanced at her.
Something flickered in his eyes.
Vanessa opened her handbag.
She removed a brown folder.
“I found this in David's study.”
Emma took it.
Her hands went cold.
The first page contained her name.
EMMA MORRISON
Underneath:
SUBJECT — LEVEL RED
Emma frowned.
“What does Level Red mean?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I don't know.”
She pointed to another page.
“Look.”
Emma read.
Objective: Determine relationship between subject and Moretti succession.
Her heart pounded.
Another page.
Subject must remain unaware of biological parentage until age twenty-nine.
Emma stared.
Dante took the folder.
His face became stone.
Vanessa whispered:
“I think David has been investigating you for months.”
Emma looked at her.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“Where did he get these documents?”
“I don't know.”
“Who gave them to him?”
Vanessa shook her head.
Then she whispered:
“There was one name.”
“What name?”
“Lucian.”
Dante's expression changed.
Vanessa stepped backward.
“I shouldn't have called you.”
“Why?”
“Because David knows I took the folder.”
A black SUV appeared at the end of the road.
Dante immediately grabbed Emma.
“Down.”
A shot cracked through the air.
Vanessa screamed.
Dante pulled Emma behind a stone wall.
Security moved instantly.
Another shot.
Then another.
The SUV sped away.
Emma looked at Vanessa.
She was on the ground.
Blood covered her shoulder.
“Vanessa!”
Emma rushed toward her.
Dante grabbed her arm.
“Wait.”
“She's hurt.”
“I know.”
Emma knelt beside Vanessa.
“Stay with me.”
Vanessa's eyes fluttered.
She grabbed Emma's hand.
“There was…”
She struggled to breathe.
“Another file.”
“Where?”
“David's safe.”
“What file?”
Vanessa looked at her.
“The one with your mother's name.”
Then she fainted.
That night, Dante stood in the hospital corridor.
Emma sat beside Vanessa's room.
She hadn't left.
Neither had Dante.
A doctor finally approached.
“She'll survive.”
Emma exhaled.
“Thank God.”
The doctor nodded.
Then left.
Dante sat beside Emma.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Finally Emma said:
“I'm sorry.”
“For what?”
“You keep getting pulled into this because of me.”
Dante looked at her.
“You are not the reason.”
“Then what am I?”
He didn't answer immediately.
“A responsibility.”
Emma looked away.
The word hurt.
Dante realized it.
“That isn't what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He looked at her.
“You're the person I chose.”
Her heart skipped.
“That sounds dangerously close to affection.”
“Maybe it is.”
Emma stared at him.
Dante looked away.
“I don't know what this is.”
Neither did she.
But something had changed.
The contract suddenly felt less real than the silence between them.
Then Dante's phone rang.
Marcus.
He answered.
“Yes?”
A pause.
His expression changed.
“Are you certain?”
Another pause.
“Send it.”
He ended the call.
Emma looked at him.
“What?”
“We found the safe.”
“David's?”
“Yes.”
“What's inside?”
Dante didn't answer.
“Dante.”
He looked at her.
“Your mother's name.”
Emma stood immediately.
“Where?”
“David's apartment.”
“Then let's go.”
They arrived twenty minutes later.
The apartment had been searched.
Drawers open.
Documents scattered.
Someone had already been there.
Marcus opened the safe.
Inside was one folder.
Dante removed it.
Emma stared at the label.
ELEANOR MORRISON
Her mother's name.
Dante opened it.
The first document was a hospital record.
The second was a birth certificate.
The third was a photograph.
Emma looked at the photograph.
A young woman stood outside a hospital.
She was crying.
In her arms was a newborn baby.
Emma.
There was no doubt.
The woman was not Eleanor Morrison.
Emma looked at Dante.
“Who is she?”
He turned the photograph over.
A name was written on the back.
Isabella Rossi.
Emma's breath caught.
“Rossi?”
Dante went completely still.
He knew that name.
Everyone in his world did.
The Rossi family had disappeared from New York twenty-nine years earlier.
Their patriarch had been killed.
His wife had vanished.
Their newborn daughter had supposedly died.
Dante looked at Emma.
His voice was barely audible.
“Emma…”
“What?”
“You weren't abandoned.”
“What do you mean?”
He turned the photograph toward her.
“Your mother was Isabella Rossi.”
Emma stared.
“And if this is real…”
Dante's eyes darkened.
“You are the last living heir of the Rossi family.”
Silence.
Then a noise behind them.
A slow clap.
They turned.
David stood in the doorway.
His face was bruised.
His shirt was stained with blood.
But he was smiling.
“You finally found out.”
Emma froze.
“David?”
He looked directly at her.
“Now you understand why Dante married you.”
Dante stepped in front of Emma.
“Leave.”
David laughed.
“No.”
He held up a second photograph.
“Because there is something neither of you knows.”
He looked at Emma.
“Your mother didn't die.”
Emma stopped breathing.
David smiled.
“She has been alive for twenty-nine years.”
And somewhere across the city, inside a locked room, an elderly woman opened her eyes.
May you like
The woman whispered one name.
“Emma.”
