Chapter 11 - WHAT ANTHONY MORETTI SACRIFICEDVanessa screamed.
Bellini collapsed.
The shot had come from an agent behind the staircase.
His weapon slid across the floor.
Vanessa ran toward Sofia.
Luca stood motionless.
Not looking at Bellini.
Not looking at anyone.
Only hearing the words again.
Your father chose you.
Bellini survived.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
He was arrested before midnight.
Sofia was taken to the hospital.
Vanessa stayed with her.
Luca returned to the greenhouse.
I found him there at three in the morning.
He was sitting on the floor beside the old workbench.
The prune cake sat untouched nearby.
“You should sleep.”
He looked at me.
“So should you.”
“I work here.”
“Apparently you run the place now.”
“I haven’t accepted.”
“Double salary.”
“You negotiate like a child.”
“Triple.”
“Stop.”
He smiled faintly.
Then looked at the photograph of his parents.
“I hated him.”
“Your father?”
“For years.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“After Mom died, he became cold.”
“Grief does that.”
“He barely spoke about her.”
“Maybe he couldn’t.”
Luca nodded.
“I thought it meant he didn’t care.”
I sat beside him.
“Sometimes silence is what pain looks like when someone doesn’t know what else to do with it.”
He looked at me.
“You sound like you know.”
“My mother.”
He nodded.
We sat quietly.
Then Luca opened the wooden box again.
Beneath the letters was something we had missed.
A false bottom.
He lifted it.
Inside was a final envelope.
Not from Anna.
From Anthony.
His father.
Luca opened it.
The letter had been written only eight years earlier.
One year before Anthony died.
Luca,
I found your mother’s box today.
I did not open her letters.
They belong to you.
But I am adding one of my own because there is something I failed to tell you while I had the courage.
Your mother did not die because I did not love her.
She died partly because I loved myself too much.
I was arrogant.
Greedy.
I believed money could make our family untouchable.
Bellini showed me how wrong I was.
The night your mother died, he told me that if I exposed him, he would kill you.
You were eight.
I believed him.
So I lied.
I bought police officers.
I buried evidence.
I allowed the world to call your mother’s death an accident.
I told myself I was protecting you.
Perhaps I was.
But protection purchased with lies always sends the bill to the next generation.
Luca stopped reading.
His eyes filled.
He continued.
I hope you become a better man than I was.
If you ever must choose between protecting the Moretti name and doing what is right, destroy the name.
Names can be rebuilt.
Character cannot.
Your father,
Anthony.
Luca lowered the page.
For several minutes, he cried silently.
I did not touch him.
I did not tell him everything would be okay.
Some grief should not be interrupted by promises nobody can guarantee.
Eventually he wiped his face.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know what the worst part is?”
“What?”
“I spent my whole life trying to become him.”
I looked at the letter.
“Then maybe you finally get to become yourself.”
He looked at me.
Something changed in his expression.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Recognition.
The strange intimacy of being seen during the worst night of your life.
Then Viktor entered.
He carried another box.
Luca groaned.
“If that contains another twenty-six-year secret, I’m burning the greenhouse.”
Viktor smiled.
“No.”
He placed it on the table.
“This is worse.”
Luca stared.
“What?”
“Your mother’s accounting ledger.”
Luca opened it.
His expression changed.
“What is this?”
Viktor pointed to a page.
A list of names.
Judges.
Police officers.
Executives.
Politicians.
At the bottom was one name neither of us expected.
THOMAS REED.
My father.
Beside his name was a payment.
$250,000.
May you like
Luca slowly looked at me.
My heart stopped.
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