Chapter 3 – THE ROSARY IN THE DARK

Nobody spoke.

Rosa gripped the doorframe, her knuckles turning white.

“Antonio?” she whispered.

Elena looked at the floor.

“Yes.”

Luca shook his head, refusing to believe it.

“My father died six years ago, Elena. He loved you. He treated you like a daughter.”

“He treated me like a prisoner,” Elena corrected.

Her voice was no longer shaking.

It was hardened by eight years of hiding.

She walked toward Luca and pulled up the sleeve of her sweater.

There, running along her forearm, was a deep, jagged scar.

“He didn’t give me this because he loved me.”

Rosa gasped and covered her mouth.

Luca stared at the scar.

“How?” he asked.

“I found out what he was doing with the company’s retirement funds,” Elena said quietly. “He was draining them. Millions of dollars. Moving them to offshore accounts in my name.”

Luca’s eyes widened.

“He framed you.”

“He needed a fall guy. When I told him I was going to the police, he smiled.”

Elena looked at Adriana.

“He told me if I went to the authorities, he would make sure Sophie disappeared.”

Luca turned his head slowly toward his sister.

“You knew?”

Adriana wiped her face.

“I found out the night of the crash. Elena called me. She was terrified. She told me to take Sophie and run.”

“And instead, you helped her fake her death.”

“Elena’s sister, Clara, had borrowed her car. The roads were icy. It was a tragic accident.”

Adriana’s voice broke.

“But my father’s men were the first to arrive. When Dad saw the wreckage, he assumed it was Elena. He paid off the coroner. He rushed the closed-casket funeral so no one would see the body.”

“And you let him.”

“It was the only way to keep Elena and Sophie safe!” Adriana shouted. “If Dad thought Elena was dead, he wouldn’t go after Sophie.”

Luca looked like a man who had lost his entire world.

He looked at Elena.

“Where have you been for eight years?”

“Moving,” she said. “Every few months. I couldn’t risk him finding out I was alive.”

“He’s been dead for six years.”

Elena’s eyes dropped.

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you come back?”

Silence.

Elena wouldn’t look at him.

Luca stepped closer to her.

“Elena. Why didn’t you come back when he died?”

Adriana reached into her pocket.

She pulled out a set of dark wooden rosary beads.

They belonged to Luca’s father.

“Because,” Adriana said softly. “Dad didn’t act alone.”

Luca froze.

“Who else?”

Adriana held out the rosary.

“Look at the cross, Luca.”

Luca took it.

He turned it over.

Engraved on the back of the silver cross were two initials.

F. M.

Luca stopped breathing.

Frank Moretti.

His father’s brother.

The man who had practically raised him after his father died.

The man who was currently sitting in the ballroom, drinking champagne.

Before Luca could move, a deep voice echoed from the hallway.

“Is everything alright in here?”

Uncle Frank stepped into the doorway.

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