For several seconds after Dominic spoke, I could hear nothing except the rain tapping against the study windows.
Twenty-three guards.
Cameras.
Locked gates.
A wall high enough to stop anyone who wasn’t carrying a ladder, a helicopter, or a death wish.
And somehow a five-year-old girl had disappeared from the middle of it all.
I stared at Dominic.
“You’re saying someone inside this house helped take her.”
“I’m saying no one outside could have done it alone.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
I had already learned that Dominic Rosetti’s quietest voice was the one people should fear most.
He moved to his desk and pressed a button beneath the edge.
The study door opened immediately.
A broad-shouldered man stepped inside.
He looked somewhere in his early forties, with close-cropped dark hair and the kind of face that seemed built to distrust everyone.
“Marco,” Dominic said.
“Lock the estate.”
The man’s eyes flicked toward me.
“It’s already locked.”
“Lock it again.”
Marco gave one sharp nod.
“No one leaves.
Staff, security, family.
I want every camera feed copied before anyone touches the system.”
“What about the police?”
“No.”
Marco didn’t question him.
He turned to leave.
Then Dominic added, “And find out who accessed Lily’s wing between six and nine.”
Marco stopped.
Something passed between the two men.
A hesitation so small I might have missed it if I hadn’t been watching.
“Yes, sir.”
The door closed.
I looked at Dominic.
“You don’t trust him.”
“I trust Marco with my life.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
His eyes settled on me.
Perhaps nobody talked to him that way.
Perhaps people who did didn’t get many opportunities to repeat the experience.
Finally he said, “My life is less valuable to me than Lily’s.”
Before I could answer, the study door opened again.
A nurse stood there.
“Mr.
Rosetti?”
Dominic was already moving.
“She’s awake.”
We reached Lily’s room within seconds.
She looked impossibly small beneath the white blankets.
Machines surrounded the bed, soft lights blinking beside numbers I didn’t understand.
A bandage disappeared beneath her gown.
Her cheeks had more color now, but she still looked fragile enough that breathing near her too hard might break something.
Dominic went to her first.
Of course he did.
He sat beside the bed and took her hand.
“Little bird.”
Her eyelids opened.
“Daddy.”
The hardness vanished from his face.
Watching it happen made something ache inside me.
Then Lily looked toward the doorway.
At me.
“There.”
Dominic followed her gaze.
I stepped closer.
“Hi.”
Lily lifted one hand weakly.
I took it.
Her fingers closed around mine.
“You stayed.”
“I said I would.”
“I knew you would.”
A strange sensation moved through me.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
“How?”
Lily looked confused by the question.
“Mommy told me.”
The room changed.
Dominic froze.
The nurse stopped adjusting the IV.
I felt Lily’s small hand tighten around mine.
Dominic leaned closer.
“What did you say?”
Lily blinked at him.
“Mommy told me she would come.”
His face went pale.
I looked from him to Lily.
“Your mother?”
Lily nodded.
“In my dream.”
The nurse quietly left the room.
I wished I could follow her.
Instead, I remained beside the bed with Dominic watching me like the world had just shifted beneath his feet.
“What did your mother say?” he asked.
Lily frowned, trying to remember.
“That the lady would find me.”
My throat tightened.
“What lady?”
Lily pointed at me.
“You.”
No one spoke.
Then Lily closed her eyes.
Within minutes, she was asleep again.
Dominic and I stepped into the corridor.
He shut the door gently behind us.
“Tell me you didn’t know my wife.”
“I didn’t.”
“Think carefully.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You’ve never met Eva Rosetti?”
“No.”
“Seen her?”
“Only in the photograph you showed me.”
He stared at me long enough that irritation began replacing fear.
“I found your daughter by accident.”
“Maybe.”
“You think I staged this?”
“No.”
“You think your dead wife sent me?”
His expression tightened.
“I told you I don’t believe in prophecy.”
“Then stop looking at me like I climbed out of one.”
For the first time, he had no answer.
A sound came from farther down the corridor.
Raised voices.
Then something shattered.
Dominic turned immediately.
Marco appeared at the end of the hall with two men behind him.
“We found something.”
His eyes moved to me.
Dominic noticed.
“Say it.”
Marco hesitated.
“The cameras in the east corridor looped for seven minutes.”
“When?”
“Eight fourteen to eight twenty-one.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Who accessed the system?”
“We’re tracing it.”
“That isn’t what you came here to tell me.”
Marco’s jaw shifted.
“No.”
He held out a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside it was a small piece of pale fabric.
My stomach turned before I even understood why.
It was the same color as Lily’s dress.
“There’s blood on it,” Marco said.
“Found in the old chapel.”
Dominic went still.
I had passed the chapel when we entered the estate.
A small stone building stood at the edge of the gardens, half hidden behind dead ivy.
“Take me there,” Dominic said.
Marco shook his head.
“Sir—”
“Now.”
Dominic looked at me.
“You stay with Lily.”
I should have agreed.
Instead, I heard myself say, “No.”
Both men looked at me.
“I found her in that alley.
Whoever did this might have seen me.
If there’s something in that chapel connected to where she was taken, I want to know.”
Marco actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Dominic studied me.
Then he said, “Give her a coat.”
Marco stared at him.
“Dominic—”
“A coat, Marco.”
Ten minutes later I was walking through cold rain between two men everyone else in Chicago would have crossed the street to avoid.
The chapel smelled of dust, damp stone, and old wood.
It had not been used in years.
A cracked statue of the Virgin stood near the altar.
Dead candles lined the walls.
Marco led us behind the altar.
A section of wooden paneling had been pulled aside.
Behind it was a narrow staircase descending underground.
I stopped.
“You have tunnels under your house?”
Dominic looked at Marco.
“I didn’t know about this one.”
That frightened me more than the tunnel.
We descended.
The stairs ended in a stone passage.
Fresh footprints disturbed the dust.
Small ones.
Lily’s.
Beside them were larger prints.
A man’s.
The passage continued for perhaps fifty feet before reaching another door.
Marco opened it.
Cold air rushed inside.
Beyond it lay an abandoned garage on the far side of the estate wall.
A perfect way out.
No cameras.
No guards.
No gate.
Dominic’s expression became something I never wanted directed at me.
“Who knew about this?”
Marco stared into the tunnel.
“My father might have.”
“Your father has been dead twelve years.”
“I know.”
“Who else?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic turned.
“Find out.”
I noticed something on the floor.
A silver object half buried beneath dust.
I bent before anyone could stop me.
It was a pendant.
Oval.
Old.
The chain had snapped.
“Don’t touch—” Marco began.
Too late.
I had already picked it up.
The moment my fingers closed around the pendant, my heart seemed to stop.
There was an engraving on the back.
Three letters.
E.M.R.
Dominic saw them.
His entire body went rigid.
He took the pendant from me.
“Eva Maria Rosetti,” he whispered.
Marco swore.
I looked at Dominic.
“It was hers?”
“Yes.”
“She came down here?”
“No.”
He opened the pendant.
Inside was a tiny photograph.
Eva.
Younger than in the photograph Dominic had shown me.
Beside her stood another woman.
My knees nearly gave out.
Because I knew that face.
I had seen it in one photograph my entire childhood.
A photograph kept in a cheap wooden frame on my grandmother’s dresser.
The woman standing beside Eva Rosetti was my mother.
My dead mother.
“No.”
The word came out as a whisper.
Dominic looked at me.
“What?”
I pointed.
“That woman.”
My hand shook.
“That’s my mother.”
Silence swallowed the tunnel.
Marco reached for his gun.
Dominic lifted one hand.
“Don’t.”
I stumbled backward.
“My mother died when I was six.”
Dominic was still staring at the photograph.
“What was her name?”
“Anna.”
His eyes rose.
“Anna what?”
“Mercer.”
Marco’s face changed.
That frightened me.
“You know it,” I said.
He said nothing.
“Marco.”
Dominic’s voice was soft.
Dangerously soft.
Marco looked at him.
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Where?”
“Years ago.”
“Where?”
Marco hesitated too long.
Dominic grabbed him by the front of his coat and slammed him against the stone wall.
The sound echoed through the tunnel.
I jumped.
Dominic’s face was inches from Marco’s.
“You had better decide very quickly which loyalty matters most.”
Marco didn’t fight him.
“My father worked for yours.”
“I know.”
“He kept records.”
Dominic released him.
“What records?”
“Things your father didn’t want written down officially.”
“What does that have to do with Anna Mercer?”
Marco looked at me.
Then back at Dominic.
“Everything.”
We returned to the house through the rain.
Marco led us to a locked archive room beneath the west wing.
Inside were shelves filled with ledgers, boxes, old photographs, and documents that looked as if they had been untouched for decades.
He opened a metal cabinet.
From the back, he removed a black notebook.
“My father gave me this before he died,” he said.
“Told me never to open it unless the Rosetti family turned against itself.”
Dominic took the book.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because your father would have killed mine for keeping it.”
“My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
Marco looked toward the ceiling.
“But not everyone who served him is.”
Dominic opened the notebook.
Names filled the pages.
Dates.
Payments.
Properties.
Police officers.
Judges.
Businessmen.
Then he stopped.
I saw my mother’s name.
ANNA MERCER.
Beside it was a single phrase.
Witness protected.
Beneath that:
EVA KNOWS.
My skin prickled.
“What did she witness?”
Marco shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic turned pages faster.
Then another name appeared.
EVA ROSETTI.
Next to it:
CONTINGENCY — GIRL.
My mouth went dry.
“Girl?”
Dominic said nothing.
He kept reading.
Then his expression changed.
Not anger.
Shock.
I moved closer.
A date was written beneath the entry.
Five years ago.
The week Lily was born.
And beneath that was an address.
My old childhood home.
I backed away.
“No.”
Dominic looked at me.
“You lived here?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Until I was eighteen.”
“Did Eva ever visit?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Did anyone?”
I tried to think.
My childhood existed in pieces.
My mother dying.
My grandmother raising me.
Unpaid bills.
Cheap birthday cakes.
Moving boxes that never got unpacked.
One memory surfaced.
A woman standing outside our house when I was little.
Dark coat.
Rain.
My grandmother refusing to open the door.
I had watched through the curtains.
I never saw the woman’s face.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Dominic closed the book.
“We’re going to your apartment.”
“What?”
“If Eva knew your mother, and someone took Lily tonight, your involvement may not be an accident.”
“My apartment has nothing to do with this.”
“You don’t know that.”
Neither did I.
That was the problem.
An hour later, three black vehicles stopped outside my building.
My landlord, Mr.
Harris, nearly swallowed his cigarette when Dominic Rosetti stepped onto the sidewalk.
Dominic ignored him.
We climbed to the third floor.
My eviction notice was still taped crookedly to the door.
Dominic looked at it.
I ripped it down.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking.”
His mouth almost curved.
Almost.
Then Marco moved past us.
The door was unlocked.
I knew I had locked it.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Inside, the apartment had been searched.
Drawers open.
Cushions cut.
Clothes scattered across the floor.
My mattress had been overturned.
“Stay behind me,” Dominic said.
Something about the way he said it made me obey.
Marco and two men searched the rooms.
“Clear.”
I stood in the wreckage of everything I owned.
Nothing expensive was missing.
My old laptop remained on the table.
My grandmother’s jewelry box was untouched.
“They weren’t robbing me,” I said.
“No.”
Dominic’s gaze moved across the room.
“They were looking for something.”
A memory struck me.
The wooden frame.
My mother’s photograph.
I rushed toward the shelf near my bed.
Gone.
My stomach dropped.
“The picture.”
Dominic followed.
“What picture?”
“My mother.
The one I told you about.”
I searched the floor.
Nothing.
Then I noticed a splintered board beneath the radiator.
It had always been slightly loose.
My grandmother used to tell me never to touch it.
I crouched.
Pulled.
The board came free.
Behind it was a narrow hollow.
Inside sat a metal box.
I stared.
I had lived in that apartment for years after my grandmother died.
I had never known it existed.
Dominic knelt beside me.
“Did you put that there?”
“No.”
The box wasn’t locked.
Inside were three things.
A photograph.
A letter.
And a silver wolf bracelet.
Exactly like Lily’s.
Except older.
The photograph showed my mother holding me as a baby.
Beside us stood Eva Rosetti.
On the back, in Eva’s handwriting, were six words.
If anything happens, protect both girls.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Both girls?”
Dominic took the letter.
It was addressed to me.
My name written across the front.
The handwriting belonged to my mother.
My hands shook too hard to open it.
Dominic gave it back.
“You should read it.”
So I did.
My darling,
If you are reading this, then Eva was right and we failed to keep the past buried.
There are things I wanted to tell you but could not.
Your father was not the man whose name is on your birth certificate.
I stopped.
The words blurred.
Dominic said nothing.
I forced myself onward.
Years ago, I worked inside the Rosetti household.
I saw something that was never meant to be seen.
Eva helped me escape.
In return, I helped her hide something more dangerous than money, evidence, or names.
A truth.
If anyone learns who you are, they will come for you.
And if they come for Lily, you must not trust the person closest to her father.
My eyes lifted.
Dominic went utterly still.
Marco was standing behind him.
For one terrible second, nobody moved.
Then a gunshot exploded through the apartment.
I screamed.
Dominic shoved me to the floor.
A second shot shattered the window.
Sniper.
Marco dragged Dominic behind the wall.
“Down!”
Glass rained across the floor.
Men shouted in the hallway.
Another shot tore through the room.
Then silence.
Dominic was on top of me, shielding me with his body.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
He looked toward the letter.
It had fallen near the window.
A bullet had punched through the bottom half.
Dominic crawled toward it.
“Don’t!”
He grabbed it and pulled back.
The final paragraph was damaged.
Only fragments remained.
…your real father…
…Rosetti…
…never let Dominic…
The rest was gone.
Dominic read the words.
Then looked at me.
Something cold moved through my blood.
“No.”
He stared at the photograph again.
At my mother.
At Eva.
At me.
The implication hung between us.
My real father was a Rosetti.
But which one?
Sirens sounded somewhere in the distance.
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face lost all color.
“What?”
Dominic turned.
Marco lowered the phone slowly.
“That was the estate.”
“What happened?”
“Lily’s nurse was found unconscious.”
Dominic stood.
His entire body changed.
“What about Lily?”
Marco didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
We ran.
The drive back became a blur of red lights, wet streets, and Dominic making calls that sounded less like conversations than death sentences.
The estate gates were open when we arrived.
Too open.
One guard lay bleeding near the entrance.
Another was being treated beside the fountain.
Dominic was out of the car before it stopped.
We reached Lily’s room.
Empty.
The bed sheets were pulled loose.
One IV line dangled to the floor.
Dominic stared at the bed.
The silence in him was terrifying.
Then I saw something on the pillow.
A black envelope.
His name was written across it.
Dominic opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Lily.
Alive.
Sitting in a chair somewhere dark.
Holding my sweater.
On the back were three words.
BRING THE WOMAN.
My stomach turned.
“They want me.”
Dominic crushed the photograph in his fist.
“No.”
“There’s more.”
A phone number was written beneath the message.
Marco started tracing it.
Dominic took out his phone.
I caught his wrist.
“If you call, they’ll know we’re here.”
“They already know.”
He dialed.
Someone answered immediately.
No greeting.
No voice.
Only the sound of a child breathing.
Then—
“Daddy?”
Dominic’s face broke.
“Lily.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know, little bird.
Listen to me.
I’m coming.”
A man’s voice entered the call.
Distorted.
“You’re not coming alone.”
Dominic’s expression became stone.
“What do you want?”
“The woman from the alley.”
He looked at me.
“Why?”
A pause.
Then the voice laughed softly.
“Ask her who her father is.”
The call ended.
Dominic lowered the phone.
Nobody spoke.
Then a sound came from the doorway.
Slow clapping.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
We turned.
An elderly man stood there.
Silver hair.
Black cane.
Perfect suit.
I had never seen him before.
But Dominic had.
Because for the first time since I met him, Dominic Rosetti looked afraid.
Not angry.
Afraid.
Marco reached for his gun.
The old man smiled.
“I wouldn’t.”
Six armed guards appeared behind him.
Rosetti guards.
Dominic stared at them.
“Vittorio.”
The old man’s smile widened.
“Hello, nephew.”
My heart began pounding.
Dominic stepped in front of me.
“You were told never to come back to Chicago.”
“And yet here I am.”
Vittorio’s eyes moved past him.
To me.
The smile disappeared.
For several seconds, he simply stared.
Then he whispered a name.
“Anna.”
“I’m not Anna.”
“I know.”
His gaze moved over my face with something close to wonder.
“You’re her daughter.”
Dominic’s voice sharpened.
“Where is Lily?”
“Safe.”
“If you touched her—”
“I didn’t take the child.”
Dominic stopped.
Vittorio tapped his cane once against the marble floor.
“I came because your daughter’s abduction means the old war has started again.”
“What war?”
Vittorio looked at me.
“The one Eva died trying to stop.”
Every nerve in my body went cold.
Dominic stepped closer.
“My wife died in a car accident.”
“No.”
One word.
Soft.
Certain.
Dominic’s face emptied.
Vittorio continued.
“Eva was murdered because she discovered the truth about Lily.”
“What truth?”
Vittorio’s eyes shifted toward the silver wolf bracelet still clenched in my hand.
Then he said something that changed everything.
“Lily was never the child they were trying to hide.”
He pointed at me.
“She was.”
I couldn’t move.
Dominic looked from him to me.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Vittorio reached inside his coat.
Marco raised his weapon.
“Slowly.”
Vittorio removed an old document and placed it on the table.
A birth certificate.
My birth certificate.
Except the father’s name was different from the one I had known all my life.
Dominic read it.
His face went white.
I stepped forward.
My eyes dropped to the line marked Father.
My heartbeat stopped.
The name printed there was not Dominic Rosetti.
It was his father.
Salvatore Rosetti.
Dominic looked at me.
The room seemed to tilt.
I was his half-sister.
But Vittorio wasn’t finished.
“You think that is the secret?”
He gave a tired smile.
“No.”
He turned the document over.
A handwritten note covered the back.
Eva’s handwriting.
Dominic read it first.
His breathing changed.
“What?”
I grabbed the page.
There were only two sentences.
Salvatore believes Anna’s daughter died at birth.
Never let him learn that she survived—or what she inherited.
Below that was a symbol.
Not the Rosetti wolf.
Something else.
A black crown pierced by a silver knife.
Vittorio stared at it.
“For thirty years,” he said, “the Rosettis believed they were the most dangerous family in Chicago.”
A faint smile returned to his face.
“They were wrong.”
My phone rang.
Everyone froze.
I pulled it from my pocket.
Unknown number.
Dominic shook his head.
I answered anyway.
For a moment, there was only static.
Then Lily whispered,
“Are you there?”
“Yes.
Lily, I’m here.”
Her voice trembled.
“The man says you have to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“The song.”
My blood turned cold.
“What song?”
Lily began humming.
A simple melody.
Six notes.
The room disappeared.
I was five years old again.
My mother sitting beside my bed.
Rain against the window.
Her fingers brushing my hair.
Six notes.
Always the same six notes.
A lullaby.
A warning.
A code.
And suddenly I remembered something else.
The night before my mother died.
A man standing in our kitchen.
My mother crying.
His hand around her wrist.
A silver wolf ring on his finger.
I had buried the memory so deeply that for years it had felt like a dream.
But now I could see his face.
Older now.
Silver-haired.
Standing fifteen feet away from me.
Holding a black cane.
I lowered the phone.
Vittorio saw the recognition in my eyes.
His smile vanished.
Dominic noticed.
“What is it?”
I couldn’t answer.
Because on the phone, behind Lily’s frightened breathing, another voice whispered:
“Good girl.
She remembers.”
And it was Vittorio’s voice.
Exactly Vittorio’s voice.
I stared at the man standing in front of me.
Then at the phone in my hand.
The same voice existed in two places.
At the same time.
Vittorio went pale.
“That isn’t possible.”
The call crackled.
Then the voice spoke again.
No distortion now.
No disguise.
“Dominic.”
Dominic took the phone.
“Who are you?”
A soft laugh came through the speaker.
“You buried me six years ago.”
Dominic stopped breathing.
Vittorio closed his eyes.
And whispered one word.
“Eva.”
The line went dead.
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
Source: Stories of Destiny · Nhan Nhan
