PART 2.
The paper was damp and cold.
There was no return address.
Only my name—Dominic Moretti—written by hand.
I knew that handwriting.
My hands had not shaken in years.
Then I opened the page and read the first four words: Dominic, my love…
For several seconds, I could not continue.
The ink blurred in front of me, though whether from the rain that had touched the paper or something happening inside my own eyes, I couldn't tell.
Eight years.
Eight years since I had last seen that handwriting.
Eight years since Sofia Bellini had disappeared from my life without warning.
Eight years since I had stood inside an empty Brooklyn apartment staring at two glasses beside the sink, a half-read novel on the nightstand, and a closet missing only the clothes she could carry.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
Just absence.
“Dominic?”
Daniel's voice came from somewhere behind me.
I raised one hand.
He stopped speaking.
Elena stood three feet away, drowning inside Rosa's oversized coat, watching me with the solemn concentration of someone waiting for a verdict she did not understand.
I forced myself to look back at the letter.
Dominic, my love,
If Elena has reached you, then I have failed to keep her away from the life I spent eight years trying to protect her from.
My eyes moved to the child.
Something inside me went still.
Not calm.
Still.
The dangerous kind.
I read the next sentence.
Before you ask the question I know you are asking, yes.
I stopped breathing.
She is your daughter.
The page crackled in my hand.
Daniel whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Marco said nothing.
He did not have to.
I looked at Elena again.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
Small face.
Pale lips.
And suddenly every insignificant familiarity I had dismissed minutes ago returned at once.
The way she held eye contact.
The stubbornness.
The strange controlled silence.
The slight cleft in her chin.
My father's cleft.
My cleft.
I stood too quickly.
The room shifted.
I caught the edge of my desk.
Elena took half a step backward.
That movement hurt more than the words on the page.
She was afraid of me.
My daughter was afraid of me.
If the letter was true.
I hated myself for adding the qualification.
I hated myself more because a man who had lived as I had learned never to trust even miracles.
I read on.
*I know what this will do to you.
I know what you will think of me.
You will believe I stole eight years from you.*
My jaw tightened.
Maybe I did.
My fingers closed harder around the page.
But not for the reason you were told.
I glanced at Daniel.
His face changed.
Just slightly.
Most people would never have noticed.
I did.
Daniel Mercer had represented me for twenty-three years.
He had negotiated acquisitions, settlements, divorces for men who worked for me, criminal defense for men I no longer employed, and estate agreements worth more than some countries produced in a month.
He was also one of only three people who had known how badly Sofia's disappearance had destroyed me.
The other two were Marco and my younger brother, Vincent.
“What?”
I asked.
Daniel blinked.
“What?”
“You reacted.”
“To what?”
I held his eyes.
“The sentence.”
Marco looked between us.
Daniel's expression hardened.
“Dominic, you've just been told that an eight-year-old girl may be your daughter.
Forgive me if my face is not behaving professionally.”
May be.
I looked back at Elena.
She was rubbing her thumb against her palm.
The same nervous habit Sofia had.
I returned to the letter.
You were told I left because I was afraid of you.
A pulse began beating in my temple.
You were told I had seen what you were becoming and wanted no part of it.
Yes.
Those were almost the exact words Vincent had used.
I remembered him standing in my office eight years earlier.
Sofia's apartment had been empty for three days.
I had men searching airports, hospitals, hotels.
Vincent had come in at midnight carrying an envelope.
He had said Sofia left it with him.
The letter inside had been short.
Cold.
Cruel in the precise way necessary to kill hope.
She said she had seen enough blood.
Enough threats.
Enough of the Moretti name.
She said if I loved her, I would not look for her.
So I had looked for her anyway.
For six months.
Then a private investigator found evidence that she had traveled to Montréal under her own name.
A photograph surfaced three weeks later.
Sofia entering an apartment building beside another man.
That photograph ended the search.
Or I thought it had.
The paper shook again.
That letter was not mine.
I stared at the sentence.
Read it again.
Then again.
I never wrote it.
The storm struck the windows hard enough to rattle them.
Marco swore softly.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Let me see.”
I moved the page away from him.
“No.”
“Dominic—”
“No one touches this.”
Elena flinched.
I immediately lowered my voice.
“Sorry.”
The apology seemed to surprise everyone.
Especially me.
I crouched again.
“Elena.”
“Yes, sir?”
My chest tightened.
“You can call me Dominic.”
She considered that.
“My mom calls you Dominic.”
The present tense cut through me.
Calls.
Not called.
“Where is your mother?”
Elena's eyes dropped.
“I don't know.”
“Did you see her today?”
She shook her head.
“Yesterday?”
Another shake.
“When did you last see her?”
“Tuesday night.”
It was Friday.
Rosa made a distressed sound.
Marco was already speaking into his phone.
“Get NYPD missing persons.
Quietly.
I want Bellini's current address, phone records if we can lawfully expedite them, transit camera pulls around wherever the child came from—”
“No police.”
Elena's voice was barely above a whisper.
Marco stopped.
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“Mom said not to call them.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“She said some police are good.”
Elena swallowed.
“But we don't know which ones.”
The silence became heavier.
I read again.
If I am missing, do not immediately trust the police, your employees, or anyone who claims to have helped you search for me eight years ago.
My eyes lifted slowly.
Marco's face hardened.
Daniel went pale.
I continued.
Someone inside your circle knew I was pregnant before I had decided how to tell you.
Every muscle in my body locked.
They came to me on August 17, 2018.
I remembered that date.
Of course I remembered it.
Three days before Sofia vanished.
We had eaten dinner at a little place in Cobble Hill.
She had barely touched her wine.
I teased her about it.
She smiled and said she wasn't feeling well.
I had kissed her forehead outside her apartment and promised to call in the morning.
She had held my hand longer than usual.
I had thought she simply did not want me to leave.
God.
She had been trying to tell me.
*They showed me photographs of men you had hurt.
They showed me police files.
They showed me pictures of you leaving places where terrible things had happened.*
I closed my eyes.
Those photographs would not have been difficult to find in those years.
I had been a different man.
Not innocent.
Never innocent.
But the letter continued.
Then they showed me something worse.
They showed me a photograph of you standing beside a car.
They told me there was a bomb beneath it.
They said if I told you about the baby, you would die before sunrise.
Marco came forward.
“What?”
I handed him nothing.
I kept reading.
I thought they were lying until they gave me the address where you were going that night.
Cold spread through me.
The Savoy warehouse.
A meeting with three union representatives and a shipping broker.
I had changed cars at the last moment because Marco had insisted the brakes on my Mercedes felt wrong.
Three days later, the Mercedes had vanished from a private garage.
No one had ever explained how.
Marco stared at me.
He remembered.
“So she left,” he whispered.
I looked at Elena.
“For me.”
The child did not understand.
But Marco did.
Daniel did.
I did.
Sofia had not abandoned me.
She had been threatened with my death.
And someone had known enough about my movements to make that threat believable.
I read faster.
They gave me forty-eight hours to disappear.
They told me they would provide documents, money, and somewhere to live.
If I refused, they would kill you.
If I contacted you, they would kill you.
If I went to the police, they would kill you.
And if you ever learned about our child, they would kill her.
My vision blurred.
Eight birthdays.
Eight Christmas mornings.
First words.
First steps.
Fevers.
Nightmares.
School photographs.
A thousand ordinary moments I had never known existed.
Somebody had taken them.
I had spent years believing Sofia chose a life without me.
She had spent those same years raising our daughter while believing a single mistake might get us killed.
I reached the final third of the page.
For years, I obeyed.
Then six months ago, I found proof that the people who threatened me were not protecting themselves from you.
They were protecting you from the truth.
I frowned.
That sentence made no sense.
I read it again.
Dominic, something happened the year before we met.
Something involving your father, your brother, and a shipment that never reached Palermo.
My head came up.
Marco's mouth parted.
Daniel looked toward the floor.
This time, I saw it clearly.
“Daniel.”
He did not answer.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, he did.
“You know something.”
“I know many things about your family's history.”
“About Palermo?”
His silence lasted one second too long.
I stepped toward him.
Marco moved instinctively between us.
Not protecting Daniel.
Protecting me from whatever I might become.
“Move.”
“Dom.”
“Move.”
Elena spoke behind me.
“My mom said you might get angry.”
I froze.
Her small voice cut through the room more effectively than Marco ever could.
I turned.
She looked terrified now.
Not of me exactly.
Of what was happening around her.
I forced my hands open.
“She was right.”
Elena nodded seriously.
“She said you get angry when you're scared.”
Daniel looked away.
That was something Sofia used to say.
Exactly that.
I crouched again.
“Did your mother tell you anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“She said you would want to fix everything immediately.”
Despite myself, something almost like a laugh escaped me.
That sounded like Sofia too.
“And?”
“She said not to.”
Of course.
I looked at the letter.
The final paragraphs waited.
*Do not search for me the way you searched eight years ago.
That is what they expect.*
Do not trust the first evidence you find.
Most importantly, do not trust the story about Elena's birth.
My stomach tightened.
What story?
I looked at the girl.
She was watching the page.
“You know what this says?”
I asked.
“No.”
“Your mother didn't tell you?”
“She said it was for you.”
I returned to the final lines.
There is one person who knows everything.
*His name is Dr.
Samuel Kessler.*
*He worked at St.
Catherine's Medical Center in Vermont in 2018.*
Find him before they do.
Then came the sentence that made no sense at all.
Ask him why Elena was recorded as stillborn.
I stopped.
Every sound disappeared.
Stillborn.
I looked at Elena.
Alive.
Standing in front of me.
Eight years old.
Brown eyes.
Rain-soaked hair.
My daughter.
I continued.
And Dominic—when he tells you what happened that night, you must believe him, even if it sounds impossible.
Then the final sentence.
Because Elena was not the only baby I delivered.
I lowered the letter.
No one spoke.
Marco was the first to understand.
His face changed.
“Twins?”
The word entered the room like a bullet.
Elena stared at him.
“What?”
I could not move.
Two.
There had been two.
My mind immediately began constructing a second child beside Elena.
A boy.
A girl.
Alive.
Dead.
Hidden.
Taken.
I didn't know.
My voice came out rough.
“Elena… do you have a brother or sister?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Did your mother ever mention another baby?”
“No.”
Daniel sank slowly into the chair behind him.
I looked at him.
“You knew.”
“I did not know this.”
“But you knew something.”
His face had aged ten years in the last ten minutes.
“There are things your father asked me to keep confidential.”
“My father has been dead twelve years.”
“Confidentiality does not necessarily die with the client.”
I crossed the distance between us.
Marco caught my arm.
“Not in front of the kid.”
That stopped me.
Elena.
My daughter.
Whether I had known her ten minutes or eight years did not change what she was.
I looked toward Rosa.
“Take her upstairs.”
Elena immediately stiffened.
“No.”
Rosa blinked.
“No?”
“I stay with him.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
With him.
Not because she trusted me.
Because Sofia had told her to.
I knelt in front of her.
“You're freezing.
Rosa is going to get you warm clothes and something to eat.”
“What if you leave?”
“I won't.”
“What if they come?”
I felt Marco go still behind me.
“Who?”
Elena pressed her lips together.
“Elena.”
She looked toward the windows.
Then she whispered, “The men from the black car.”
Marco's phone was in his hand instantly.
“What black car?”
“The one outside our apartment.”
“When?”
“Lots of times.”
“What kind?”
“I don't know.”
“Big?
Small?”
“Big.”
“Color?”
“Black.”
“Did you see the driver?”
“Sometimes.”
“Would you recognize him?”
Elena nodded.
Marco opened his phone gallery.
I watched him swipe through photographs.
Security staff.
Drivers.
Former employees.
Contractors.
Men who had worked for me at various points over twenty years.
He crouched beside Elena.
“Tell me if you've seen anyone.”
Picture after picture.
She shook her head.
No.
No.
No.
Then her finger touched the screen.
“That one.”
Marco stopped moving.
Daniel's face drained of color.
I looked down.
The photograph had been taken at a charity dinner fourteen months earlier.
Three men stood beside me.
Marco.
Me.
And my brother.
Vincent Moretti.
For a moment, the room seemed to tilt.
“That man?”
I asked.
Elena nodded.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
My mouth went dry.
Vincent.
My younger brother.
The man who had brought me Sofia's false goodbye letter.
The man who had convinced me she wanted me to stop searching.
The man who had held me upright at our father's funeral.
The man who had stood beside me through everything.
Marco looked at me.
“Dom.”
I raised a hand.
Not yet.
“Elena, where did you see him?”
“In the car.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Did he see you?”
“I think so.”
“Did your mother know?”
Elena's eyes filled.
“She pushed me into Mrs.
Alvarez's apartment and told me to stay quiet.”
There it was.
The thing she had been refusing to say.
“What happened after that?”
“She went downstairs.”
“And?”
“I heard yelling.”
Rosa sat beside her.
Elena's breathing became quicker.
“I waited like Mom said.
Then somebody knocked really hard.
Mrs.
Alvarez wouldn't open the door.
Then we heard something break downstairs.”
Her chin trembled.
“Mom didn't come back.”
I stood.
“Address.”
Elena gave it.
Marco repeated it into his phone.
Then one of the security radios crackled.
A voice came through.
“Mr.
Russo?”
Marco lifted the radio.
“Go.”
“We have an issue at the east service entrance.”
“What issue?”
“A vehicle has been sitting across the street for approximately fifteen minutes.”
Every person in the room went still.
Marco walked to the window without approaching the glass directly.
“Description?”
“Black Escalade.
Tinted windows.”
Elena made a small sound.
I turned toward her.
She stared at Marco's radio.
“That's the car.”
The room changed immediately.
Marco began issuing orders.
“Lock the property down.
Nobody enters.
Nobody exits.
Two men on the roof.
Get eyes on every alley.
Run the plate without approaching.”
Rosa pulled Elena close.
Daniel reached for his phone.
I snatched it from his hand.
He stared at me.
“No calls.”
“Dominic.”
“You don't call anyone until I understand what you know.”
“This is absurd.”
“My eight-year-old daughter has been followed to my house by a vehicle she associates with my brother, and you reacted to a letter describing something my father concealed.”
His jaw tightened.
“You will give me my phone.”
“No.”
“Elena's safety requires rational people to remain rational.”
That sentence made me pause.
Not because it calmed me.
Because Sofia used to say the same thing.
Not those exact words.
But close.
Rational people.
I stared at Daniel.
“When was the last time you saw Sofia?”
His face became completely blank.
Marco turned from the window.
Daniel said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
“Where?”
He swallowed.
“My office.”
My blood went cold.
I had never known that.
“Before she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
He looked at Elena.
Then back at me.
“Two days.”
The day after the threat.
I could hear my own heartbeat.
“Why did she come to you?”
“She wanted documents.”
“What documents?”
“A new identity.”
Marco cursed.
Daniel's shoulders sagged.
“She was terrified, Dominic.
She refused to tell me why.
She said she needed to disappear and that helping her was the only way I could protect you.”
“And you helped her?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you let me believe she had abandoned me?”
“Because she begged me to.”
I stared at him.
Eight years.
Daniel had known she had not simply run.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
“You watched me destroy myself looking for her.”
“I watched you survive.”
“You watched me bury her while she was alive.”
His expression cracked.
“I was told you would die if you found her.”
The room went silent.
“By whom?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
And before he answered, Marco's radio exploded with shouting.
“Vehicle moving!”
Marco spun.
“Direction?”
“It's approaching the gate.”
Rosa pulled Elena behind her.
“Stop it.”
“We're trying—”
A second voice shouted through the radio.
“Driver's getting out!”
Marco drew his weapon.
Two guards appeared at the study door.
I moved instinctively in front of Elena.
Through the rain-streaked windows, headlights washed across the townhouse facade.
The buzzer sounded.
Once.
Twice.
Then the intercom on my desk lit up.
Nobody touched it.
A guard's voice crackled through.
“Sir… you need to hear this.”
Marco picked up the line.
“What?”
The guard hesitated.
“The driver says his name is Dr.
Samuel Kessler.”
I felt the blood leave my face.
The doctor from Sofia's letter.
Here.
At my home.
Before I had even finished reading his name.
Marco looked at me.
“That isn't possible.”
No.
It wasn't.
Unless somebody knew Elena had reached me.
Unless somebody had been watching.
“Bring him inside,” I said.
Marco shook his head.
“Absolutely not.”
“Bring him to the gatehouse.”
“Dom—”
“Now.”
Three minutes later, the security camera feed appeared on the television built into the study wall.
An old man stood inside the gatehouse.
Late sixties, maybe seventy.
Gray hair pasted to his forehead from the rain.
Blood on his collar.
One side of his face swollen.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Mr.
Moretti,” he said.
His voice trembled.
“I don't know how much Sofia told you, but we don't have much time.”
I stepped closer to the screen.
“Where is she?”
Kessler looked down.
That single movement nearly destroyed me.
“Where is Sofia?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Elena slipped from behind Rosa.
“Do you know my mom?”
Kessler saw her.
His entire face changed.
Shock.
Then relief.
Then something far worse.
Grief.
“Oh, God,” he whispered.
Elena grabbed my hand.
I looked down.
Her small fingers had wrapped around mine without asking.
It was the first time my daughter had touched me.
I closed my hand around hers.
Kessler leaned toward the camera.
“Listen to me very carefully.
The people who took Sofia are coming for Elena.”
Marco spoke.
“Who?”
Kessler ignored him.
“There were two babies that night.”
My grip tightened around Elena's hand.
“One was Elena?”
“Yes.”
“And the other?”
Kessler stared at me.
His eyes filled.
“A boy.”
The room stopped breathing.
My son.
Somewhere in the world, I had a son.
“Alive?”
Kessler hesitated.
I felt something savage rise inside me.
“Is my son alive?”
“He was when they took him.”
Elena looked up at me.
“You have a son?”
I could not answer.
Kessler continued rapidly.
“I changed the birth records.
I recorded Elena as stillborn because that was the only way to get her out of the hospital.
Sofia left with her the next morning.”
“And my son?”
“I couldn't save both.”
His voice broke.
“They were already inside the hospital.
They knew she had delivered twins.
They gave me a choice.”
“What choice?”
“One child leaves with Sofia.”
His eyes lowered.
“One stays.”
Rosa started crying silently.
My body felt hollow.
“What happened to him?”
“I didn't know for years.”
“For years?”
Kessler nodded.
“Then I saw him.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Where?”
“New York.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
I stepped closer to the screen.
“Who has him?”
Kessler opened his mouth.
Then every light in the townhouse went out.
Darkness swallowed the study.
Elena screamed.
I pulled her against me.
Marco shouted orders.
Emergency lights flickered red along the floor.
Somewhere downstairs, glass shattered.
Then came three gunshots.
Rosa dragged Elena behind the desk.
Marco pushed me toward the interior wall.
“Stay down.”
The security system began screaming.
Daniel was saying something I couldn't hear.
A voice came through Marco's radio.
“Breach!
East corridor!”
Another gunshot.
Then silence.
The camera monitor flickered back on using backup power.
The gatehouse feed returned.
Kessler was no longer standing.
He lay on the floor.
Blood spreading beneath him.
A shadow moved behind the camera.
Someone leaned into view.
Not Vincent.
A young man.
Maybe twenty-five.
Dark hair.
Sharp jaw.
Brown eyes.
My eyes.
He stared into the camera with an expression so calm it frightened me more than the gun in his hand.
Then he smiled.
And my entire body went cold.
Because I had seen that smile before.
Not on myself.
On my father.
The young man leaned closer to the camera.
“Hello, Uncle Dominic.”
Uncle.
Not Father.
Behind me, Daniel whispered one word.
“No.”
The young man heard him through the gatehouse microphone.
His smile widened.
“Oh, Daniel's there too.”
He raised the gun and pointed it toward Kessler's body.
“Good.
That saves time.”
I stepped toward the screen.
“Who are you?”
The young man looked directly at me.
“My name is Luca.”
He paused.
“And before you make the same mistake everyone else did, I'm not Sofia's missing son.”
My pulse stopped.
He reached into his coat.
Pulled out a folded photograph.
Held it to the camera.
The picture showed Sofia lying in a hospital bed eight years earlier.
Exhausted.
Terrified.
A newborn in each arm.
Elena.
And a baby boy.
But beside the hospital bed stood another person.
A man younger than I remembered him.
Vincent.
My brother.
Holding the boy's tiny hand.
Luca lowered the photograph.
“Your son is alive, Dominic.”
Behind him, somewhere outside the gatehouse, headlights appeared through the rain.
“But if you want him back, you're going to have to learn what Vincent really is.”
The screen went black.
A second later, my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One photograph.
I opened it.
Sofia sat tied to a chair inside a dark room.
Bruised.
Alive.
Beside her stood Vincent.
And beside Vincent stood a boy of about eight years old.
Same dark hair as Elena.
Same brown eyes.
My father's cleft in his chin.
My son.
There was one message beneath the picture.
YOU CAN HAVE ONE OF THEM BACK.
CHOOSE BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
Elena looked up at me.
“What does it say?”
I stared at the two children in the photograph.
One standing beside me.
One trapped with the brother I had trusted my entire life.
And suddenly I understood the cruelty of what had been done.
This was never about hiding Sofia.
It was never even about hiding my children.
Someone had spent eight years building toward this exact night.
And whatever had begun with my father and that missing shipment to Palermo was not buried history.
It was inheritance.
The intercom rang again.
Once.
Twice.
Then Vincent's voice filled the study.
“Dominic.”
Elena froze.
My hand tightened around hers.
My brother laughed softly through the speaker.
“I suppose it's finally time we talked about why Dad never wanted you to know you weren't his firstborn son.”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
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Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
