PART 2.
“You were the man Mommy was scared of.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Vincent slowly turned toward Dominic.
For the first time in years, the most dangerous man in Chicago looked at his closest friend like he was looking at an enemy.
And Dominic’s silence told us one thing.
He knew exactly what those girls were talking about.
The silence inside the restaurant lasted only a few seconds.
It felt like an hour.
Dominic Vesceri stood near the entrance with one hand inside his coat pocket, staring at the little girl in orange as though she had just climbed out of a grave.
Vincent did not raise his voice.
That was what frightened me most.
“Take your hand out of your pocket, Dominic.”
Every conversation in the restaurant had already died.
Dominic slowly obeyed.
His hand emerged empty.
Vincent stepped away from the table.
“Do you know these children?”
Dominic swallowed.
“No.”
The girl in orange immediately shook her head.
“Yes, you do.”
Dominic looked at her.
She moved closer to her sister.
“You came to our house.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“When?”
The child hesitated.
Her sister in red answered instead.
“A long time ago.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked down at her bracelet.
“Mommy told us not to open the door when you came.”
Dominic laughed softly.
It was the worst possible thing he could have done.
Not because anything was funny.
Because it sounded desperate.
“Vincent, they’re children.
They’re confused.
Someone has obviously told them—”
“Stop.”
Vincent said the word quietly.
Dominic stopped.
I had seen Vincent threaten powerful men without touching them.
I had seen him destroy negotiations with three sentences.
But I had never seen this version of him.
He looked almost calm.
Yet underneath that calm was something enormous.
Something breaking.
Vincent crouched in front of the girls.
The movement shocked everyone more than his anger had.
He lowered himself until he was eye level with them.
“What are your names?”
The girl in red answered first.
“Lucia.”
Her sister whispered, “Elena.”
Vincent repeated the names like he was testing whether they were real.
“Lucia.”
Then:
“Elena.”
His eyes searched their faces.
I could see what he was seeing now.
Lucia had Sofia’s eyes.
The same warm brown, almost golden beneath the light.
Elena had Vincent’s chin.
His dark hair.
And when she frowned, the resemblance became so obvious that I felt a chill move down my arms.
Vincent noticed it too.
He looked away for one second.
Only one.
It was enough.
“Where is your mother?” he asked.
Lucia’s face changed.
“She told us to wait for Aunt Maria.”
“Who is Aunt Maria?”
“Our neighbor.”
“And where is she?”
Elena pointed toward the street.
“She said she had to find a parking place.”
That made no sense.
A woman responsible for two children would not leave them alone inside a restaurant full of strangers.
Unless she had never intended to come inside at all.
I moved toward the front windows.
There was no woman waiting outside.
No one hurrying toward the entrance.
Only black cars, headlights, and rain beginning to streak the glass.
Behind me, Vincent asked another question.
“Why did your mother send you here?”
Lucia looked at Elena.
Neither child answered.
Vincent’s voice softened.
“You’re not in trouble.”
Elena stared at him.
“Promise?”
Something in Vincent’s face collapsed.
“I promise.”
The little girl reached into her purse again.
This time she pulled out an envelope.
Cream-colored.
Folded at the corners.
On the front, written in blue ink, was one name.
Vincent.
He stared at it.
I had seen that handwriting before.
Years earlier, I had carried invitations and personal notes from Sofia across Vincent’s mansion.
She had a strange way of writing the letter V.
A long first stroke.
A small hook at the bottom.
The name on that envelope had the same hook.
Vincent took it carefully.
Dominic stepped forward.
“Vincent.”
Vincent looked at him.
Dominic stopped again.
“Whatever is inside that envelope,” Dominic said, “you should understand that appearances can be manipulated.”
“You seem very concerned about what’s inside.”
“I’m concerned about you.”
“No,” Vincent replied.
“You’re concerned about yourself.”
Then he opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Vincent froze.
I moved close enough to see it over his shoulder.
Sofia.
Alive.
She was standing in front of a small white house surrounded by trees.
Her hair was shorter than I remembered.
Her face looked thinner.
She was holding Lucia’s hand.
Elena stood beside her.
On the back was a date.
Eight months earlier.
Vincent stared at it so long that his hand began to shake.
Then he found the letter.
There were only a few lines.
He read them silently.
His face became impossible to read.
“What does it say?”
I asked.
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he handed it to me.
I read.
Vincent,
If the girls reached you, then something has gone wrong.
Do not trust the story you were told about me.
Do not trust the people who helped you bury me.
Most of all, do not trust the man who told you there was nothing left to find.
Protect Lucia and Elena.
They are yours.
Sofia.
My mouth went dry.
I looked at Dominic.
Vincent did too.
“You told me you identified her body.”
Dominic’s face went still.
Vincent took one step toward him.
“You stood beside me in that hospital.”
Dominic said nothing.
“You handed me the report.”
Still nothing.
“You arranged the funeral.”
“Vincent—”
“You told me not to see her because of what the fire had done.”
The restaurant suddenly felt too small.
Vincent’s voice began to crack.
“You put an empty coffin in the ground?”
Dominic’s eyes changed.
Not guilt this time.
Calculation.
And that frightened me more.
Because Dominic had realized there was no point pretending anymore.
He slowly straightened his jacket.
“You don’t understand what happened.”
“Then explain it.”
“Sofia was leaving you.”
The words struck Vincent harder than any insult could have.
Dominic continued.
“She contacted me months before the accident.”
Vincent stared at him.
“She was afraid.”
“Of me?”
Dominic hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Say it.”
“She was afraid of what your life would become.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Dominic looked toward the children.
Then at me.
Then back at Vincent.
“No,” he said.
“She wasn’t afraid of you.”
Vincent’s expression shifted.
“Then who?”
Dominic breathed in slowly.
“Your father.”
Vincent stopped.
The name was never spoken inside the house.
Salvatore Moretti had been dead for six years.
He had built the organization Vincent inherited.
A man from an older generation.
Crueler.
Less patient.
The kind of man who believed family was another word for property.
Dominic continued carefully.
“Sofia found documents she was never supposed to find.
Financial accounts.
Names.
Payments.
She discovered your father had been moving money through charities and construction companies for years.”
“That wouldn’t have made her run.”
“No.”
Dominic’s eyes lowered.
“She found something else.”
Vincent waited.
Dominic glanced at Lucia and Elena.
“I’m not discussing it in front of them.”
Vincent looked toward me.
“Take the girls upstairs.”
The restaurant had private rooms on the second floor.
Vincent owned the building through one of his companies.
Nobody questioned him.
Lucia immediately grabbed his sleeve.
“No.”
He looked down.
Her small fingers were wrapped around his cuff.
“Mommy said we stay with you.”
Vincent stared at her hand.
He looked like a man who had spent years imagining ghosts and had suddenly discovered they could touch him.
“You can stay,” he said.
Dominic’s face tightened.
“That’s a mistake.”
Vincent turned.
“You stopped deciding what was best for my family years ago.”
The word family changed the air.
Lucia heard it.
So did Elena.
Elena whispered something to her sister.
Then she asked Vincent:
“Are you really our daddy?”
Vincent had faced judges, rivals, investigations, enemies.
Yet that question left him defenseless.
He looked at them.
“I think so.”
Elena frowned.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Mommy knows.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t she tell you?”
That was the question none of us could answer.
Dominic could.
I saw it immediately.
So did Vincent.
He moved toward him.
“Why didn’t Sofia tell me?”
Dominic remained silent.
Vincent seized him by the front of his jacket.
Several people gasped.
The girls stepped backward.
I had seen Vincent furious before.
This was different.
Years of grief were suddenly standing directly in front of him wearing Dominic’s face.
“Why?”
Dominic whispered something.
I couldn’t hear it.
Vincent released him.
“What did you say?”
Dominic looked directly into his eyes.
“Because someone inside your house was giving your father information.”
Vincent went still.
Dominic nodded toward the restaurant.
“Every call Sofia made.
Every lawyer she contacted.
Every doctor she visited.”
Vincent looked at the girls.
Doctors.
The word had registered.
“She was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
Vincent struck him.
One blow.
Dominic crashed against a table, sending glasses and silverware across the floor.
People screamed.
Vincent stood over him.
“You knew I had children.”
Dominic wiped blood from his mouth.
“Yes.”
“And you let me bury my wife.”
“I kept her alive.”
Vincent stopped.
Dominic slowly stood.
“If Salvatore had known Sofia survived, she would have disappeared for real.
And those girls would never have been allowed to grow up.”
“My father died six years ago.”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you tell me then?”
Dominic looked at him.
“Because Salvatore wasn’t the person Sofia was hiding from.”
That silenced everyone.
Even Vincent.
Dominic straightened his jacket again.
“Your father gave orders.
But someone else was feeding him information.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
Vincent stared at him.
“That’s a lie.”
“No.
It isn’t.”
“You expect me to believe you helped my wife disappear, lied to me for years, watched me mourn her, and never asked who she was running from?”
“I asked.”
“And?”
“She refused to tell me.”
Vincent laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Convenient.”
“She said the moment I knew, I would be in danger too.”
“And yet you visited her house.”
Dominic looked at Elena.
“That was three years ago.”
The child recognized him.
She whispered, “Mommy cried after you left.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Vincent noticed.
“What happened?”
Dominic looked exhausted now.
“I found her because she made a mistake.
She contacted an old account.
I begged her to come back.”
“To me?”
“No.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“To Chicago.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought the danger was gone.”
“And she refused.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dominic looked around the restaurant.
Then he said the sentence that changed everything again.
“Because she believed the person watching her was still inside your home.”
Nobody spoke.
I felt cold.
Vincent’s mansion had dozens of employees.
Security.
Drivers.
Accountants.
Assistants.
Housekeepers.
Guards.
People who had been with him for years.
Including me.
Vincent turned slowly toward me.
It wasn’t accusation in his eyes.
Not yet.
It was realization.
If Sofia had been hiding from someone inside his household, everyone close to him was suddenly a suspect.
Then Lucia pulled his sleeve.
“Daddy?”
It was the first time she called him that.
Vincent looked down immediately.
“There’s something else.”
She reached into the purse again.
This time she produced a phone.
Old.
Cheap.
A prepaid model.
“Mommy said only turn it on when we found you.”
Vincent took it.
The screen was dark.
“Did she tell you why?”
Lucia nodded.
“She said there was a movie.”
“A movie?”
“A message,” Elena corrected.
Vincent held down the power button.
The phone came alive.
Battery: 41%.
No contacts.
No calls.
One video file.
Recorded three days earlier.
Vincent pressed play.
Sofia appeared on the screen.
I stopped breathing.
So did Vincent.
She was sitting in a dim room.
A lamp burned somewhere behind her.
She looked older.
Frightened.
Alive.
“Vincent,” she said.
The sound of her voice almost made him drop the phone.
He gripped it with both hands.
“If you are watching this, Lucia and Elena found you.”
She paused.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry.”
Vincent’s face twisted.
“I wanted to come back a thousand times.
I wanted to tell you everything.
But I didn’t know who I could trust.”
Dominic stared at the screen.
Sofia continued.
“Your father discovered I was pregnant before you did.
He told me the children would belong to the Moretti family.
He said I could remain their mother if I understood my place.”
Vincent’s eyes became hard.
“I planned to leave.”
She swallowed.
“But someone told him.”
The video shook slightly.
“I never discovered who.”
Dominic looked at Vincent as if to say, I told you.
Sofia continued.
“Dominic helped me disappear.”
Vincent glanced toward him.
“He lied to you because I begged him to.”
Dominic exhaled.
For the first time that night, some of the guilt left his face.
Then Sofia said:
“But Dominic does not know everything.”
He froze.
The video continued.
“Three years ago, someone found us.
Not Dominic.
Someone else.”
Vincent leaned closer to the screen.
“I moved the girls again.
We changed names.
Changed cities.
I stopped using bank accounts.
I stopped contacting anyone from Chicago.”
She looked behind her.
At something off camera.
“Two weeks ago, I received a photograph.”
She held it toward the camera.
Vincent’s mansion.
Taken from outside the gates.
On the back were four words.
COME HOME OR HE DIES.
Vincent whispered, “Who?”
Sofia looked directly into the camera.
“You.”
The video went silent for several seconds.
Then:
“Someone has been planning something around you for years.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
“Your father’s empire was never meant to become yours.”
Dominic suddenly stepped closer.
“What?”
Sofia continued.
“There is another heir.”
Vincent stared at the screen.
I felt every muscle in my body tighten.
Another heir?
That was impossible.
Salvatore Moretti had one son.
Everyone knew that.
Vincent.
But Sofia was shaking now.
“I discovered the birth record before I disappeared.
Salvatore had another child.”
Dominic whispered:
“No.”
Sofia looked terrified.
“A son.”
Vincent didn’t move.
“Older than you.”
Dominic turned toward Vincent.
But Sofia wasn’t finished.
“He has spent years inside your organization.”
The restaurant seemed to tilt around me.
“He knows your businesses.
Your accounts.
Your security.”
Vincent looked slowly around the room.
“He knows your habits.”
Every employee.
Every associate.
Every trusted face suddenly seemed dangerous.
“And Vincent…”
Sofia stopped.
A sound came from somewhere behind her.
A door.
Her face changed.
Pure fear.
She leaned toward the camera.
“If I don’t reach you myself, do not believe anyone who tells you I’m dead.”
Then she whispered:
“Not again.”
The video suddenly shook.
Sofia stood.
Someone entered the room.
We couldn’t see them.
Only a shadow passing across the wall.
Sofia backed away.
“No.”
A man’s voice said something too quietly to understand.
Then Sofia stared at whoever stood behind the camera.
And whispered a name.
Vincent replayed it.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The audio was too faint.
I moved closer.
“Give it to me.”
He handed me the phone.
I raised the volume.
Played the final seconds again.
Sofia’s lips moved.
One word.
A name.
This time I heard it.
So did Vincent.
So did Dominic.
And suddenly I wished I hadn’t.
Because Sofia wasn’t saying Dominic.
She wasn’t saying Salvatore.
She wasn’t naming a rival family.
She said:
“Gabriel.”
Vincent’s face drained of color.
Dominic stared at him.
“No.”
Vincent took the phone back.
“No.”
Lucia looked frightened.
“Who’s Gabriel?”
Vincent didn’t answer.
I knew the name.
Everyone in the Moretti household knew it.
Gabriel Moretti.
Vincent’s uncle.
Salvatore’s younger brother.
The man who supposedly died when Vincent was nine years old.
I had seen his portrait in the mansion.
A young man standing beside Salvatore.
Same dark eyes.
Same powerful shoulders.
But Gabriel had died in a boating accident nearly thirty years ago.
At least, that was the story.
Dominic began pacing.
“This doesn’t make sense.”
Vincent’s face had become stone.
“My father never recovered a body.”
Dominic stopped.
“What?”
“They found the boat.”
“And?”
“No body.”
Dominic stared at him.
Vincent looked at Sofia’s frozen image on the phone.
“My father told everyone Gabriel drowned.”
The lights went out.
The entire restaurant fell into darkness.
Someone screamed.
Vincent immediately grabbed both girls and pulled them toward him.
“Everyone down!”
Glass shattered near the front entrance.
I dropped behind a table.
Dominic shouted from somewhere in the darkness.
“Vincent!”
A gunshot exploded.
Then another.
People screamed and crawled beneath tables.
Emergency lights flickered red along the walls.
I saw Vincent crouched behind a marble column with Lucia and Elena beneath his arms.
His security team rushed toward him.
Another shot.
One guard collapsed.
The front windows shattered.
But whoever was firing wasn’t trying to hit Vincent.
Not yet.
The shots were forcing everyone away from the entrance.
Then the restaurant doors opened.
A man stepped inside.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
Black coat.
No weapon visible.
The shooting stopped instantly.
That meant only one thing.
The gunmen belonged to him.
Vincent stared across the room.
The stranger stared back.
Thirty years older.
A scar across one side of his face.
But I recognized him.
The portrait.
Gabriel Moretti.
Alive.
Lucia began shaking.
“No.”
Vincent looked down.
She was staring at Gabriel.
Not like a stranger.
Like she knew him.
Gabriel smiled.
“Hello, Vincent.”
Vincent stood slowly.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Gabriel’s smile widened.
“So was your wife.”
Then Elena whispered:
“That’s the man.”
Vincent looked at her.
“What man?”
Her eyes never left Gabriel.
“The man who took Mommy.”
Every guard in the room raised a weapon.
Gabriel didn’t flinch.
Instead, he looked at Lucia and Elena with an expression that made my blood run cold.
Then he looked at Vincent.
“You’ve been asking the wrong question all night.”
Vincent’s voice was barely a whisper.
“What question?”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“You keep asking why Sofia ran from you.”
He reached inside his coat.
Vincent’s guards immediately tightened their aim.
Gabriel slowly pulled out a photograph.
He tossed it onto the floor.
It slid across the marble and stopped near Vincent’s shoes.
Vincent picked it up.
I watched his face change.
The photograph showed Sofia.
Taken recently.
She was alive.
Sitting in a chair.
And standing behind her was someone I knew.
Someone Vincent trusted.
Someone who had been inside his home every single day for five years.
Me.
I stared at the photograph.
“That’s impossible.”
Vincent slowly lifted his eyes toward me.
Gabriel smiled.
“The question you should be asking, nephew…”
I backed away.
Because the woman in the photograph looked exactly like me.
My face.
My hair.
My clothes.
But I had never seen Sofia alive.
Not once.
Gabriel finished:
“…is who has been living inside your house all these years?”
And then I remembered something I had spent my entire life trying to forget.
I didn’t have a single memory from before my twenty-third birthday.
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
READ FULL PART 2:
FULL STORY: The Moretti Secret – PT04
Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
