Chapter 11 - The Dead Man's Name

Rosa watched Dad's video three times.

On the fourth, she whispered, "Vittorio."

Lorenzo's face lost color.

"No."

I looked between them. "Who is Vittorio?"

Rosa sat down slowly.

"Lorenzo's father."

The room went silent.

According to every public record, Vittorio Duca had died eighteen years earlier in a boating explosion on Lake Michigan. No body had been recovered. Rosa had buried an empty coffin.

"He is dead," Lorenzo said.

Rosa looked at him with tears in her eyes. "I saw the boat burn. I never saw him."

Natalie began pulling old files.

Within an hour, we had photographs of a man using the name Victor Dane in Switzerland, Toronto, and the Cayman Islands. Older. Heavier. Different beard.

Same eyes as Lorenzo.

Silas had sent money to companies controlled by Victor Dane for seventeen years.

Carlo hadn't been the mastermind.

He had been management.

The king had never left the board.

Lorenzo walked to the window.

"My father beat my mother," he said quietly. "He taught Carlo that fear was loyalty. When the boat exploded, I thought we were free."

I stood beside him.

"Maybe he wanted you to think that."

Lorenzo's laugh held no humor. "Six women ran because someone kept me isolated. Business partners disappeared. Investigations collapsed. Every time I tried to clean the company, somebody sabotaged it."

Vittorio had been protecting a hidden empire from the shadows.

And now he had my mother.

Ethan called again.

This time another voice joined him.

Older. Rough.

"Miss Carter," the man said, "you have your father's eyes."

Lorenzo closed his eyes.

He knew the voice.

"Father."

A pause.

Then Vittorio Duca laughed.

"There you are, son."

The sound changed Lorenzo more than any threat had. For one second, he wasn't the feared man in Chicago.

He was a boy hearing a monster from the dark.

"Where is Mrs. Carter?" he asked.

"Safe. For now. Bring Amelia to the airfield. Bring the missing pages."

"We don't have them."

"Her mother does."

I froze.

Vittorio continued, "And if Amelia wants to know why Ethan spent two years trying to marry her, she should come ask him herself."

My stomach turned.

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Ethan hadn't wandered into my life by accident.

He had been sent.