Chapter 3 - THE SECURITY ORDER THAT STOLE MY FAMILY
“Show me the order.”
I spoke so quietly that Vincent almost didn't hear me.
We were standing in a private corridor of Lenox Hill Hospital.
Sophie was undergoing an examination with a pediatrician while Mason remained nearby.
I hadn't left her side until the nurse assured me she would be safe.
And even then, I could still hear her little voice.
“Daddy, no more bad car.”
I had promised her.
No more bad car.
No more being frightened.
I intended to keep both promises.
Vincent leaned against the corridor wall.
“The original order was destroyed.”
“Convenient.”
“Dominic, listen—”
“I listened to you for four years. You told me Isabella was dead.”
His face tightened.
“I thought keeping her hidden was the only way she'd survive.”
“Hidden from whom?”
He looked away.
I grabbed the front of his jacket.
“FROM ME?”
“From the men who could reach her through you!”
I released him.
A nurse passing nearby gave us a warning look.
For once, I didn't care about appearing powerful.
I cared about appearing human.
“Start at the beginning.”
Vincent rubbed his forehead.
“Four years ago, Isabella discovered something in the Moretti Foundation accounts.”
I remembered.
My wife had managed the foundation's community programs.
Scholarships.
Medical assistance.
Housing support for struggling families.
She'd loved that work.
I'd given her complete control because she was the only person in my world who could look at a desperate stranger and see a human being rather than a potential weakness.
“What did she discover?”
“Money was disappearing.”
“How much?”
“Millions.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She tried.”
That answer landed harder than I expected.
Vincent continued.
“She requested a meeting with you three days before she vanished. Someone canceled it using your office.”
I remembered that week.
Three attacks on our shipping operations.
A warehouse fire.
Two trusted associates killed.
I had been exhausted and furious.
But I remembered Isabella standing in our bedroom, asking whether we could talk.
And I remembered telling her we'd talk after the crisis.
We never did.
“Who canceled the meeting?”
Vincent hesitated.
“Rafael Kessler.”
Rafe.
My head of security.
A man who had worked beside me for eighteen years.
He knew every entrance to my estate.
Every family tradition.
Every secret route.
He had carried Isabella's shopping bags when she was pregnant because she'd refused to let anyone treat her like fragile glass.
“Rafe told me Isabella needed to be moved,” Vincent said. “He showed me an order bearing your authorization.”
“What did it say?”
“That she was to be taken to a secure property until the threats were contained.”
“That's not an order to make her disappear.”
“No.”
His voice broke.
“That part was my decision.”
I stared at him.
Vincent lowered his eyes.
“Rafe told me that if Isabella contacted you, he'd make sure your enemies found her. He had access to the location of every safe house we owned.”
“Then you should have come to me.”
“I know.”
“You should have trusted me.”
“I know.”
“You let me bury my wife in my heart while she was alive somewhere with our child.”
Vincent said nothing.
There was no defense for that.
A doctor appeared.
“Mr. Moretti?”
I turned immediately.
“Sophie is doing well. No fractures, no signs of a serious injury. We'd like to observe her a little longer, but she's remarkably fortunate.”
My shoulders sagged.
“Thank you.”
“And she keeps asking for her daddy.”
Those words nearly undid me.
Inside the examination room, Sophie sat on the bed with a teddy bear the nurse had given her.
When she saw me, she lifted both arms.
“Daddy!”
I held her carefully.
She smelled like baby shampoo and strawberries.
For three years, I'd missed birthdays.
First steps.
Bedtime stories.
Everything.
“Mommy?” she asked.
“We're going to find her.”
She nodded solemnly.
“Mommy likes yellow flowers.”
“I remember.”
Isabella loved yellow roses.
Our wedding reception had been filled with them.
Then Sophie opened her lavender backpack.
She pulled out a folded piece of paper.
It was a drawing.
Three stick figures holding hands.
One was tall, dressed in black.
One had long brown hair.
The smallest wore pink.
Above them, in unmistakable adult handwriting, were two words.
Our family.
I pressed the drawing against my chest.
That afternoon, Mason retrieved surveillance footage from the flower market near the accident.
Vincent identified the location where Isabella had last been seen.
The recording showed a woman in a beige coat kneeling beside Sophie.
She kissed the child's forehead.
Then someone approached from behind.
A tall man wearing a dark suit.
He caught Isabella's arm.
She turned.
Even through the grainy recording, I recognized her face.
My wife.
Alive.
Terrified.
The man guided her toward a waiting vehicle.
Mason enlarged the image.
I recognized the silver watch.
The scar across the man's left hand.
The way he moved.
Rafe Kessler.
And then Mason noticed something else.
Rafe looked directly into the security camera.
He wasn't trying to conceal his identity.
He was smiling.
May you like
As if he knew I would eventually watch.
And as the vehicle disappeared, Mason whispered, “Boss, that car belongs to the security division guarding your home.”
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