Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE WHERE MY DAUGHTER LEARNED TO LIVE WITHOUT ME
“Then my home isn't safe.”
I said the words while watching Rafe's vehicle disappear from the screen.
For eighteen years, I had trusted that man with everything.
My businesses.
My security.
My family's lives.
Now I understood that every locked gate around my estate might have been protecting the wrong person.
Mason waited beside me.
“Should I bring Sophie to the mansion?”
“No.”
“Where, boss?”
“Somewhere Rafe doesn't control.”
Vincent stepped forward.
“I know a place.”
I looked at him.
“You've lost the privilege of asking me to trust you.”
“I know.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
He swallowed.
“Isabella and Sophie lived in a cottage outside Cold Spring. I paid the rent myself.”
My hands curled into fists.
“You knew where my daughter slept?”
“Yes.”
“You knew where she spent Christmas?”
His silence answered.
“You knew when she took her first steps?”
Vincent looked miserable.
“Dominic—”
“Did you ever hold her?”
“Yes.”
That single word hurt more than anything else.
My brother had held my daughter.
Watched her grow.
He had been there while I sat alone in a mansion filled with photographs of a woman I believed was gone.
“Did she call you Daddy?”
His eyes widened.
“No. Never.”
“Then why does she call you a bad man?”
Vincent rubbed his hands together.
“Last winter, Isabella tried to leave the cottage. Rafe had told me there were men watching the road.”
“And?”
“I locked the front door until they were gone.”
I stepped closer.
“You imprisoned my wife.”
“For two hours.”
“Two hours is too long.”
He looked at the floor.
“I know that now.”
But I wasn't certain he understood.
Not yet.
The pediatrician cleared Sophie to leave with instructions to monitor her and seek immediate care if anything changed.
I arranged for a uniformed officer to complete the accident report.
I also gave my full name and promised to replace her damaged bicycle.
I wanted no special treatment.
Not for the accident.
Not for anything.
Sophie sat beside me in the car, securely fastened into a child seat Mason had purchased.
She insisted on holding my hand whenever the vehicle stopped.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Where's my pink bike?”
“I'll get you another one.”
“Same pink?”
“Exactly the same.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
I nearly cried again.
The cottage stood beneath tall maple trees overlooking the Hudson Valley.
It was small.
White shutters.
A narrow porch.
A faded wooden swing.
Nothing like the enormous estate where Isabella had once lived.
I stepped inside.
And my heart broke.
There were drawings on the refrigerator.
A calendar covered with colorful stickers.
A tiny pair of rain boots beside the door.
On the kitchen wall, pencil marks showed Sophie's height at different ages.
One year.
Two years.
Three years.
Beside the final mark, Isabella had written:
Daddy would be so proud.
I touched the words.
For four years, I'd imagined Isabella forgetting me.
Instead, she'd been teaching our daughter that I existed.
Sophie ran toward a little bedroom.
“Daddy! Look!”
The room was decorated with paper butterflies.
Above the bed hung a photograph of me.
Not the famous pictures newspapers printed.
An ordinary photograph.
I was asleep on a couch.
Isabella had taken it during our first year of marriage.
Beneath it, she'd written:
Your daddy laughs in his sleep.
I sat on the little bed.
Sophie climbed beside me.
“Mommy says Daddy big.”
I smiled weakly.
“Pretty big.”
She spread her tiny arms.
“This big!”
“Even bigger.”
She giggled.
Then she touched the scar above my eyebrow.
“Mommy says Daddy got boo-boo helping somebody.”
I remembered the incident.
I'd been injured protecting Vincent during an ambush when he was nineteen.
I looked toward the doorway.
My brother stood there, unable to meet my eyes.
“Why did Isabella leave here?” I asked.
Vincent hesitated.
“Six weeks ago, she discovered Rafe was still using the foundation accounts. She found an old audit trail that proved it.”
“Where is the evidence?”
“I don't know.”
Sophie climbed off the bed.
“Mommy has blue book.”
We both stared at her.
“Blue book?” I asked gently.
She nodded.
“Mommy writes. Lots.”
“Where did Mommy put it?”
Sophie thought seriously.
Then she pointed to a drawing taped beside her bed.
A little shop.
A yellow awning.
A bird painted above the door.
“Cookie lady.”
Vincent's face changed.
“June's Bakery.”
We left immediately.
The bakery was tucked along a quiet street in a neighboring town.
An elderly woman with silver hair stood behind the counter.
When she saw Sophie, she covered her mouth.
“Oh, thank heaven.”
Sophie ran toward her.
“Miss June!”
The woman hugged her.
Then she looked at me.
“You must be Dominic.”
I couldn't speak.
She glanced at Vincent.
Her expression hardened.
“You have some nerve showing your face here.”
Vincent lowered his head.
“Mrs. Whitaker, please—”
“No. You've frightened that woman enough.”
I stepped forward.
“Where's Isabella?”
Mrs. Whitaker looked toward the kitchen.
“Before I answer, Mr. Moretti, you need to understand something.”
“What?”
“Your wife has spent four years believing you chose your empire over her.”
I felt the words settle in my chest.
Then a voice came from behind the swinging kitchen door.
A voice I had heard in dreams for four years.
“June, let him come in.”
I turned.
Isabella stood in the doorway.
Thinner.
Paler.
Older around the eyes.
But alive.
My wife.
My beautiful wife.
I took one step.
“Bella?”
Tears filled her eyes.
May you like
Then she looked directly at me.
“Don't come any closer, Dominic. I still don't know whether you're the man who wanted me gone.”
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