Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO KNEW HIS GRANDSON
“Daddy... the man downstairs knows my name.”
Those words should have frightened Luca Moretti.
Instead, they broke something inside him.
For twelve years, he had believed his father was buried beneath a white marble cross in Sicily. He had visited that grave twice. He had stood before it with flowers in his hands, asking forgiveness for arguments they never got to finish.
Now his nine-year-old son was standing in their Chicago kitchen, insisting that someone beneath the house knew him.
And the elderly housekeeper everyone believed had retired was trembling at Luca's feet.
“Daniel,” Luca said quietly. “Take two men downstairs. Nobody goes near my son.”
His security chief nodded.
Vanessa Bellini stepped forward.
“Luca, sweetheart, this is becoming ridiculous. Mrs. Marino is obviously confused. She's been locked in that corridor, and—”
“Who locked her there?”
Vanessa stopped.
Luca turned toward her.
“I asked you a question.”
Her expression changed.
Only slightly.
But I noticed.
“I don't know,” she said. “Perhaps she wandered inside and the door—”
“The cabinet was installed three weeks ago,” Daniel interrupted. “The access door was secured from the outside.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You're accusing me?”
“No,” Luca answered. “I'm giving you the opportunity to explain.”
For the first time since I'd entered that mansion eight months earlier, Vanessa had nothing to say.
Mrs. Marino squeezed Luca's hand.
“Your mother kept a photograph,” she whispered. “Find the photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“The Christmas picture. The last one.”
Luca frowned.
His mother, Elena Moretti, had died twelve years earlier after a sudden illness.
The family had stopped celebrating Christmas properly afterward.
His father's reported death came only six weeks later.
Too much grief, too quickly.
That was how Luca had always explained the emptiness that followed.
Now Mrs. Marino was telling him those two tragedies were connected.
Noah pulled my sleeve.
I knelt beside him.
His hearing aids were still in place, but the kitchen had become crowded with voices and footsteps. He watched faces carefully, trying to follow.
I signed slowly.
Your father is finding out what happened.
Noah looked toward Luca.
Then signed:
Grandpa has my picture.
I froze.
“What picture, sweetheart?”
The one with my yellow raincoat.
I looked at Luca.
“Mr. Moretti, Noah says the man downstairs has a photograph of him.”
Luca glanced at his son.
“That's impossible.”
But Noah continued signing.
He showed it through the little window.
My heart tightened.
For four nights, Noah had been pressing his head against that kitchen wall.
He hadn't simply heard a stranger.
He had been communicating with him.
“Where did you get the picture?” Luca asked.
Noah signed his answer.
I don't know.
Then:
He said I looked like Daddy.
Luca looked away.
For a moment, the feared Chicago mafia boss appeared to be nothing more than a grieving son.
Daniel returned from the basement stairs.
“Sir, there's a maintenance passage beneath the old wine cellar. Someone has been using it.”
“Someone?”
“We found fresh food containers, bottled water, and a folding chair. There's a locked room at the far end.”
Mrs. Marino covered her face.
“Please don't let them frighten him.”
Luca immediately turned.
“Who?”
She lowered her hands.
“Your father.”
Vanessa stepped backward.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
She swallowed.
“I mean... this is impossible. My father attended his funeral.”
Mrs. Marino stared at her.
“Your father arranged the funeral.”
The distinction settled over the room like smoke.
Luca's voice became dangerously quiet.
“Daniel. Open that room.”
Vanessa caught his arm.
“Please. Before you do anything, think about Noah.”
Luca looked down at her hand.
“What about him?”
“He's already upset. If someone is pretending to be your father, imagine what that could do to him.”
It was a reasonable concern.
That almost made it worse.
Because Vanessa had never shown much concern for Noah before tonight.
Luca gently removed her fingers.
“Take her to the drawing room,” he told a guard. “She stays there until I understand what's happening.”
“You can't seriously—”
“Vanessa.”
His voice wasn't raised.
She stopped talking.
As the guard escorted her away, I saw her look toward the kitchen clock.
Then toward the service elevator.
It lasted less than a second.
But I remembered it.
Mrs. Marino struggled to stand.
“I need to see him.”
“You need a doctor,” Luca replied.
“He'll be afraid.”
“My father?”
She nodded.
“After what they did to him, yes.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
Daniel's voice came over his radio.
“Sir. We have the door open.”
A pause followed.
Then another.
“Daniel?” Luca demanded.
“There is a man here.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is it my father?”
Daniel didn't answer immediately.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded different.
“Sir... you need to come down.”
Luca turned toward me.
“Stay with Noah.”
But Noah grabbed his father's sleeve.
He signed urgently.
I translated.
“He says the man will be scared if we don't come.”
Luca hesitated.
Then he knelt until his eyes were level with his son's.
He signed slowly, making several mistakes.
I will come back.
Noah studied his hands.
Then corrected his father's final sign.
Luca gave a small, broken smile.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
He stood.
I followed him to the basement door.
“Sophie,” he said, “I asked you to stay upstairs.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you following me?”
“Because Mrs. Marino can barely stand, Noah needs someone who understands him, and you might need someone who isn't afraid to tell you the truth.”
Daniel looked surprised.
Luca stared at me.
Then nodded once.
“Stay close.”
We descended into the old wine cellar.
The air smelled of damp stone and cedar.
At the far end, a narrow maintenance passage ran beneath the kitchen.
There were shelves of dusty bottles, an abandoned workbench, and a small room behind a steel door.
Inside, an elderly man sat in a wooden chair.
He was thin.
His white hair was neatly combed.
A dark wool coat covered his shoulders.
And around his left wrist hung an old silver watch.
Luca stopped breathing.
I saw the exact moment he recognized it.
“Papa?”
The man raised his head.
His eyes filled.
“Luciano.”
Nobody had called Luca that in my presence.
He stepped forward.
Then stopped.
“You're dead.”
The elderly man looked at him for a long moment.
“I know.”
Luca's face twisted.
“I buried you.”
“You buried what Bellini gave you.”
Behind us, Mrs. Marino began crying quietly.
Luca approached the chair.
His father slowly stood.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Luca reached out and touched the older man's cheek.
Real skin.
Real warmth.
A familiar scar beside his eyebrow.
“Papa,” he whispered.
The old man's composure broke.
He wrapped his arms around his son.
Luca held him as if letting go might make him disappear again.
I turned away.
Some moments aren't meant for witnesses.
But Noah stepped past me.
He stood in the doorway.
His grandfather noticed him immediately.
The elderly man's expression softened.
He slowly raised his hands.
His signs were careful but unmistakable.
Hello, Noah.
Noah smiled through his tears.
Then signed:
You remembered.
His grandfather nodded.
Every day.
Luca stared.
“You know sign language?”
The old man looked at his grandson.
“I learned for him.”
Then he reached inside his coat.
He withdrew a small photograph.
Noah, age six, wearing a bright yellow raincoat.
Luca's eyes moved between the picture and his father.
“How did you get that?”
His father's expression changed.
“Someone has been bringing me photographs for years.”
“Who?”
The old man hesitated.
Then he looked directly at me.
“Sophie Bennett.”
My blood went cold.
He knew my name.
His next words made Luca release his arm.
“Before you decide who betrayed this family, Luciano, ask Sophie what happened to her mother.”
And from his coat pocket, he removed a photograph of a woman I hadn't seen alive since I was thirteen.
May you like
My mother.
Standing beside Luca's supposedly dead father.
