Chapter 3 - WHAT SOFIA SURVIVED
Victor Moretti walked toward my gate like a man approaching his own front door.
At seventy-one, he still moved with the patience of someone accustomed to other people stepping aside.
Usually, they did.
That afternoon, my guards blocked him.
Victor's eyebrows rose.
“Alejandro?”
“Stay there.”
His gaze moved past me.
He saw Dominic first.
Then Elena.
Then four identical boys clustered inside the doorway.
For the first time in my life, I saw Victor lose control of his face.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
He knew them.
“You knew,” I said.
Victor's eyes returned to me.
Dominic gave a humorless laugh.
“Tell him.”
Victor ignored him.
“Alejandro, those children need to be moved somewhere secure.”
“They aren't moving.”
“You don't understand what—”
“I understand you recognized them.”
Victor looked older suddenly.
“Elena should have told you years ago.”
Elena stepped into the courtyard.
“And you should have told him Sofia didn't die at the crash.”
That silenced everyone.
I felt Sofia's watch digging into my palm.
“Inside,” I said.
Nobody argued.
We returned to the dining room Sofia had loved and I had abandoned.
I sat at the head of the table.
The boys remained beside Elena.
Dominic took the opposite end.
Victor stood.
It was the first time I could remember him looking uncertain where he belonged.
“Start talking,” I said.
Victor exhaled.
“Sofia was pregnant.”
Every sound disappeared.
I stared at him.
“No.”
“She found out shortly before she left the house.”
“She couldn't have hidden that from me.”
“You were barely here.”
It was cruel because it was true.
Five years earlier, a war with the Novak crew had consumed my life.
Sofia and I slept beneath the same roof and lived in different worlds.
She had begged me to stop.
I had told her there would be time after I settled everything.
There was never time.
Victor continued.
“She was carrying identical quadruplets.”
Mateo whispered, “That's us.”
Victor's face broke for half a second.
“Yes.”
My hand closed around Sofia's watch.
“Why didn't she tell me?”
Elena answered.
“Because three weeks before she found out, someone shot at your car outside Cicero.”
I remembered.
Six bullets.
One guard wounded.
Sofia had spent that night sitting beside me without speaking.
The next morning, she had packed a suitcase.
“She told me she would never bring a child into a war,” Elena said. “Then she learned there were four.”
I looked at the photograph.
KEEP THEM SAFE FROM ALEJANDRO.
For the first time, the words hurt differently.
Not because Sofia thought I would harm them.
Because she thought being mine would.
Victor finally sat.
“Sofia planned to leave Chicago.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“She planned to expose you first.”
Victor's jaw tightened.
“She had no understanding of what she found.”
“What did she find?” I asked.
Neither man answered.
I hit the table with my palm.
Four children jumped.
I immediately regretted it.
Mateo's eyes widened.
Noah moved closer to Elena.
I lowered my voice.
“What did Sofia find?”
Dominic answered.
“Money missing from North Star Logistics. Security routes being changed. Payments to men associated with the Novaks.”
North Star was one of my trucking companies.
Victor had managed it for years.
I looked at him.
“You told me those losses were accounting mistakes.”
“They were.”
Dominic laughed.
“Some were.”
Victor pointed at his son.
“And some were his.”
There it was.
Not one secret.
A family war beneath the family war.
Dominic stood.
“You spent years cleaning your mistakes with my name.”
“You spent years making mistakes.”
“Stop.”
My voice ended it.
I looked at Elena.
“What happened the night Sofia died?”
She pressed her lips together.
“Sofia left the mansion just after midnight. She was almost thirty weeks pregnant.”
I felt physically ill.
Thirty weeks.
My wife had been carrying four children while I barely looked at her long enough to see it.
“She wore loose clothes. She stopped eating dinner with you. You were gone most nights.”
No accusation in Elena's voice.
That made it worse.
“Her car crashed on the old Lakeshore access road,” she continued. “An ambulance took her to St. Catherine's.”
“That hospital closed years ago,” Dominic said.
Elena nodded.
“Sofia needed emergency surgery.”
I knew before she said it.
“The boys were born that night.”
Four little heads turned toward me.
I couldn't look away.
“They were tiny,” Elena said. “Mateo didn't breathe at first. Noah weighed less than three pounds.”
Noah held up three fingers as if weight were something he understood.
Elena smiled at him through tears.
“The doctors saved all four.”
“And Sofia?”
The question barely came out.
“She was bleeding internally from the crash.”
Victor looked at the table.
“She lived six hours.”
I stood so violently my chair fell backward.
“You let me bury her believing she died on that road.”
Victor met my eyes.
“Yes.”
I wanted to hit him.
Instead, I asked the question that mattered.
“Did she ask for me?”
Elena began crying.
Victor said nothing.
Dominic looked away.
“Elena.”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
The room blurred.
“What did she say?”
Elena wiped her face.
“She asked if the babies were alive. I told her yes.”
“And then?”
“She made me promise to take them somewhere nobody connected to the Moretti name could reach them.”
I picked up the photograph.
“And she wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
Elena looked at the boys.
“Because she believed if you knew, you would bring them home.”
My anger collapsed into something heavier.
“She was right.”
“I know.”
“And you agreed?”
“I watched her die, Alejandro.”
Elena's voice cracked.
“She was thirty-three years old. She was terrified. I said whatever she needed me to say.”
Victor rose.
“That was not the only promise.”
Elena spun toward him.
“Don't.”
He ignored her.
“Sofia gave Elena a silver rosary.”
Dominic stared at his father.
Victor continued.
“There is a brass key hidden inside the cross.”
Elena's shoulders dropped.
So it was true.
“What does it open?” I asked.
“A blue jewelry case Sofia kept in this house.”
I remembered it immediately.
Small.
Blue enamel.
Gold trim.
It still sat on the dresser in her bedroom.
Untouched for five years.
I looked at Elena.
“Where's the rosary?”
Her expression changed.
“The boys had it.”
Mateo hugged his backpack.
Elena crouched beside him.
“Sweetheart, remember the silver beads in the red box?”
Mateo nodded.
“Where are they?”
He looked at Noah.
Noah looked at Julian.
Then Leo whispered:
“The lion man took them.”
Victor's face went blank.
Dominic stared at him.
I looked between father and son.
One ring on Dominic's finger.
Another somewhere with Victor.
Elena whispered, “He was in their home yesterday.”
Victor slowly shook his head.
“I was not.”
Noah stared at him.
Then at Victor's left hand.
Victor wasn't wearing his lion ring.
The child pointed.
“Where's yours?”
Nobody moved.
Victor looked down at his bare finger.
May you like
And Dominic whispered:
“Dad... where is your ring?”
