Chapter 2 - THE MAN AT THE FAMILY TABLE
“Mom, tell me his name!”
Emma Collins gripped her phone so tightly that her injured knee nearly gave way beneath her.
Across Lorenzo Moretti’s private study, the powerful mafia boss stood motionless.
His sister had supposedly drowned eleven years ago.
Now Emma’s mother was telling them that Sophie had been taken away deliberately—and that the person responsible had been sitting at Lorenzo’s five-million-dollar banquet.
“Please, sweetheart,” her mother whispered. “Don't say anything until you're somewhere safe.”
“Mom, I'm standing beside Lorenzo Moretti.”
A sharp breath came through the telephone.
“Then listen carefully. The man who gave me the money was his uncle.”
Emma looked up.
“His uncle?”
Lorenzo’s expression changed.
“Put her on speaker.”
Emma hesitated before obeying.
“Mrs. Collins,” Lorenzo said, “this is Lorenzo Moretti. Which uncle?”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then her mother answered.
“Salvatore Moretti.”
Lorenzo slowly lowered himself into the leather chair behind his desk.
Uncle Salvatore.
The man who had raised him after his parents died.
The man who had taught him how to run the family businesses.
The man who had stood beside him every September 14, lighting a candle for Sophie.
And tonight, Salvatore had sat at the head table, drinking champagne while Lorenzo searched a photograph for signs of his missing sister.
“That isn't possible,” Lorenzo said.
“I wish it weren't true.”
Emma heard her mother struggling to breathe evenly.
“Eleven years ago, I worked at the Moretti summer estate. I was assigned to help with the children. Sophie was seven. She loved the ocean, but she was afraid of boats after a storm frightened her.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
He remembered that storm.
Sophie had slept on his bedroom floor afterward because she was afraid the windows would break.
His little sister had always come to him when she was frightened.
“On the night she disappeared,” Mrs. Collins continued, “Mr. Salvatore told me she needed to be taken somewhere safe. He gave me an envelope containing twenty thousand dollars.”
“Why would she need protection?” Lorenzo demanded.
“He said someone inside the family intended to hurt her.”
“And you believed him?”
“I was nineteen, Mr. Moretti. Your uncle told me he had already spoken with your father. He showed me papers with the family seal.”
Lorenzo stood abruptly.
“My father was away in Boston that night.”
“I know that now.”
Emma pressed a hand against her mouth.
“Mom, did you take Sophie?”
“Yes.”
The answer struck Emma harder than she expected.
Her mother had spent years teaching her never to abandon someone who needed help.
Yet she had carried a little girl away from her family.
“Where did you take her?”
“To a woman named Margaret Wells, near Providence. I stayed long enough to see Sophie enter the house. She kept asking when Lorenzo would come.”
Lorenzo turned toward the window.
Outside, the Atlantic Ocean rolled black beneath the moonlight.
He remembered waiting on the dock until dawn.
He had been eighteen.
He had shouted his sister’s name until his voice disappeared.
And while he searched the water, Sophie had been waiting somewhere else for him.
“Why didn't you tell anyone?” he asked.
Mrs. Collins began crying.
“Because three days later, Salvatore told me Sophie had died during the transfer. He said if I ever mentioned taking her, the police would blame me. Then he showed me a photograph of my younger brother leaving school.”
Emma felt cold.
Her mother had carried this secret through years of marriage, widowhood, and now her difficult recovery from a stroke.
“Did you ever see Sophie again?”
“No. But last month someone came to my rehabilitation center asking whether I remembered Margaret Wells.”
“Who?”
“A woman who introduced herself as Victoria Sinclair.”
Emma looked directly at Lorenzo.
Victoria.
His fiancée.
“She told me the past was dangerous,” Mrs. Collins said. “Then she paid the center six months of my therapy bills.”
Emma’s stomach tightened.
That explained the anonymous payment that had appeared on her mother’s account.
Victoria had not helped out of generosity.
She had purchased silence.
Before Lorenzo could respond, his security chief, Daniel Hayes, entered the study carrying a tablet.
“Sir, we have a problem.”
Lorenzo raised a hand, asking Emma’s mother to remain on the line.
Daniel placed the tablet on the desk.
Security footage showed Victoria arriving at St. Catherine’s Residential Care Center.
She entered through the front lobby.
Seven minutes later, a man in a dark overcoat followed her.
Lorenzo recognized his uncle immediately.
Salvatore.
The two entered a corridor together.
“What time?” Lorenzo asked.
“9:28.”
“Where are they now?”
“They're still inside.”
Lorenzo looked toward Emma.
“If my sister is there, I'm bringing her home.”
Emma wanted to believe it would be that simple.
But her mother spoke again.
“Mr. Moretti, there's something important about Sophie.”
Lorenzo lifted the telephone.
“Tell me.”
“Before I handed her to Margaret, Sophie gave me something to keep safe.”
“What?”
“A small drawing. She said it showed the person who frightened her.”
“Who was in the drawing?”
“A man wearing a gold watch. His face was covered with red crayon.”
Lorenzo glanced toward a framed photograph on his bookshelf.
It showed his father, Salvatore, and himself standing outside the family estate.
Salvatore wore a distinctive gold wristwatch.
His father had worn the same model.
A gift from their grandfather.
The drawing might identify either man.
Or neither.
“Where is it now?” Lorenzo asked.
Mrs. Collins hesitated.
“I put it inside a blue envelope. It was among the things I kept from my old employment.”
“Where?”
“In the lining of the green winter coat hanging in my apartment closet.”
Emma remembered that coat.
Her mother refused to throw it away, even after the fabric began fraying.
“Mom, I'll get it.”
“No, Emma.”
Her mother’s voice suddenly became urgent.
“You need to understand something. I never told Victoria where I hid that drawing. But when she visited me, she described it.”
Lorenzo stared at the telephone.
“How?”
“I don't know.”
Daniel’s tablet chimed with a security update.
The surveillance team had located Salvatore’s vehicle at the care center.
But they had also identified an unexpected passenger.
An elderly woman had arrived with him.
Margaret Wells.
Emma leaned closer to the screen.
“That's her. That's the woman in the photograph.”
Daniel enlarged a still image.
Margaret was carrying a worn brown handbag.
A silver rosary hung from its handle.
Lorenzo had seen that rosary before.
His mother had owned one exactly like it.
He remembered Sophie holding it during thunderstorms.
“Daniel,” he said, “get the vehicle ready.”
Emma reached for her coat.
“I'm coming.”
Lorenzo looked at her injured knee.
“You should be at a hospital.”
“And Sophie should have been home eleven years ago.”
Their eyes met.
He couldn't argue with that.
As they reached the study door, Emma’s mother spoke one final time.
“Lorenzo?”
He turned back.
“Yes?”
“Salvatore wasn't the only person who knew Sophie was leaving that night.”
“Who else?”
“Your father.”
Lorenzo stopped.
“My father died six years ago.”
“I know. But I saw him before I took Sophie. He wasn't in Boston. He was at the estate.”
The room fell silent.
“Why would he let his daughter disappear?” Lorenzo asked.
Mrs. Collins answered softly.
“He was the one who told me to trust Salvatore.”
Lorenzo stood frozen, trying to reconcile the father he loved with a secret that had destroyed his family.
Then Daniel looked down at the tablet.
“Sir, the care center has just reported a missing resident.”
Lorenzo turned sharply.
“Sophie?”
Daniel swallowed.
“No, sir.”
He rotated the screen.
A patient identification card appeared.
The name read ANNA WELLS.
Beside it was the photograph of the young woman wearing Sophie’s bracelet.
Under medical history, one sentence had been highlighted:
PATIENT HAS NO MEMORY OF HER ORIGINAL FAMILY.
May you like
And beneath emergency contacts appeared a name Lorenzo knew better than his own.
SALVATORE MORETTI — LEGAL GUARDIAN.
