Chapter 5 - THE OTHER MORETTI
For years, Dominic had believed blood made family dangerous.
That morning, he learned blood could make strangers familiar too.
Leo sat at the breakfast table drawing with Lily while three adults studied him as if he held the only map through a burning building.
Dominic hated it.
He finally pushed the papers aside.
“Enough.”
Marco looked at him.
“We need to know what he saw.”
“He is six.”
“He’s the only person who saw Samuel.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“No interrogation.”
Leo looked up.
“What’s inter—”
“Nothing,” Isabella said quickly.
Lily held up a purple crayon.
“It means grown-ups talk too much.”
Marco actually laughed.
Dominic didn’t.
But some of the tension left his shoulders.
Isabella knelt beside Leo.
“You said the man looked like your dad and your uncle.”
Leo nodded.
“Was he old?”
“No.”
“Did he have gray hair?”
“No.”
“Beard?”
“A little.”
Dominic rubbed his own beard unconsciously.
“What did he wear?”
Leo thought.
“A black coat.”
“That’s it?”
Leo shook his head.
“He had Grandma’s beads.”
The rosary.
Dominic crouched beside him.
“Did he say anything?”
“He said I looked like Elena.”
Dominic went still.
“He called your mother Elena?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
Leo frowned.
“He cried.”
Nobody expected that.
Marco leaned forward.
“He cried?”
Leo nodded.
“Then he said sorry.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic looked at Marco.
“That doesn’t sound like someone trying to hurt him.”
Marco stared at the table.
“No.”
“Then why take the rosary?”
“He wanted whatever was hidden in it.”
Dominic’s gaze sharpened.
“What was hidden in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Marco looked tired.
“You can believe whatever you want. It hasn’t served either of us very well.”
That silenced Dominic.
Isabella understood the bitterness.
Marco had committed terrible acts.
But some of them had been motivated by fear rather than cruelty.
It did not excuse what he had done to Leo.
It did make him more complicated.
Dominic stood.
“We find Samuel.”
Marco shook his head.
“I tried.”
“You tried alone.”
“I tried with twenty men.”
“And perhaps that was the problem.”
Dominic looked at Isabella.
“People hide from armed men.”
She crossed her arms.
“And they don’t hide from housekeepers?”
“You notice things.”
“That is not the compliment you think it is.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
It vanished quickly.
They started with Rosa’s house.
Not the grave.
Dominic refused to disturb his mother until every other option had been exhausted.
Isabella searched ordinary places.
Kitchen drawers.
Coat pockets.
Sewing tins.
Marco searched walls and locks.
Dominic searched documents.
It was Lily who found the next clue.
She crawled beneath Rosa’s old piano looking for a red toy car Leo had rolled underneath.
“Mommy!”
Isabella crouched.
“What?”
“There’s a necklace.”
She reached beneath the piano.
Her fingers found a small chain taped to the wood.
Not a necklace.
A medal.
Saint Christopher.
On the back was engraved one word.
SAMUEL
Dominic stared at it.
Marco sat down heavily.
“Our father wore one exactly like that.”
“How do you know?” Isabella asked.
“Because he gave Dominic his when Dominic turned eighteen.”
Dominic reached beneath his shirt.
He pulled out a nearly identical medal.
For several seconds the brothers stood silently, holding proof their father had given the same symbol to another son.
Isabella noticed tape residue on the back.
“There was something else here.”
Dominic looked.
“What?”
She pointed to a rectangular outline.
“A photograph maybe.”
Marco searched around the piano.
Nothing.
Leo appeared at the door.
“Grandma had a picture there.”
All three adults turned.
“What picture?”
“A boy.”
“What boy?”
Leo shrugged.
“Dad.”
Dominic frowned.
“Me?”
Leo shook his head.
“Not you.”
“Uncle Marco?”
“No.”
Leo pointed between them.
“He looked like both.”
Samuel.
“Where is the picture?” Marco asked.
Leo thought.
“Grandma burned it.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“You saw her?”
“She put it in the fireplace.”
“When?”
“Before she got sick.”
“Did she burn anything else?”
Leo nodded.
“Letters.”
Dominic walked to the fireplace.
Cold ash remained behind the grate despite the house being closed for months.
He crouched.
Isabella joined him.
Most of the paper was gone.
But tucked behind an iron support was one unburned corner.
Dominic pulled it free.
Three handwritten words remained.
St. Matthew’s Home.
Marco knew the name.
His expression changed immediately.
“No.”
“What is it?” Isabella asked.
Marco answered slowly.
“It was a boys’ home outside Worcester.”
“An orphanage?”
“Essentially.”
Dominic stared at him.
“Our father put Samuel in an orphanage?”
“It closed fifteen years ago.”
“Then we find its records.”
The property still existed.
The former children’s home had become a community arts center.
Most records had been donated to a local historical archive.
They arrived that afternoon.
An archivist named Claire helped them locate enrollment ledgers.
Carlo Moretti’s name did not appear.
Samuel’s did.
Samuel Reed.
Admitted age seven.
Mother: Anna Reed.
Father: blank.
Discharged age seventeen.
A photograph was attached.
Dominic stared at the young man.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
Marco’s mouth tightened.
“He’s our brother.”
Isabella read further.
“Emergency contact.”
Dominic leaned closer.
The name listed was Elena Moretti.
Dated one year before Elena’s disappearance.
Dominic looked stunned.
“She knew him.”
Marco whispered, “More than knew him.”
The archivist brought another folder.
“Samuel returned here a few years ago.”
Dominic looked up.
“When?”
“About six years ago.”
“What did he want?”
“His old belongings.”
“Did he leave an address?”
Claire checked.
“Yes.”
It was in Boston.
Dominic stared at the page.
The address was only four blocks from Leo’s school.
They drove there immediately.
The building was a modest brick apartment house.
No guards.
No black cars.
No sign of organized crime.
A woman answered the superintendent’s door.
“Samuel Reed?” she said. “Third floor.”
Dominic’s hand tightened.
“He lives here?”
“He has for years.”
Dominic climbed the stairs.
Marco followed.
Isabella behind them.
At apartment 3B, Dominic raised his hand.
Then stopped.
A child’s drawing had been taped beside the door.
A family.
A tall man.
A woman with dark hair.
A little girl.
And another woman drawn above them with wings.
Beneath the angel, in a child’s uneven handwriting:
AUNT ELENA
Dominic’s face drained.
The apartment door opened.
A man stood there.
He looked enough like Dominic that Isabella’s stomach dropped.
Same dark eyes.
Same broad shoulders.
Same family mouth.
But Samuel Reed wasn’t holding a weapon.
He was holding a pink plastic tea cup.
A little girl behind him said,
“Daddy, your tea is getting cold.”
Samuel looked at Dominic.
Then Marco.
His expression filled with something Isabella did not expect.
Relief.
“You finally found me.”
Dominic stared at him.
“Where is my wife?”
Samuel’s relief disappeared.
“She’s dead.”
Dominic’s fist tightened.
Samuel added quietly,
“But not when you buried her.”
Then a woman’s voice came from inside the apartment.
“Samuel?”
Marco went completely white.
He knew that voice.
A woman stepped into the hallway.
Older.
Thin.
A faded scar crossing her temple.
Gold bracelet absent from her wrist.
Marco whispered one word.
May you like
“Maria.”
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