Chapter 5 - The Daughter He Never Knew
The chapel was terrifyingly quiet, save for the soft flicker of the candles.
Matteo Moretti looked terrible. He was bruised, gaunt, and his clothes hung off him like rags. But when he saw the little girl standing next to James, his eyes widened in desperate panic.
“Let her go,” Matteo croaked, his voice raw from disuse. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with this,” a woman’s voice echoed from the shadows.
A woman stepped out from behind the altar. She was breathtakingly beautiful, dressed in expensive black silk.
Elena. The dead wife.
“You see, Luca,” Elena smiled coldly, stepping into the candlelight. “When I faked my death three years ago, I didn’t just take your family’s dignity. I took the only thing Matteo ever really wanted.”
We had an answer. Elena hadn’t just run away. She had stolen Matteo’s unborn child, raising her in secret to use as the ultimate leverage.
But it opened devastating new questions: Why reveal the child now? And how did James fit into raising a mafia boss’s secret daughter?
“Her name is Sofia,” Elena said, stroking the little girl’s dark hair. The child looked terrified, clutching the child’s drawing to her chest. “She thinks James is her father.”
I felt physically sick.
James had spent the last five years sleeping in my bed, eating dinner at my table, while secretly raising another man’s child with a 'dead' woman.
“You’re a coward, James,” I said, my voice echoing in the empty church.
James looked at me, a flicker of genuine irritation crossing his face. “Quiet, Emily. You’ve played your part.”
“Let my brother go,” Luca said, aiming his weapon directly at Elena’s chest. “And give him his daughter. If you do, I’ll let you walk out of here alive.”
Elena laughed. “You don’t dictate the terms anymore, Luca. If you shoot me, James shoots Matteo. And little Sofia grows up an orphan, just like I did.”
Reversal.
Elena wasn’t doing this for money. She was doing this for revenge.
“The Moretti family bought this orphanage thirty years ago,” Elena spat, her beautiful face twisting with hatred. “Your father used it to launder money. You stole the charity funds that were supposed to feed us. I grew up starving in this building while you lived in a mansion!”
She pointed at Matteo.
“I married him to destroy you from the inside. But he was too weak. So I took his child, and I took his life.”
Elena turned to James.
“Kill him.”
James raised the gun, pressing the barrel against Matteo’s temple.
Matteo closed his eyes.
“Wait!” I screamed.
I didn’t think. I just moved.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the only piece of leverage I had left.
The gold watch.
“James!” I shouted, holding the watch up in the candlelight. “Valentina gave this to us. She told us everything!”
James froze. He looked at the watch, his eyes narrowing.
“What are you talking about?” Elena snapped. “He hasn’t spoken to Valentina in months.”
“That’s a lie,” I said, stepping forward. My heart was pounding, but my voice was steady. “He was at the mansion tonight, Elena. He was sitting at the table, wearing a thousand-dollar suit, letting Valentina announce their engagement.”
Elena slowly turned her head to look at James.
“Engagement?” she whispered.
James’s face drained of color. “Elena, don’t listen to her. She’s trying to manipulate you.”
“Valentina gave him the engagement ring yesterday,” I continued, twisting the knife. “He’s playing you, Elena. He’s going to take the ransom money, marry Valentina, and leave you and the child to take the fall.”
Elena stared at James. The trust between the two psychopaths shattered in an instant.
“Is it true?” Elena demanded, stepping away from him.
James hesitated. Just for a split second.
But that hesitation was all Luca needed.
Luca didn’t shoot James.
He shot the massive, heavy iron chandelier hanging directly above the altar.
The bullet severed the ancient chain.
The chandelier crashed down with a deafening roar, plunging the altar into darkness and crushing the wooden table between James and Matteo.
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“Get down!” Luca shouted, diving toward me as James opened fire blindly into the dark.
TITLE: The Broken Chains
