The Voice on the Magnetic Tape

The word hung in the dusty air, heavy and suffocating.

Half-sister.

I dropped to my knees, still holding Leo, unable to process the absolute impossibility of what Carlo Bellini had just said.

“You’re insane,” I whispered, my voice completely stripped of strength. “Antonio Moretti wasn’t my father.”

“My father loved my mother,” Luca said, his gun pressing harder against Carlo’s forehead. “He never betrayed her.”

Carlo let out a wet, rattling laugh.

“Love has nothing to do with it, boy. Antonio was a man. Men make mistakes. He had an affair with Sarah Sullivan. When Elena found out, she was furious. She threatened to leave him, to take you and the shipping lines with her.”

Carlo looked at the ceiling, enjoying the devastation he was causing.

“That’s why Elena wanted to meet me in the music room that night. She wanted to sell me the shipping lines to spite Antonio. But she got greedy. She asked for too much. So, I lit the match.”

“Stop lying!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face. “My mother was a good woman!”

“Your mother was a whore who hid Antonio’s bastard,” Carlo spat.

Luca’s finger tightened on the trigger.

“Give me one reason not to pull this trigger right now,” Luca said, his voice shaking with a rage so deep it terrified me.

The police sirens were deafening now, tires screeching as squad cars pulled into the alley outside.

Carlo smirked.

“Because if you kill me, you’ll never know the password to the offshore account where Antonio hid her inheritance.”

The front door burst open.

“Chicago PD! Drop the weapon! Hands in the air!”

Four officers flooded the room, their flashlights piercing the darkness.

Luca slowly lowered his gun. He placed it on the floor and stepped back, raising his hands.

The officers tackled Carlo, securing his hands behind his back.

A female officer rushed over to me and Leo. She gently lifted the boy from my arms.

“Are you hurt, ma’am?” she asked.

I couldn’t speak. I just stared at the dusty floorboards.

Luca was speaking to the lead detective. Because of his wealth and connections, he wasn’t in handcuffs, but the police were demanding answers.

I stood up slowly.

I picked up the metal fireproof box.

Inside was the cassette tape and the drawing. But beneath them, caught in the corner of the box, was something else.

A small, wooden rosary.

I pulled it out.

It was old, the beads worn smooth from years of prayer.

Attached to the cross was a tiny silver locket.

My mother had worn this rosary every day of my childhood. When she died, the mortician told me it was lost.

I pressed my thumbnail into the seam of the locket and popped it open.

Inside was a tiny, faded photograph.

It was a picture of my mother holding a newborn baby.

Standing next to her was a man.

But it wasn’t Antonio Moretti.

It was Matteo Santoro.

I gasped, the air rushing back into my lungs.

I looked up. Luca was walking toward me, looking pale and completely overwhelmed.

“Emma,” Luca said softly. “We have to go to the station. We have to give them statements.”

I held out the locket to him.

Luca looked down at the tiny photograph.

His eyes widened.

“Carlo lied,” I whispered, a fierce relief flooding my chest. “Antonio wasn’t my father. Matteo is.”

Luca stared at the picture of the young, unscarred pianist standing proudly beside my mother.

“Matteo loved Sarah,” Luca realized. “He didn’t just save her from the fire. He was protecting his family.”

“But why would Carlo lie about Antonio being my father?” I asked, wiping my tears.

Luca’s expression hardened into something cold and terrifyingly sharp.

“Because Carlo knows that if you are Matteo’s daughter, you have a legal claim to something far more dangerous than money.”

I frowned. “What?”

“The rights to the music.”

Luca took the rosary from my hand and gently placed it in his pocket.

“My mother’s sheet music is copyrighted. It’s worth millions in royalties. But more importantly, the copyright documents are the only place my mother recorded the exact coordinates of Carlo’s smuggling routes.”

He grabbed my hand.

“Carlo isn’t trying to break our family apart, Emma. He’s trying to stall us.”

“Stall us from what?”

“From getting back to the mansion,” Luca said, pulling me toward the door. “Carlo got arrested on purpose. He wanted the police to clear out the estate.”

My heart stopped.

“Who is at the estate?”