Chapter 9 - THE FATHER WHO SOLD HIS OWN DAUGHTER
Dante did not speak for a long time.
Then:
“Why?”
Sarah answered carefully.
“Because I was sick.”
“That makes no sense.”
“To him, it did.”
Vittorio feared weakness.
A sick child embarrassed him.
Worse, Sofia’s medical care created records enemies could exploit.
So he arranged to have her removed.
A healthy dead infant’s identity replaced hers.
He paid everyone involved.
Lucia covered her mouth.
She had spent thirty-five years believing criminals stole her daughter.
Her husband had done it.
Emma translated Sarah’s next words.
“Elena discovered the transfer years later.”
Lucia’s face collapsed.
Dante walked out.
Emma followed.
He stood beside his car.
Hands on the roof.
“I thought he loved us.”
“He probably did.”
Dante looked at her sharply.
She continued:
“That doesn’t make what he did less monstrous.”
He stared at the street.
“People keep telling themselves love excuses control.”
Emma thought about Lucia.
Lily.
Her own childhood with a deaf sister constantly spoken over.
“Yes.”
Dante laughed bitterly.
“I ordered fish for my mother.”
Emma almost smiled.
“That is not equivalent to stealing a baby.”
“No.”
“But it came from the same assumption.”
He looked at her.
“That I knew better.”
“Yes.”
He absorbed it.
Then asked:
“Why are you still here?”
“Because your mother likes me.”
His mouth moved.
“And?”
“Orion would probably miss me.”
“Wrong story.”
Emma laughed.
Something shifted between them.
Then Dante’s expression softened.
“You could have walked away.”
“So could you.”
“From my family?”
“From changing.”
He looked at her for a long time.
Then his phone rang.
Luca.
The ledger had revealed a hidden account.
Recent transfers.
Money still moving through the old network.
Someone had kept the trafficking organization alive.
Dante’s face went cold.
“Who?”
Luca answered.
“Matteo.”
Not surprising.
Then:
“And Marco Santini.”
That hurt more.
Dante closed his eyes.
His closest man.
His friend.
The person who had stood beside him since he was twenty-four.
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Mom?”
“Safe.”
“Emma’s sister?”
A pause.
Luca’s silence answered first.
Dante looked at Emma.
Her heart stopped.
“What?”
“Lily isn’t at her apartment.”
Emma grabbed the phone.
“What do you mean?”
Luca said:
“The lock wasn’t forced. Her bag is there. Phone too.”
Emma could not breathe.
Then a video arrived.
Lily sat inside a dark room.
Untied.
But frightened.
Behind her stood Marco Santini.
He signed directly to the camera.
Fluent ASL.
Emma felt sick.
Marco had known sign language all along.
May you like
He had been listening to Lucia for years.
And pretending not to understand.
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