Chapter 5 - THE GRANDFATHER WHO KNEW
My father arrived without being invited.
That was his specialty.
Anthony Moretti walked into the hotel suite at noon looking older than I remembered from the previous week.
Seventy.
Silver hair.
Cane after the shooting six years ago.
Same eyes that taught me as a boy never to ask questions unless I was prepared for the answers.
The boys stared at him.
He stared back.
Then Luca whispered:
“He looks like Dad if Dad gets ancient.”
Elena covered her mouth.
I almost laughed.
My father did not.
“Dominic.”
“You knew.”
He looked at Elena.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since she was twelve weeks pregnant.”
Rage rose.
“You knew I had children.”
“I knew she was carrying children who might be yours.”
“And you never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked at the four boys.
“Because your mother intended to make them disappear from Boston permanently.”
Elena went pale.
“What does that mean?”
“Not kill them.”
Dad sounded offended that clarification was necessary.
Given our family, it was.
“Caterina planned to buy Elena's silence, relocate her, and place legal barriers between you.”
“She never offered me money,” Elena said.
“Because I stopped it.”
Dad had confronted my mother privately.
He couldn't openly reveal the trust issue because Victor was already trying to shift control.
So Anthony made a bargain.
Elena could leave untouched.
Her medical care would be anonymously covered.
No one would approach her.
In exchange?
Nothing.
“She didn't know about the deal,” Dad said.
“You decided her life for her anyway.”
“Yes.”
He looked ashamed.
That surprised me.
“What about me?”
“Keeping you ignorant protected them.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everyone keeps using that word.”
Protected.
Usually meant lied to.
Then Dad told us something else.
The attack that nearly killed him six years earlier had not been a rival-family dispute.
It had been internal.
Someone wanted him dead before Elena's pregnancy could become relevant.
“Victor?”
My uncle.
Dad nodded.
“Probably.”
Probably.
Not enough.
The DNA results arrived during the argument.
99.99% probability.
For all four.
My sons.
I sat down.
I had expected the result.
It still destroyed something inside me.
Luca.
Matteo.
Enzo.
Nico.
Mine.
Six years existed between us that I could never recover.
Elena watched me carefully.
“Don't cry,” Nico said.
I hadn't realized I was.
“I don't cry.”
All four boys stared.
Matteo pointed.
“You are literally crying.”
Elena laughed.
And somehow that saved me.
For about ten seconds.
Then Arthur called.
He had pulled old security records from the night my father was shot.
One vehicle entered the Moretti estate twenty-three minutes before the attack.
Registered to Barrett Development.
Sloane's father.
May you like
William Barrett had been at our estate the night someone tried to kill my father.
And six years later, he was pushing his daughter to marry me before my sons could be legally recognized.
