Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER WHO VANISHED WITH MY FATHER
Matteo Moretti had been missing for seventeen years.
And my father had disappeared on the same night.
The coincidence was impossible to ignore.
I sat across from my mother while she told me what she remembered.
"Viktor was a translator," she whispered. "But he also helped people prepare documents when they were afraid to speak English."
I nodded.
I remembered that.
Our old apartment had always been filled with visitors.
Russian families.
New immigrants.
People carrying folders and asking my father to help them understand complicated papers.
"How did he meet Matteo?"
My mother took a breath.
"Matteo was investigating financial transfers connected to his father's businesses."
I frowned.
"The Moretti family?"
She nodded.
"Yes."
"Did Dad know they were criminals?"
"He knew there were dangerous people involved."
My stomach tightened.
"Then why help?"
"Because Matteo told him innocent people were being harmed."
I stared at the photograph.
Matteo was smiling.
My father looked relaxed.
They didn't look like men preparing for disaster.
They looked like friends.
"What happened to them?"
My mother closed her eyes.
"One evening, Viktor came home frightened."
Her voice trembled.
"He said he'd found evidence that several powerful people were using legitimate businesses to conceal illegal payments."
I swallowed.
"And?"
"He said the evidence was hidden somewhere safe."
My hand moved toward the pendant.
She noticed.
Then began crying.
"Your father gave you that necklace the next morning."
I stared.
"Why?"
"He said it would protect your future."
My chest tightened.
"Did he know he was going to die?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know."
A long silence followed.
Then she whispered, "Three days later, the police found his body near the docks."
I closed my eyes.
I remembered that day.
My mother crying beside the telephone.
The officers standing in our living room.
The way nobody would tell me what had happened.
I had been seven.
And that was the day my childhood ended.
"What about Matteo?"
"He disappeared."
"Did anyone search for him?"
"His family claimed he'd left the country."
I stared.
"Did Adrien know?"
My mother hesitated.
"He was twenty-eight then. I never met him."
I slowly looked toward the photograph.
Matteo and Adrien.
Brothers.
One disappeared.
The other inherited an empire.
And now the brother who remained was sitting in a restaurant negotiating over coded documents connected to my father's death.
Something didn't feel right.
The following morning, I asked Detective Brooks to verify Matteo's disappearance.
She located an old missing-person report.
It had been filed by a woman named Sofia Moretti.
Matteo's wife.
The report claimed Matteo left home after a dispute with his father.
But there was another detail.
Sofia had a daughter.
A girl named Isabella.
She was five when Matteo disappeared.
I stared at the record.
"Where is Isabella now?"
Brooks checked.
Then frowned.
"She died twelve years ago."
My stomach tightened.
"How?"
"According to the record, complications from a childhood illness."
I closed my eyes.
Another death.
Another broken family.
Then Brooks turned another page.
Her expression changed.
"What is it?" I asked.
She looked up.
"Sofia Moretti later remarried."
"Who?"
The detective paused.
Then answered.
"Judge Arthur Henderson."
I stopped breathing.
The same judge whose name the Russians had used to threaten Adrien.
May you like
And suddenly, the coded poems weren't just about money or weapons.
They were about a family that had been destroyed from the inside.
