Chapter 10 - MY FATHER'S DARKEST LIE
For five years, I had visited an empty grave.
I had brought flowers on his birthday.
I'd cried beside a headstone that carried my father's name.
Now he stood in a photograph beside my kidnapped son.
Alive.
Older.
And smiling.
I could barely speak.
“That's my father.”
Jack looked at the image.
His face hardened.
“Thomas Bennett.”
I covered my mouth.
“He let me bury him.”
Rocco hurried into the room.
“We traced the message. It came through a private network connected to a downtown financial office.”
“Whose office?” Jack asked.
Rocco hesitated.
“Your family's attorney. Samuel Price.”
Jack's expression turned deadly calm.
Price had supervised the peace agreement.
Price had insisted on using the special verification pen.
Price had quietly approved Marco's emergency authority clause.
And Price had been present at the restaurant the entire evening.
“Where is he now?” Jack asked.
“Gone.”
I looked at Jack.
“Do you think my father works with him?”
“I think your father knows more than he's told anyone.”
We returned to Jack's secure headquarters near the river.
Rocco's investigators recovered an old recording from a hidden storage server connected to Thomas Bennett.
On the video, my father sat across from Samuel Price.
The timestamp showed it had been recorded three years earlier.
“You promised my daughters would be safe,” Thomas said.
Price smiled.
“They will be, as long as you cooperate.”
“And Lily?”
“She doesn't remember enough to matter.”
“What about Isabella?”
Price leaned forward.
“Your older daughter made the mistake of marrying Jack Moretti. Now she believes she can expose the entire operation.”
Thomas lowered his head.
Price placed a photograph on the table.
It showed me holding newborn Noah.
“If you interfere,” Price said, “we start with the baby.”
My chest tightened.
My father hadn't merely disappeared.
He'd been blackmailed with my child's life.
The recording ended.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Jack turned toward me.
“He may have been trying to protect you.”
“By letting me believe he was dead?”
“I didn't say he made the right choice.”
I looked away.
I wanted to hate my father.
I wanted to hold him.
I wanted to ask why he'd left me facing Ethan's cruelty without anyone to turn to.
Before I could speak, Jack's private phone rang.
He answered.
A man's voice came through the speaker.
“Hello, Jack.”
Samuel Price.
Jack's jaw tightened.
“Where's the boy?”
“Safe for now.”
“What do you want?”
“The verification pen. The silver bird. And Lily Bennett.”
Jack looked at me.
Price continued.
“Come alone to the old courthouse before midnight.”
“Or?”
A cold laugh.
“Or Chicago learns what really happened to Isabella.”
Jack didn't respond.
Then Price delivered his final warning.
“And Jack, you should know something before you arrive.”
May you like
A pause.
“The little boy you're protecting isn't Ethan Bennett's son.”
