Chapter 7 - THE MAFIA BOSS'S MISSING WIFE
I felt as if someone had pulled the ground from beneath me.
Jack Moretti had a wife.
Or had once had one.
The woman in the photograph looked nothing like me, except for the terrible scar crossing her shoulder.
Jack stared at the screen with an expression I'd never seen on his face.
Grief.
Raw and unmistakable.
“She died three years ago,” he said.
“The same night as the warehouse fire?”
He nodded.
Rocco quietly stepped away to take a call, leaving us beside the garage entrance.
Jack looked toward the river.
“Isabella was a forensic accountant. She discovered my father had hidden money through companies connected to the docks.”
“Illegal money?”
“Yes. And payments to men inside the police department. She wanted to expose it.”
“What happened?”
“She disappeared before she could turn over the evidence. Two days later, police found a burned vehicle containing remains they identified as hers.”
I looked again at the photograph.
The scar wasn't identical.
It had the same curved shape, but Isabella's wound was older and lighter.
“Why does she look like that?”
Jack hesitated.
“She was injured in a childhood house fire.”
Something cold settled inside me.
My mother had died when I was seven.
My father had always said our house burned because of faulty wiring.
I'd never seen photographs from before the fire.
And he'd refused to talk about it.
“Jack,” I whispered, “what was Isabella's maiden name?”
“Bennett.”
I went still.
“My name is Bennett.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't understand. My father's name was Thomas Bennett.”
Jack turned toward me.
“Isabella's father was Thomas Bennett.”
For several seconds, the river seemed to stop moving.
Then the truth crashed into me.
“My father told me I was an only child.”
Jack studied my face.
“He told Isabella she had a younger sister who died in the fire.”
I stepped backward.
“No.”
“Lily—”
“No. That's impossible.”
But even as I said it, childhood memories surfaced.
A girl brushing my hair.
A blue ribbon tied around a doll.
Someone whispering, “Don't tell Daddy.”
I pressed my hands to my mouth.
“What if she was my sister?”
Jack didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
We both understood what that could mean.
My father had lied.
Someone had separated two sisters and convinced each that the other was dead.
And years later, somebody had tried to kill us both.
Rocco hurried back.
“We located Pierce.”
“Where?” Jack asked.
“An old medical facility outside Chicago. We're checking it now.”
I gripped Jack's sleeve.
“Noah?”
Rocco nodded grimly.
“We picked up a security camera image. Noah entered the facility alive.”
My knees nearly gave out with relief.
Then Rocco continued.
“But he wasn't alone.”
He displayed another image.
A woman in medical scrubs led Noah through a doorway.
Her face was partially hidden.
Yet I recognized her instantly from the photograph.
Jack stopped breathing.
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Because the woman holding my son's hand was his supposedly dead wife.
Isabella Moretti.
