Chapter 11 - The Father Who Had Been Buried Twice
Rico picked up the photograph slowly.
Nobody spoke.
Giovanni Moretti had supposedly died from a massive heart attack seven years earlier.
Rico remembered the funeral.
The church.
The rain.
His mother collapsing beside the coffin.
But now the photograph showed Giovanni older, thinner, and unmistakably alive.
Elena whispered, “I found that picture in Salvatore’s files.”
“You knew?”
“Only for two weeks before the shooting.”
Rico stared at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wasn’t sure it was real.”
Marco backed toward the staircase.
“Your father built the system. Salvatore merely maintained it.”
“And you?” Rico asked.
Marco’s expression changed.
“I survived it.”
Before anyone could stop him, Marco ran.
Dante pursued him downstairs.
A door slammed.
Then silence.
Minutes later Dante returned alone.
“He escaped through the kitchen service passage.”
Rico turned to Clara.
“Where is the storage unit?”
She gave him the address.
They moved before dawn.
The Queens storage facility looked ordinary enough to hide every secret in New York.
Clara unlocked her mother’s unit.
Dust covered the furniture.
She found the wooden box behind an old dresser.
Inside was The Secret Garden.
Pages contained underlined words.
Clara copied them in order.
First.
Bank.
Locker.
Forty-seven.
Rico’s head lifted.
“Which bank?”
Clara turned the book over.
A faded receipt was taped beneath the back cover.
Atlantic Federal Bank.
They arrived shortly after opening.
Locker 47 had been paid in advance for twenty-five years.
The employee brought Clara into a private room.
She opened it using the tiny metal insert from Rebecca’s locket.
Inside was no ledger.
Only a small video camera, an envelope, and a flash drive.
The envelope read:
FOR CLARA ONLY.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
The first line made her sit down.
My darling Clara, if you are reading this, the Morettis have finally found you.
Then she reached the second paragraph.
Rebecca had written one sentence that destroyed everything Clara believed about herself:
Ricardo Moretti is not the only child Giovanni tried to hide.
Clara looked up at Rico.
May you like
Because the next sentence began:
Clara, Giovanni Moretti was your father.
