Chapter 9 - THE DAUGHTER HE NEVER STOPPED MOURNING
Peter had a daughter.
Her name was Sofia.
She was born twelve years earlier, when Peter was still married to a woman named Adriana Bellini.
Their marriage had been brief.
Difficult.
Full of arguments about Peter's involvement in the family organization.
Adriana wanted out.
Peter refused.
Then one winter evening, Sofia disappeared during a visit to the Castiglione estate.
The family told Peter she'd died in a fire.
Adriana left him shortly afterward.
For ten years, Peter believed his daughter was gone.
Now a photograph suggested she had been alive long after the supposed accident.
I watched him stare at it.
For the first time, the man everyone feared looked completely broken.
“Peter?”
He didn't answer.
His fingers moved slowly across the photograph.
“Sofia.”
His voice cracked.
I sat beside him.
“I'm sorry.”
He looked at me.
“She hated thunderstorms.”
I swallowed.
“What?”
“My little girl.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“When the thunder came, she'd crawl into my bed and demand that I tell her stories about brave princesses.”
He laughed bitterly.
“I told her princesses never cried.”
Then he covered his face.
“God, I was wrong about so many things.”
I didn't tell him everything would be okay.
Because I didn't know.
Instead, I sat beside him.
After a long silence, Peter looked up.
“I'm going to find her.”
I nodded.
“Then do it the right way.”
He stared at me.
“No threats. No violence. No making someone else disappear.”
For a moment, he seemed offended.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
Detective Bennett traced the photograph.
It had been taken at a children's residential facility outside Milwaukee.
A facility linked to companies controlled by Silvio.
The records showed that a girl matching Sofia's description had been transferred under another name.
Sophie Bennett.
My heart tightened.
“Where is she now?”
The detective continued searching.
Then looked up.
“She's fifteen.”
Peter swallowed.
“Alive?”
“The records suggest she may be.”
He closed his eyes.
For the first time, hope appeared on his face.
Then the detective opened another document.
A photograph from six weeks earlier.
A teenage girl standing beside an older woman.
The girl looked exactly like Peter.
Same eyes.
Same expression.
Same dark curls.
Peter began crying.
But when I looked at the older woman, my blood ran cold.
I recognized her.
Not from photographs.
From my own life.
She was the social worker who visited me after Daniel died.
The woman who helped process my emergency housing application.
The woman who told me I needed to surrender certain documents to receive assistance.
Her name was Helen Ward.
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And beside the photograph was a note.
PETER MUST NEVER LEARN THAT SOFIA IS ALIVE.
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