Chapter 4 - THE SECOND COPY
Emma did not cry.
Not immediately.
She simply stared at the ceiling for almost a minute.
Then she said:
“My entire childhood was built on a lie.”
Rose flinched.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? The truth?”
“From them.”
She pointed toward me.
I didn’t take offense.
She had earned suspicion.
Emma looked at me.
“Did you know my father?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
“Yes.”
“That means somewhere in your family records there could be proof.”
“Yes.”
“Will you show me?”
Lucia looked at me.
Marco looked at me.
Ten years earlier, no outsider would have been permitted anywhere near Castellano archives.
But Emma was no longer an outsider.
Someone had broken her body to send me a message.
That made her part of the problem whether she wanted to be or not.
“Yes.”
Rose immediately objected.
“No.”
Emma turned.
“Mom.”
“You’re injured.”
“And Dad is dead.”
“You think knowing more will bring him back?”
“No.”
Her voice stayed quiet.
“But I’m done living inside decisions other people made for me.”
That silenced the room.
I understood that sentence too well.
By evening, Marco had brought sealed archive boxes from a secure storage facility.
My father kept records obsessively.
Not because he trusted paper.
Because he trusted memory even less.
We found Thomas Caruso on the fourth box.
A file.
Thin.
Too thin.
Inside:
A passport copy.
A photograph of Thomas at thirty-one.
New identity documents.
A bank transfer.
And a handwritten note from my father.
T.C. DELIVERED ONE COPY.
SECOND COPY REMAINS WITH HIM AS INSURANCE.
PROTECT WIFE + CHILD IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME.
I read it twice.
Emma sat across from me.
“What does it mean?”
“My father knew Thomas kept another copy.”
“And promised to protect us.”
“Yes.”
“But when your father died…”
“I never saw this file.”
Marco frowned.
“It should have been in primary succession records.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Who handled your father’s transition files?”
I already knew.
My uncle.
Vincenzo Castellano.
My father’s younger brother.
Dead six years now.
Lucia whispered:
“Uncle Vince?”
I stared at the handwriting.
My uncle had spent twenty years telling me my father was too sentimental.
Too soft with promises.
He had also negotiated repeatedly with Kolov after I became head of the family.
“What are you thinking?” Emma asked.
“That this file was deliberately buried.”
Rose looked frightened.
“By whom?”
“Probably my uncle.”
Emma sat back.
“So your family did betray mine.”
“Maybe.”
“Dominic.”
That was the first time she used my first name.
Even angry.
I noticed.
“Yes,” I said. “Maybe.”
She respected the honesty enough not to push.
Marco continued through the file.
At the bottom was a storage receipt.
Safe-deposit facility.
Queens.
Box registered under Thomas Carter.
Annual fees prepaid for twenty years.
Emma stared.
“My father had a box?”
Rose shook her head.
“I never knew.”
The account remained active.
The next morning, with legal documentation proving Emma was Thomas’s daughter, the facility allowed an estate representative to inspect it.
The box contained no money.
No jewelry.
One photograph.
One cassette tape.
And a brass key.
Emma held the photograph.
Thomas stood beside my father.
Both much younger.
Between them was a teenage boy I didn’t recognize.
On the back, Thomas had written:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, FIND GABRIEL.
HE KNOWS WHERE THE SECOND BOOK IS.
I took the photograph from Emma.
Lucia gasped.
“What?”
She pointed at the teenager.
“I know him.”
I looked closer.
Then recognition hit me.
Gabriel wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t hidden.
He had been living inside my mansion for eleven years.
May you like
His full name was Gabriel Moretti.
But everyone in my house called him Marco.
