Chapter 8 - THE SON OF THE MAN WHO KILLED HER FATHER
Tessa wanted to hate Brett.
For the cruelty.
The jokes.
The way he set her up.
The way he watched her struggle and smiled.
Now she knew his father had killed hers.
Hatred should have been easy.
Instead, Brett looked terrified.
Small.
Nothing like the smug man from an hour earlier.
“My father worked for Victor,” he said.
“Name.”
“Frank Dalton.”
Tessa remembered.
A foreman.
He attended her father’s funeral.
He hugged her mother.
He told Tessa that Thomas had been “like a brother.”
Her stomach turned.
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
“How?”
Brett looked toward Samuel.
“Victor killed him too.”
Samuel’s eyes hardened.
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because he started drinking and talking.”
A pattern.
Victor used people.
Then erased them.
Brett continued.
“I found Dad’s recordings after he died.”
Tessa stared.
“You knew all this?”
“Not at first.”
“When did you know?”
“Two years ago.”
“And you still worked for Victor?”
“I had a sister.”
His voice broke.
“She was sixteen.”
Tessa’s anger paused.
“What happened?”
“Victor threatened her.”
There it was again.
Fear traveling through generations.
Brett wiped his face.
“I did what he told me.”
“Including humiliating me?”
His eyes dropped.
“No.”
She waited.
“That part was me.”
Tessa stared.
He swallowed.
“I hated that you never seemed afraid.”
At least he didn’t excuse it.
“I’m sorry.”
She wasn’t ready to forgive him.
Maybe she never would.
But truth mattered.
Samuel signed:
“Where are the recordings?”
Brett looked toward the old wine racks.
“Hidden at my apartment.”
Luke—Samuel’s security chief—made the call to retrieve them.
Then Dany said:
“Margaret.”
Everyone turned.
“We still need to find her.”
Samuel’s face tightened.
He had almost forgotten because of Tessa.
That seemed to trouble him.
Carlisle checked his phone.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“Security footage.”
He turned the screen toward them.
A woman in a gray coat leaving Bellavita through the alley.
Margaret.
She walked slowly.
Disoriented.
Then a black SUV pulled up.
A man stepped out.
Victor Marquetti.
Samuel went completely still.
Victor opened the passenger door.
Margaret looked at him.
Then got inside willingly.
Tessa frowned.
“She knows him?”
Samuel signed:
“He’s her brother-in-law.”
“But she thinks he killed her family.”
“Brain injury.”
Dany whispered:
“She may not remember.”
Then Samuel’s phone vibrated.
A video call.
Victor.
Samuel answered.
Victor appeared beside Margaret.
She was sitting calmly.
Almost peacefully.
Victor smiled.
“Hello, Samuel.”
Samuel’s face became stone.
Victor continued:
“Or should I call you Salvatore?”
Then Margaret looked directly into the camera.
And signed:
DON’T TRUST SOFIA.
No one knew who Sofia was.
May you like
Except Samuel.
His face went white.
