Chapter 4 - THE GIRL WHO VANISHED TWENTY YEARS AGO
Marco read the message twice.
Then he looked toward the restaurant entrance.
His bodyguards were already checking the room.
Isabella felt exposed.
Someone had photographed her.
Someone had known exactly where she was sitting.
And that someone had access to her father's phone.
“Don't go to his house tonight,” Marco said.
She looked up sharply.
“I'm not planning to.”
Rosa squeezed her hand.
“Good.”
Isabella turned toward the elderly woman.
“Who was the little girl?”
Rosa's eyes filled with tears.
For several seconds, she couldn't speak.
Then she whispered a name.
“Sofia.”
Isabella looked toward the pendant.
“Your daughter?”
Rosa nodded.
“Marco's older sister.”
Marco's expression hardened.
“My sister disappeared twenty years ago.”
Isabella stared at him.
“I thought you were an only child.”
“Most people do.”
“Why?”
His eyes darkened.
“Because my father made sure everyone stopped talking about her.”
Rosa lowered her head.
“Sofia was eight. She was clever, stubborn, and always singing.”
Isabella felt a strange ache in her chest.
“My mother used to sing constantly.”
Rosa managed a faint smile.
“So did mine.”
Marco continued.
“Sofia disappeared after a family gathering. There was a police investigation, but no one was ever charged.”
“Did they find her?”
“No.”
Isabella looked toward Rosa.
“And you think this connects to my mother?”
Rosa nodded.
“Adriana helped me search for Sofia.”
“Why didn't I know?”
“Because your father became involved.”
The words struck like cold water.
“My father?”
Rosa's expression was full of pain.
“Enzo was working for a transportation company connected to the people we were investigating.”
Isabella stared at the table.
Her father had spent years telling her he was merely a struggling construction worker.
He'd complained about unpaid bills.
Borrowed her savings.
Made her feel selfish whenever she asked for anything.
Had he been hiding another life?
Marco opened an old photograph on his phone.
It showed a warehouse near the Chicago River.
Several men stood beside a loading truck.
One was Enzo Romano.
Another was a man Isabella recognized from framed family photographs.
Marco's late father.
Vittorio DeLuca.
Rosa covered her mouth.
“Marco…”
He nodded grimly.
“I know.”
The photograph connected their fathers.
But what frightened Isabella was the little figure standing near the loading dock.
A girl.
Dark hair.
White sneakers.
Holding a stuffed rabbit.
Rosa began crying.
“Sofia.”
Isabella leaned closer.
The girl wasn't alone.
Another child stood beside her.
A little girl with curly dark hair.
She looked about four.
And when Marco enlarged the photograph, Isabella recognized the child's face.
May you like
It was her.
She had been at the warehouse the night Sofia disappeared.
