Chapter 10 - The Unwritten Line
Six months later.
Seattle in October was a world of mist, salt air, and endless evergreen trees.
I had changed my name back to Collins. I had taken an apartment overlooking the docks of Puget Sound, working as the head of inventory for a non-profit marine rehabilitation center. It was quiet. It was honest.
And every single second of every single day, my chest ached with a hollow, phantom pain that never healed.
My mother—the woman who had raised me, who had held my hand through fevers and heartbreaks—had confirmed everything before she passed away peacefully in her sleep in late August. She had held my hand in the hospital, crying softly, telling me how much Maria Moretti had loved me, how Maria had visited the small house in Bridgeport once a year in secret, watching me play in the yard from a dark sedan parked down the block.
“You were always loved, Emma,” my mother had whispered with her dying breath. “Never doubt that. You were saved by a woman who chose mercy over power.”
I had refused the trust funds. I had refused the offshore accounts Luca had tried to transfer into my name. The only thing I had kept was my father’s old watch and the memories of a winter that felt like a lifetime ago.
On a rainy Thursday evening, I was closing the office at the rehabilitation center.
The wind off the Pacific was sharp, whipping rain against the large plate-glass windows overlooking the darkened harbor. The staff had gone home an hour ago, leaving me alone with the hum of the aquarium pumps and the distant mourn of a foghorn.
A soft chime sounded as the front door opened.
"I'm sorry, we're closed for the evening," I called out, locking the cash register drawer behind the counter. "Visiting hours start at nine tomorrow—"
The words died in my throat.
Standing in the doorway, framed against the gray Pacific mist, was Daniel.
He wore a dark raincoat, his hands resting respectfully at his sides. He looked older, tired, carrying the weight of a city four states away.
"Hello, Emma," Daniel said quietly.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. "Daniel? What... what are you doing here? Did Luca send you? I told him not to contact me."
"Luca doesn't know I'm here," Daniel replied, stepping inside and closing the glass door, shutting out the howling wind. "If he knew I took this flight, he’d probably put a bullet in my knee."
"Then why are you here?"
Daniel reached inside his heavy overcoat and pulled out a sealed white envelope bearing the official wax stamp of the Swiss Institute of Forensic Genetics in Zurich.
He walked to the counter and placed it between us.
"Three weeks ago, Vincent Bellini died in a federal prison hospital in New York," Daniel said, his voice dropping into a solemn, heavy tone. "Before he died, he gave a sworn deposition to the federal marshals regarding the events of 1998."
My hands went numb against the laminate countertop. "What does that have to do with me?"
"Vincent confessed to setting the hospital fire," Daniel said. "He wanted to kill Antonio's newborn daughter. But when his men arrived at the maternity ward, the child was already gone."
Daniel paused, taking a deep, shuddering breath.
"Aunt Rosa lied, Emma."
The world seemed to stop spinning. "What?"
"Rosa was blackmailed by Vincent Bellini thirty years ago over her husband's gambling debts," Daniel explained, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burned. "The lockbox, the photograph, the journal entry—it was an insurance policy fabricated by the Bellini family. A contingency plan designed to destroy the Moretti succession from within if they ever lost control of the docks."
My breath caught in my throat. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak.
"Luca flew to Switzerland last week," Daniel continued softly. "He exhumed his father’s tissue samples from the family mausoleum. He had the genetic laboratory in Zurich run a full comparative DNA profile against the hairbrush you left behind in the third-floor suite."
Daniel tapped the sealed envelope with his forefinger.
"The results came back yesterday morning."
I stared at the white paper, my vision blurring, my entire body beginning to shake violently.
"What does it say, Daniel?" I whispered, my voice barely audible over the hum of the aquarium filters.
Daniel didn't answer.
Instead, he turned toward the glass front doors and stepped aside.
Through the rain-streaked window, parked under the amber glow of the harbor streetlights, sat a sleek black Suburban with Illinois plates.
The rear passenger door opened.
A tall man in a dark cashmere coat stepped out into the pouring rain. He didn't use an umbrella. He didn't rush. He walked across the wet asphalt with that familiar, predatory, unyielding stride, his dark hair plastered against his forehead by the storm.
Beside him, leaping gracefully from the vehicle, was an old golden retriever wearing a blue waterproof vest, his tail wagging furiously against the cold salt air.
Luca stopped at the glass door, his hand resting on the brass handle.
He didn't push it open.
Through the rain-drenched glass, his piercing gray eyes locked onto mine across the empty room—eyes that held no brotherly affection, but an all-consuming, terrifying hunger, burning with the question that neither of us had yet dared to answer.
The envelope sat between my trembling fingers.
May you like
The brass latch clicked.
And the door began to open.
