Chapter 2 - THE MARK SOPHIA HAD TOO
“Interesting.”
Marco Bellini’s expression did not change.
“What?”
Vincent Moretti looked at the man who had stood beside him through funerals, indictments, shootings, acquisitions, and the worst night of his life.
“I never accused you of meeting Elena outside this house.”
Silence settled over the dining room.
Marco had said too much.
He knew it.
Vincent knew it.
And Elena Rossi knew it too.
Mia had stopped crying, but only because her mother held her so tightly that the little girl had buried her entire face against Elena’s shoulder.
Vincent moved closer.
“Look at me, Elena.”
She did.
“Do you know Marco?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
Marco exhaled through his nose.
“Elena.”
She looked at him.
Something passed between them.
Fear.
Warning.
History.
Vincent noticed all three.
Then Mia shifted.
Her curls slid away from her neck again.
The V-shaped mark appeared.
Vincent stopped breathing.
He had seen that mark thousands of times.
Not on Mia.
On Sophia.
His daughter had carried the same strange little birthmark at the base of her neck.
A narrow V, almost like two fingerprints pressed together.
Doctors had called it harmless pigmentation.
Sophia had called it her bird.
“When I grow wings,” she once told Vincent at three years old, “they come out here.”
Vincent had kissed that mark every night he put her to bed.
Now another child stood in his dining room carrying the same one.
He looked at Marco.
Marco’s face had gone gray.
Vincent slowly reached beneath the collar of his shirt and touched the back of his own neck.
He had one too.
Smaller.
Fainter.
His father had carried the same mark.
So had his grandmother.
It ran through the Moretti bloodline so consistently that his mother used to joke the family came stamped from the factory.
Vincent looked at Mia.
Then Elena.
“Who was her father?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“Vincent.”
“His name.”
Marco stepped forward.
“Boss, this is not the time.”
Vincent turned.
“Leave.”
Marco went still.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m not leaving you alone when we don’t know what she wants.”
Elena flinched.
Vincent’s voice became very quiet.
“That woman has cleaned my house for two years.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Leave.”
Marco stared at him.
For perhaps the first time in thirteen years, he looked like a man who had no idea which version of Vincent stood in front of him.
Then he walked out.
The doors closed.
Vincent looked at Elena.
“Sit.”
She did not.
“No.”
He almost smiled.
Even terrified, she still managed refusal.
“Fine.”
He remained standing too.
Mia peeked over Elena’s shoulder.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“What was her father’s name?”
Elena’s lips trembled.
“Matteo.”
Something moved through Vincent.
“Last name?”
“Rossi.”
No recognition.
“Is he alive?”
Elena looked down.
“No.”
“When did he die?”
“Three years ago.”
Mia was three.
Vincent did the arithmetic.
“Before she was born?”
“Six weeks before.”
His chest tightened.
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Vincent waited.
Elena looked at him again.
“He was twenty-one.”
The room changed.
Twenty-one.
Vincent had been eighteen when Sophia was born.
He had been seventeen the summer he met Teresa Rossi.
Teresa with black hair and a chipped front tooth.
Teresa who worked at her uncle’s bakery in Brooklyn.
Teresa who disappeared from his life after Vincent’s father found out he had been seeing her.
Salvatore Moretti had called the relationship a distraction.
Vincent had been sent to Sicily for three months.
When he returned, Teresa’s family had moved.
He had searched once.
Then twice.
His father told him she had married someone else.
Vincent had believed him.
Until now.
“What was Matteo’s mother’s name?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Teresa.”
Vincent’s knees nearly failed.
He put one hand on the table.
“Elena.”
“I didn’t know when I came here.”
“What?”
“I knew Matteo believed you were his father.”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“But he had no proof.”
“What did Teresa tell him?”
“She didn’t tell him until she was dying.”
Vincent stared.
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
“Dying from what?”
“Pancreatic cancer.”
He looked away.
Teresa dead too.
Another person he had no chance to ask why.
Elena continued.
“She gave Matteo a letter. A photograph. Some bank records.”
“From who?”
“Your father.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“What bank records?”
“Payments.”
The answer came softly.
“Monthly payments from a company controlled by Salvatore Moretti.”
Vincent stopped moving.
His father had known.
Not suspected.
Known.
“Matteo came here?”
Elena nodded.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Before he died?”
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
“Two days.”
Vincent’s eyes closed.
“What happened?”
“He told me he was finally going to meet you.”
Her voice cracked.
“He didn’t want money.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Elena’s eyes flashed.
“No.”
That surprised him.
“I don’t expect anything from you.”
Mia began fidgeting.
Elena kissed her hair.
Then continued.
“Matteo wanted to know whether his mother had lied to him.”
“She didn’t.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
Vincent looked at Mia’s neck.
“Yes.”
He almost whispered it.
“I do.”
Elena’s anger softened.
“A man met Matteo at the gate.”
Vincent already knew the answer.
“Marco.”
“Yes.”
“What did Marco tell him?”
“That you knew.”
Vincent looked up sharply.
“That you had always known.”
His face changed.
Elena continued through tears.
“He said you wanted nothing to do with Matteo.”
Vincent’s hand tightened against the table.
“He said if Matteo came back, you would consider it extortion.”
“I never said that.”
“I know that now.”
“Why?”
“Because of your face.”
Her voice broke.
“I thought maybe Matteo had been wrong about you. Then Marco came to our apartment the next evening.”
Vincent went still.
“What?”
“He told Matteo to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Looking.”
Elena swallowed.
“He said Moretti families were built on graves and that Matteo should be grateful he had grown up outside yours.”
Vincent felt something cold move through him.
“And the next day?”
“The brakes failed on Matteo’s car.”
Silence.
Mia whispered:
“Mommy?”
Elena immediately softened.
“I’m okay, baby.”
Vincent was not.
“What happened after he died?”
“I found out I was pregnant.”
“And you came to work for me a year later.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Elena looked ashamed.
Then angry about feeling ashamed.
“Because I needed a job with housing.”
“Only that?”
“No.”
Vincent waited.
“I wanted Mia close to the only family Matteo ever tried to find.”
That sentence hit harder than accusation.
“But Marco was here.”
“Yes.”
“So why stay?”
Elena looked at her daughter.
“Because you told me she wasn’t an interference.”
Vincent remembered the interview.
The way Elena’s eyes filled.
He had thought he was giving a struggling mother a job.
She had been standing in front of the man she suspected was her dead boyfriend’s father.
And he had not recognized a single thing.
Vincent’s phone came out.
“Elena, I need DNA.”
Her expression hardened instantly.
“For what?”
“Proof.”
“She is not property.”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“She isn’t.”
“You don’t get to take her hair, blood, or anything else because you have questions.”
Vincent stopped.
Most people did not speak to him that way.
He found he respected it.
“Then I ask.”
Elena studied him.
“Mia does not need to understand any of this yet.”
“Agreed.”
“Cheek swab only.”
“Agreed.”
“Independent laboratory.”
“Yes.”
“I choose it.”
“Yes.”
She stared suspiciously.
“You’re agreeing too easily.”
“I’ve had an educational afternoon.”
Despite everything, her mouth moved.
Barely.
Vincent looked toward the doors.
Then called security.
“I want every Greystone gate log from three years ago.”
A pause.
“Every camera archive that still exists.”
Another pause.
“And nobody tells Marco.”
Elena went pale.
“You think he killed Matteo.”
Vincent looked at her.
“I think the man I trusted most just lied before I asked him a question.”
That night, at 11:37, Vincent’s security chief called.
They had found the old visitor log.
One entry.
MATTEO ROSSI.
Twenty-one years old.
Admitted at 7:14 p.m.
Three days before his death.
Authorized by:
M. BELLINI.
But that was not the worst part.
The exit column was blank.
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According to Greystone’s own records, Matteo Rossi had entered Vincent Moretti’s estate.
And never officially left.
