Chapter 3 - THE THREE LETTERS
By sunrise, nobody could enter or leave the Moretti estate without Lorenzo’s permission.
Clara hated it.
“You’re making us prisoners.”
“You were poisoned.”
“I noticed.”
“And my uncle approved the paperwork that put you inside this house.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
That startled her.
Lorenzo was sitting beside the bed in the private medical suite where the doctors had moved Clara before dawn.
Lily slept curled beside her mother, one small hand wrapped around Clara’s hospital gown.
Lorenzo had not slept.
He had changed clothes but had not shaved.
Without the black suit and perfectly controlled expression, he looked closer to the man Clara remembered.
That was dangerous.
She could protect herself from Lorenzo Moretti.
She had never learned how to protect herself from Lorenzo.
The man who once brought her coffee because she hated mornings.
The man who had memorized the exact bakery where she liked almond cookies.
The man she had loved enough to believe his rejection could destroy her.
“What exactly do you believe?” she asked.
“That you thought I threatened you.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because you knew me.”
Clara laughed weakly.
“I knew the version of you who existed when we were alone.”
His face tightened.
“And you believed the other version wanted you dead?”
“I believed the other version was the mafia boss everyone warned me about.”
That landed.
Lorenzo leaned back.
Fair.
Clara looked down at Lily.
“There were things you never told me.”
“I was trying to keep you away from them.”
“That doesn’t work when they show up at my apartment.”
He said nothing.
Three years earlier Clara had worked in the accounts department of a Moretti-owned hospitality company.
A legitimate company.
Mostly.
She had been twenty-eight.
Lorenzo had been thirty-three and still learning how much of his father’s world he could clean without starting a war with the men who had built it.
Their relationship began accidentally.
Late nights.
Coffee.
Arguments over invoices.
Then dinner.
Then another.
For nine months, Clara had believed she had found something impossible inside a brutal family.
A good man trying to become better than what he inherited.
Then everything collapsed in one day.
Lorenzo watched Lily sleeping.
“Tell me about the letters.”
Clara hesitated.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“The first one was after I found out I was pregnant.”
“Where were you?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Why there?”
“No reason. That was the point.”
She had rented a room above a laundromat.
Paid cash.
Bought prenatal vitamins from three different stores because fear had made her irrational.
“I wrote that I didn’t know whether you wanted to hear from me, but you deserved to know.”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
“The second?”
“After my first ultrasound.”
“What did you say?”
Clara looked away.
“That the baby was healthy.”
His eyes dropped.
“The third?”
She swallowed.
“I told you she was a girl.”
Lorenzo stared toward the window.
Three letters.
Three pieces of his daughter’s life.
Someone had intercepted all of them.
“I kept copies,” Clara said.
His gaze snapped back.
“Where?”
“In a storage locker under another name.”
“Still there?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“I haven’t been there in two years.”
“What else is in the locker?”
Clara was quiet too long.
Lorenzo noticed.
“Clara.”
“Records.”
“What records?”
“The reason Enzo wanted me gone in the first place.”
Lorenzo stood.
“You knew?”
“Not at first.”
She remembered the numbers because she had spent three years trying to forget them.
Invoices.
Shell companies.
Payments to contractors who didn’t exist.
Transfers routed through Moretti-controlled hospitality businesses.
“I found irregularities before I disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“The night before your birthday.”
Lorenzo remembered.
They had eaten dinner on the terrace.
Clara had been distracted.
She told him she was tired.
That night she had almost spoken.
Then she looked at him and chose tomorrow.
Tomorrow never came.
“What were the transfers?”
“I never had enough access to prove it. But money was moving from legitimate businesses into accounts associated with Enzo’s people.”
“How much?”
“At least twelve million over four years.”
Lorenzo became still.
Clara continued.
“Some transfers happened days before attacks against your crews.”
His eyes sharpened.
“You think he was selling information.”
“I think he was funding both sides.”
Lorenzo turned toward the window.
Enzo had blamed rival organizations for every ambush.
Every missing shipment.
Every dead soldier.
Every betrayal.
What if the enemy had been sitting at Lorenzo’s table the entire time?
“Why keep the records?”
“Because once I realized your message might not have been real, I needed proof.”
“You suspected Enzo.”
“I suspected everyone.”
Including him.
Lorenzo understood that.
He hated that he understood.
Lily shifted.
Her eyes opened.
She looked around.
Then saw Lorenzo.
“You stayed.”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Bear?”
He handed over the teddy bear immediately.
She hugged it.
“Mommy woke up.”
“I see that.”
Lily sat up.
Her hair stood wildly in every direction.
“Are you my daddy?”
Clara stopped breathing.
Lorenzo did too.
Children did not respect timing.
Lily looked at her mother.
“Marco said—”
Clara closed her eyes.
Of course he had.
“What did Marco say?” Lorenzo asked.
“He said you were scared because Mommy and your little girl were in danger.”
Lily frowned.
“I’m Mommy’s little girl.”
Clara reached for her.
“You are.”
“And yours?”
Silence.
Lorenzo’s entire empire could have burned outside the window and he would not have noticed.
Clara looked at him.
She could lie.
Ask for time.
Protect herself.
But Lily had already lived inside enough secrets.
“Yes,” Clara whispered.
Lily looked at Lorenzo.
“You’re Daddy?”
His voice almost failed.
“I think I am.”
Clara’s eyes narrowed.
“You think?”
He looked at her.
“I know.”
Lily considered him critically.
Then asked, “Where were you?”
Lorenzo Moretti had survived interrogations from federal agents without blinking.
A three-year-old destroyed him with four words.
He crouched beside the bed.
“I didn’t know where you were.”
“You got lost?”
Something in Clara’s chest broke.
Lorenzo smiled sadly.
“Something like that.”
“I got lost too.”
“So I heard.”
“I knocked lots.”
“Seven doors,” Clara said.
Lily nodded proudly.
“Then yours.”
Lorenzo reached toward her.
Stopped.
“Can I hold your hand?”
Lily looked at Clara.
Clara nodded.
Lily placed her tiny hand in his.
Lorenzo stared down at it.
Then the medical suite door opened.
Marco entered.
His expression told Clara something had changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found Enzo’s car.”
“Where?”
“Near the south gate.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“He never left?”
“No.”
Marco looked toward Lily.
Then Clara.
“We reviewed the cameras.”
“And?”
“Someone disabled six cameras in the west wing between eleven forty and twelve fifteen.”
Lorenzo stood.
“Who had access?”
Marco hesitated.
“Four people.”
“Names.”
“Myself. Enzo. Security chief Romano.”
“And the fourth?”
Marco looked almost sick.
“Your mother.”
Clara’s face went cold.
Lorenzo said nothing.
His mother, Isabella Moretti, had lived in the east residence since his father died.
She had never liked Clara.
Never openly.
She didn’t need to.
A woman like Isabella could make rejection feel like weather.
Lorenzo’s voice dropped.
“Bring her to me.”
Marco did not move.
“Boss…”
“What?”
“She’s gone.”
Lorenzo stared.
“Gone where?”
“We found her bedroom empty.”
Clara tightened her arm around Lily.
Marco continued.
“And there was something on the bed.”
He held up a clear evidence bag.
Inside were three envelopes.
Old.
Folded.
Each addressed in Clara’s handwriting.
To Lorenzo Moretti.
May you like
The letters.
All three.
