Chapter 2
I closed the café.
Nobody left except ordinary guests.
My bodyguards locked the private doors while Isabella sat with Lucia near the window. The child refused to release her mother’s hand, but every few seconds she looked at me.
Curious.
Not frightened.
That made it worse.
I had missed three years of those eyes.
Dominic sat opposite me with two guards behind him.
No family pin.
I had removed it myself.
He kept looking at the card.
“What did my mother record?”
He laughed softly.
“You assume too much.”
“You knew it was a recording.”
“Maybe Isabella told me.”
She answered from across the room.
“I never did.”
Dominic looked at her.
Something ugly appeared in his face.
“You should have stayed gone.”
Lucia pressed closer to her.
I stood immediately.
Dominic saw it.
He smiled.
“There. Three minutes with the child and you’re already letting emotion make decisions.”
I stared at him.
“She is three.”
“And?”
That single word changed how I heard eleven years of loyalty.
I inserted the memory card into a secure tablet one of my men brought from the office.
One file.
Audio only.
Dated four years earlier.
Two days before my mother died.
I pressed play.
Her voice filled the café.
“Marco, if you’re hearing this, Isabella finally found enough courage to come back.”
My throat tightened.
Isabella covered her mouth.
My mother continued.
“Dominic lied to you.”
Dominic shut his eyes.
There it was.
No denial left.
“He told Isabella you ordered her removed from the family after she became pregnant. He told you Isabella left with another man.”
I looked at him.
For three years, I had hated Isabella.
Quietly.
Completely.
Dominic had been beside me through all of it.
My mother’s voice continued.
“I did not learn the truth until after Lucia was born.”
Lucia.
She knew the name.
I looked toward my daughter.
My mother had known her.
I had not.
Then the recording changed.
Another man entered the room with her.
Dominic.
Younger.
Angrier.
“You should have left this alone, Aunt Rosa.”
My mother answered.
“No. You should have left Marco’s family alone.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
The recording continued.
“You don’t understand what happens if Isabella comes back.”
“What happens?”
A pause.
Then Dominic said something that made every guard in the café look toward me.
“Marco finds out why his father really died.”
The recording stopped.
No ending.
No explanation.
Just silence.
I looked at Dominic.
May you like
He looked back.
And suddenly losing Isabella was no longer the oldest betrayal in the room.
