Chapter 2 - THE GHOST AT THE GATE
The crystal chandeliers above the dining table seemed to hum in the dead silence of the room.
Thirty-six elite guests sat completely paralyzed, their champagne glasses forgotten.
Luca Moretti stared at his security chief, his dark eyes wide with a shock I had never seen on the fearsome mafia boss’s face before.
“Repeat that, Marco,” Luca ordered, his voice dangerously soft.
“A woman at the gate, Boss,” Marco said, shifting uncomfortably. “She’s demanding to speak with Teresa. She gave her name as Isabella Moretti.”
Teresa let out a sound that was half sob, half scream. She gripped the arms of her wheelchair so hard her knuckles turned white.
“My baby,” she wept, tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks. “Luca, bring her in. Bring her to me right now!”
Vanessa Bellini suddenly lunged forward, her red gown snagging on a chair.
“No!” Vanessa shouted, her composure entirely shattered. “Don’t let her in! It’s a scam, Luca! It’s a con artist trying to extort your family! My father saw Isabella’s body, he organized the funeral!”
Luca didn’t even look at his fiancée.
“Bring her in, Marco,” he commanded. “And lock down the estate. No one leaves this dining room until I say so.”
Vanessa practically collapsed into an empty chair, clutching her stomach. Her panic was so raw it made my own skin crawl.
I stood frozen near the table, the gold locket heavy against my chest.
Isabella Moretti is alive.
The woman who had given birth to the baby my mother had hidden. The sister Luca had mourned for twenty-eight years.
Minutes felt like hours.
Then, the heavy oak doors of the dining room swung open.
A woman walked in.
She was tall, perhaps in her mid-forties, but her face was heavily lined with exhaustion and pain. She wore a simple black coat, completely out of place among the evening gowns and tuxedos.
But as she stepped into the light, the resemblance was undeniable.
She had Luca’s sharp jawline and Teresa’s striking blue eyes.
Teresa covered her mouth with both hands, shaking violently.
“Isabella?” the old woman whispered, her voice breaking.
The woman’s hard expression softened instantly as she looked at Teresa. Tears welled in her bright blue eyes.
“Mama,” Isabella choked out.
She crossed the room in three strides and fell to her knees beside the wheelchair, burying her face in Teresa’s lap.
Teresa sobbed, stroking her daughter’s dark hair over and over again, repeating her name like a prayer.
Luca stood rooted to the spot, his face pale.
“Bella?” he asked softly.
Isabella looked up at her younger brother.
“It’s me, Luca,” she whispered, standing up slowly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come back sooner. I’m so sorry.”
“Where have you been?” Luca demanded, his voice cracking with emotion. “Dad told us you died in your sleep from an aneurysm. We buried you. I carried your casket.”
Isabella closed her eyes, a bitter smile twisting her lips.
“You carried a casket full of bricks, Luca. Dad didn’t bury me. He traded me.”
The entire room gasped.
“Traded you?” Luca repeated, stepping closer to his resurrected sister. “To who?”
Isabella turned her head slowly, her blue eyes fixing on Vanessa Bellini, who was trembling violently in her chair.
“To Vincent Bellini,” Isabella said coldly. “Dad owed Vincent a massive debt. A debt that would have bankrupted the Moretti family and sent Dad to federal prison. Vincent agreed to clear the debt and forge the hospital records to fake my death... on one condition.”
Isabella pointed a shaking finger at Vanessa.
“Vincent wanted control of the Moretti shipping lines. But Dad refused to sign them over. So, Vincent took me as collateral. He locked me in a private psychiatric facility under a fake name for twenty-eight years.”
Teresa let out a horrified wail.
Luca’s face turned into a mask of pure, murderous rage. He turned toward Vanessa.
“Your father locked my sister in an asylum?” Luca roared, grabbing the back of Vanessa’s chair.
Vanessa shrank away from him. “I didn’t know! Luca, I swear to God I didn’t know she was still alive!”
“Liar,” Isabella snapped.
Isabella reached into her black coat and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. She threw it onto the mahogany table.
“That’s a transfer order from the facility, signed three months ago,” Isabella said, her voice dripping with venom. “Authorizing my relocation to a more secure ward. Look at the signature at the bottom.”
Luca snatched the paper.
I could see his eyes burning as he read it.
“Vanessa Bellini,” Luca read aloud, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper.
He looked down at his fiancée.
“You knew,” Luca said. “You’ve been paying to keep my sister locked up while planning to marry me.”
“He made me!” Vanessa screamed, bursting into tears. “My father made me do it, Luca! When he got sick last year, he told me Isabella was the only leverage we had left over your family. He said I had to marry you to secure the shipping lines before you found out the truth!”
“Where is my granddaughter?” Teresa cried out, suddenly grabbing Isabella’s arm. “Isabella, where is the baby? What did they do to her?”
Isabella’s face crumpled with fresh grief.
She turned to her mother.
“I don’t know, Mama. When I woke up after the delivery, Vincent and Dad told me she was dead. They said her heart stopped. They took her away before I could even hold her.”
My breath hitched in my throat.
Teresa looked up at me, her tear-filled eyes wide.
“Natalie,” Teresa whispered. “Your mother’s letter... she said the baby survived. She said Vincent took her.”
Isabella turned around, noticing me for the first time.
Her eyes immediately fell to the gold locket resting against my maid’s uniform.
Isabella stopped breathing.
She walked slowly toward me, her hands trembling as she reached out, lightly touching the gold metal.
“I gave this to the nurse,” Isabella whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I begged her to hide my baby. To put this around her neck so I could find her one day.”
She looked up into my face, studying my eyes, my nose, the shape of my jaw.
Isabella covered her mouth, a sob tearing through her chest.
“Oh my god,” she wept. “Oh my god, you have his eyes.”
“Whose eyes?” Luca demanded.
Before Isabella could answer, Vanessa suddenly stood up, knocking her chair over backward.
“Don’t say it, Isabella!” Vanessa screamed, her face contorted with panic. “If you say his name, my father will kill her!”
Isabella didn’t look at Vanessa. She kept her eyes fixed on my face, her hands gently holding the locket.
“You have your father’s eyes, Natalie,” Isabella said softly.
My heart pounded against my ribs. “Who is my father?”
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Isabella swallowed hard, turning to look at Luca.
“Her father is Vincent Bellini’s oldest son, Luca,” Isabella confessed. “Natalie isn’t just a Moretti. She’s a Bellini. And she is the true heir to both families.”
