Chapter 6 - MY FATHER HAD BEEN ALIVE FOR TWENTY-ONE YEARS
Eleanor survived.
The poison was identified quickly enough because the physician knew what he was looking for.
Not a cinematic mystery substance.
Prescription medication in a dangerous combination.
Something designed to make her death resemble a cardiac event.
At sixty-seven, with a known arrhythmia, it might have worked.
The tea had come from the household kitchen.
Six people touched the tray.
One kitchen assistant vanished before security closed the gates.
Victor’s network was not outside the estate.
It had roots inside.
Again.
While Eleanor stabilized, I sat beside her bed holding the paper.
GABRIEL IS ALIVE.
“What is this?”
I asked.
Her voice was weak.
“A message.”
“From who?”
“Thomas Vieri.”
My stomach tightened.
“Victor’s secretary.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Why would he tell you?”
“Because Thomas is afraid.”
“Of Victor?”
“Yes.”
“Of Adrian too.”
Adrian stood near the window.
His face did not change.
Reasonable.
Eleanor continued.
“Thomas sent me an encrypted link.”
“There was a photograph.”
“Where?”
“Pennsylvania.”
“A private care facility.”
My throat tightened.
“What kind of facility?”
“Neurological rehabilitation.”
The room tilted.
“Why would my father be there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he sick?”
“The photograph was recent.”
“How recent?”
“Eight days.”
I stopped breathing.
Twenty-one years.
My father had aged somewhere without me.
Birthdays.
Graduation.
My mother’s death.
Everything.
“Show me.”
Eleanor handed Adrian a small tablet recovered from her safe.
The encrypted file remained.
Matteo opened it offline.
Photograph.
A man sitting near a window.
Gray hair.
Thin shoulders.
Wheelchair.
My heart stopped.
Wheelchair.
For one irrational second, I looked at Adrian.
Then back.
The man in the photograph was in his late sixties.
Scar beside his left temple.
Brown eyes.
My eyes.
My father.
Gabriel Bellandi.
Alive.
I dropped the tablet.
Adrian caught it before it hit the floor.
“No.”
I whispered.
“He’s alive.”
No one answered.
I started laughing.
Then crying.
Then both.
My mother had died believing he was dead.
Had she?
Another question.
“Did my mother know?”
Eleanor’s face tightened.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think.”
“Anna stopped speaking to me after you turned twelve.”
“Why?”
“She believed my protection attracted danger.”
“Maybe she was right.”
“Yes.”
The honesty stopped me.
“Did she ever ask if Dad was alive?”
“Every year.”
My knees weakened.
“And you said?”
“That I had no proof.”
“Which was true?”
“Yes.”
Until now.
I looked at the photograph.
“What facility?”
“St. Matthew Neurological Center.”
“Private.”
“Outside Scranton.”
Adrian spoke.
“We do not go there ourselves.”
I turned.
“He’s my father.”
“And someone wants you dead.”
“I am going.”
“No.”
My anger exploded.
“You do not get to tell me no.”
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
Then:
“I think going before Hart verifies the facility could get him killed if this is bait.”
I stopped.
Facts.
Again.
I hated facts.
Hart ran the name.
St. Matthew existed.
Twenty-two beds.
High-security neurological rehabilitation and long-term care.
Privately funded.
One patient admitted under the name George Bell twenty-one years earlier after severe traumatic brain injury.
No family.
Bills paid through a charitable medical trust.
Trust administrator?
Lake Crest Foundation.
My blood ran cold.
Victor.
Not dead.
Stored.
Why?
Hart obtained an emergency federal warrant based on kidnapping and identity-fraud evidence.
No Moretti men.
No Adrian.
No me.
I hated every second.
At 7:14 the next morning, federal agents entered St. Matthew.
At 7:31, Hart called.
“He’s there.”
I stopped breathing.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Condition?”
“Stable.”
“Cognitive?”
“Complicated.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your father has memory impairment.”
“Speech difficulty.”
“Mobility limitations.”
“But he knows his real name.”
My knees gave out.
I sat.
“Does he know me?”
“We haven’t asked.”
“Why?”
“Because we are not throwing twenty-one years of trauma at a vulnerable man over a phone.”
Reasonable.
Cruel.
Right.
I wanted to go immediately.
Doctors said wait six hours while they evaluated him.
Longest six hours of my life.
I packed Gabriel.
Then unpacked him.
A newborn did not need a five-hour drive into chaos.
My sister?
I had no sister.
My mother had raised me alone.
The Moretti mansion staff?
No.
Eventually, Dr. Sayeed’s wife, a pediatric nurse I had come to trust during pregnancy, stayed with the baby inside the secured estate while Adrian and I traveled with Hart.
Why Adrian?
I did not ask him.
He asked me.
“Do you want me there?”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
Simple.
His accessible van drove behind the federal vehicle.
No armed convoy.
No black SUVs.
Strange.
At St. Matthew, my hands shook so badly I could not sign the visitor form.
The nurse pretended not to notice.
We entered a private room.
The man from the photograph sat beside the window.
My father.
Older.
Smaller.
Alive.
He turned when the door opened.
His eyes moved to Adrian first.
Then me.
He stared.
Nothing.
My heart broke.
Of course.
I was seven the last time he saw me.
“Dad?”
His mouth opened.
No sound.
I took one step.
A nurse said:
“Slow.”
I stopped.
He studied my face.
Then his fingers moved.
Not toward me.
Toward his own chest.
He whispered:
“Anna?”
My mother.
I started crying.
“No.”
“I’m Madeline.”
His face changed.
Tiny.
Then enormous.
“Maddie?”
The sound barely existed.
I covered my mouth.
He remembered.
Not everything.
Enough.
I knelt beside him.
He touched my cheek.
His hand trembled.
“Little.”
he whispered.
“I was.”
“You…”
His breathing changed.
“Fire.”
“Yes.”
He began crying.
“I came.”
“What?”
“Came back.”
His words were difficult.
“I came.”
“House gone.”
“Victor.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“What did Victor do?”
My father looked at him.
For several seconds, confusion.
Then recognition.
“Little Adrian.”
Adrian went completely still.
Dad smiled weakly.
“Pool.”
I sobbed.
He remembered that too.
Then his expression changed.
“Victor bad.”
“Yes.”
I whispered.
“We know.”
Dad grabbed my wrist.
Surprisingly strong.
“Book.”
“What book?”
“Blue.”
“Blue book.”
“Where?”
He closed his eyes.
“Church.”
“What church?”
“Saint…”
He struggled.
“Michael.”
Eleanor had mentioned St. Michael’s once?
Adrian knew.
“St. Michael the Archangel.”
he said.
“My father’s old parish.”
Dad nodded violently.
“Confession.”
“Box.”
“Behind.”
His breathing became fast.
Nurse stepped closer.
I soothed him.
“It’s okay.”
“Enough.”
But Dad refused.
He looked at Adrian.
“Your father…”
“What?”
Adrian leaned closer.
“Did my father know?”
Dad’s eyes filled.
“No.”
“Victor kill.”
The room became silent.
“Kill my father?”
Adrian whispered.
Dad nodded.
Then one word.
“Car.”
Adrian’s father had died in a car crash twelve years earlier.
Everyone called it weather.
A mountain road.
Ice.
Victor had been the first person at the hospital.
Adrian’s face emptied.
My father was not merely proof of an old crime.
He was a living witness to the destruction of two families.
And before the nurse forced us to leave him resting, Dad grabbed my hand one more time.
“Baby?”
I froze.
“How do you know?”
His eyes moved between me and Adrian.
Then he smiled.
“Same.”
“Same what?”
He touched Adrian’s face.
Then mine.
“Love stupid.”
I laughed through tears.
Adrian actually blushed.
A mafia boss.
In a wheelchair.
Blushing before a sixty-eight-year-old neurological patient.
Dad smiled wider.
Then slept.
Outside the room, Hart said:
“We need that blue book.”
Adrian looked at me.
I nodded.
May you like
St. Michael’s waited in Manhattan.
And apparently, behind a confession booth untouched for decades, my father had hidden the evidence Victor had spent twenty-one years trying to bury with him.
Related Stories
