Chapter 4 - The Dead Man at the River House
My father’s voice had not changed.
Time could roughen a man’s face, weaken his body, or bend his spine.
But Salvatore Moretti’s voice was unmistakable.
Low.
Controlled.
Almost gentle whenever he was about to destroy someone.
I replayed the final five seconds of the voicemail.
“Bring her to the river house.”
Anthony stared at the phone.
“That cannot be him.”
“It is.”
“Your father died in Rome.”
“I saw a coffin.”
Matteo gave a hollow laugh.
We both looked at him.
“What?” I asked.
“You saw another sealed coffin,” he said.
The words made every man in the room uncomfortable.
My father had supposedly suffered a stroke while traveling in Italy. His body was returned three days later. The funeral director claimed international transport regulations required the casket to remain closed.
I had never questioned it.
A son did not expect his father to fake his death twice in the same family.
“Did you know?” I asked Matteo.
“No.”
“Think carefully.”
“I knew Father used false deaths. I never imagined he would use one for himself.”
“You knew enough to imagine it.”
Anthony stepped between us before the argument became violent.
“What river house?”
Our family owned several properties near water, but only one had ever been called that.
A hunting lodge forty miles north, built beside a narrow branch of the Hudson. My father used it for private meetings when he did not want the household staff to know who had visited him.
The property had been abandoned since his death.
Or so I believed.
I ordered six vehicles prepared.
Anthony caught my arm.
“Dominic, that is exactly where they expect you to go.”
“They have my wife.”
“They may want you outside the estate.”
“They threatened Sophia.”
“And your son is here.”
Every choice was designed to divide me.
Stay with my child and leave Valentina to die.
Search for my wife and expose my child to another attack.
My father had taught me that a man who loved two things could always be forced to choose which one he would lose.
I had spent my life believing that lesson made me strong.
Now I understood it only made me predictable.
“We move them,” I said.
“Where?”
“Mercer’s old clinic.”
The clinic had closed eight years earlier but still contained a surgical wing and backup generators. More importantly, it was not listed among Moretti properties.
“Take Teresa, Sophia, and the baby through the wine cellar tunnel,” I said. “Use the delivery van. No family vehicles.”
Anthony nodded.
“Who goes with you?”
“No captains.”
He frowned.
“One of them helped open the gate.”
“Then take men who were not in this room.”
I chose four guards from the outer estate staff, men who had served less than a year and had no direct connection to Matteo or the old family leadership.
Matteo watched us prepare.
“You need me,” he said.
“I need you tied to that chair.”
“I know the lodge.”
“So do I.”
“No, you know the rooms Father allowed you to see.”
I stopped.
Matteo leaned forward.
“There is a lower level beneath the boathouse. He stored records there.”
“How do you know?”
“I followed him once.”
“And waited twenty years to mention it?”
“I was fourteen.”
“You have been older than fourteen for a long time.”
His expression hardened.
“If Valentina is alive, she may be down there.”
I studied him.
He had betrayed me. Lied to me. Helped Voss cover up Claire Bennett’s death. But he also looked terrified for Valentina.
That frightened me more than indifference would have.
“What was she to you?” I asked.
His eyes flickered.
“Your wife.”
“That was not my question.”
Matteo looked away.
I crossed the room and struck him hard enough to split his lip.
“What was she to you?”
“Nothing happened between us.”
“Then why are you afraid for her?”
“Because she is the only person who knows why Father chose her for you.”
The room fell silent.
“My father did not choose my wife.”
“He arranged your first meeting.”
I remembered meeting Valentina at a charity dinner seven years earlier. She had been seated beside a senator’s daughter, laughing at something I could no longer recall.
I had believed chance brought us together.
Matteo shook his head.
“Father selected her because of her bloodline.”
“Whose blood?”
“Elena’s.”
“But Elena was my mother.”
“Yes.”
The implication sickened me.
“Valentina is related to me?”
“Not by blood.”
“Explain.”
“I cannot. The proof was in the records she took.”
I untied one of his wrists.
Anthony stared at me.
“You are bringing him?”
“He walks in front of me.”
We left after midnight.
Rain followed us north, turning the highway into a blurred tunnel of headlights and water.
Matteo sat beside me in the rear vehicle with his wrists bound in front of him.
“What did Valentina find?” I asked.
“A letter Elena wrote before she died.”
“To whom?”
“To a woman named Margaret Romano.”
Valentina’s adoptive grandmother.
“Elena claimed Salvatore had ordered Voss to exchange two newborn girls at St. Helena.”
“Why?”
“One child belonged to a judge. The other belonged to a woman Father wanted to control.”
“Which child was Valentina?”
“I do not know.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand why she wanted evidence before telling you.”
“She had two years.”
“She was pregnant for nine months.”
“That should have made her tell me sooner.”
“It made her more afraid.”
I turned toward him.
“Of what?”
“That your child had been chosen before he was born.”
The convoy slowed near the river road.
The lodge appeared through the trees, dark except for one upstairs window.
No guards were visible.
No vehicles were parked outside.
We stopped half a mile away and approached on foot.
The front door stood open.
Inside, the air smelled of dust, wood smoke, and my father’s cigars.
Someone had been there recently.
A gramophone played softly in the sitting room.
My mother’s favorite song.
On the wall above the fireplace hung a portrait that had never been there before.
Elena.
She stood beside my father, younger than I remembered, one hand resting on the shoulder of a small boy.
Me.
But someone had cut Matteo out of the painting.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
I raised my gun.
The guards spread through the hall.
Matteo whispered, “The boathouse entrance is behind the kitchen.”
Before we could move, a light switched on at the top of the stairs.
An old man stood there.
Silver hair.
Black suit.
A cane carved with a wolf’s head.
My father looked thinner than he had six years ago, but he was alive.
“Dominic,” he said.
I lifted my gun.
He smiled.
“You have your mother’s temper.”
“Where is Valentina?”
“Safe.”
“Bring her to me.”
“First, lower your weapon.”
I fired into the wall beside his head.
The smile disappeared.
“Bring me my wife.”
He descended one step.
“You should be thanking me. I preserved your son.”
“You threw him in a garbage bag.”
“No. Voss exceeded his instructions.”
“What were his instructions?”
“To remove the child from your household.”
“Why?”
“Because the boy is not yours.”
Matteo inhaled sharply.
My father watched my face.
“He was conceived through a procedure at St. Helena. Valentina knew there was a risk.”
“A risk of what?”
“That the embryo placed inside her belonged to someone else.”
I thought of the hospital room, Valentina’s fear, and the way she had stared at the bracelet.
“Whose child is he?”
My father’s expression became almost tender.
“Mine.”
I shot him.
The bullet struck his shoulder and spun him against the railing.
Men erupted from hidden doors.
Gunfire shattered the stairway.
I threw myself behind the stone fireplace as the sitting room exploded into chaos.
One of my guards fell.
Anthony returned fire from the hall.
Matteo vanished behind the kitchen doorway.
My father crawled toward the upper landing, blood streaking his white shirt.
I moved after him.
A figure appeared above us.
Valentina.
Her wrists were bound. Blood ran from her temple.
“Dominic, stop!” she screamed.
My father seized her by the hair and pulled her in front of him.
May you like
Then he pressed a blade against her throat.
“Put the gun down,” he said, “or your son loses his mother twice.”
