Chapter 3 - THE SECRET DAMIANO NEVER TOLD ME
Table of Contents 6
I had worked in Damiano Moretti’s home for almost four years.
Until that night, I believed our relationship was simple.
He was my employer.
I was a maid.
He lived behind guarded gates, negotiated with men whose names appeared in federal investigations, and wore suits that probably cost more than I earned in three months. I lived with my daughter in a two-room apartment above his carriage house and carefully calculated grocery prices before reaching the register.
Whatever existed between our worlds ended at the servants’ entrance.
At least that was what I had always believed.
Marco Bellini’s words destroyed that illusion.
Isabella knows about Sophia.
I waited until Marco had been rushed away before confronting Damiano.
“What was he talking about?”
Damiano looked toward the five dons.
“This isn’t the place.”
“Then find one.”
My voice came out sharper than I intended, but fear had burned through whatever caution I normally had around him.
Damiano led me into a small office near the garage. Gabriel remained outside with Emma and the guards.
The moment the door closed, I turned on him.
“What does Isabella know about me?”
He removed his jacket and placed it over a chair.
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Sophia.”
“Don’t use that voice with me. Someone put a bomb in your house. Your fiancée threatened my daughter, and a dying man just said she knows something about me. I deserve an answer.”
For several seconds, Damiano simply stared at me.
Then he opened a drawer.
Inside was a file.
My name was written across the front.
SOPHIA BENNETT.
I felt suddenly cold.
“What is that?”
“Everything I know about what happened to Emma’s father.”
My breath caught.
Emma’s father, Daniel, had disappeared before she was born.
He left behind unpaid bills, an empty closet, and a short text telling me he wasn’t ready to become a parent. I had spent years hating him for abandoning us.
Damiano opened the file.
“He didn’t leave voluntarily.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What?”
“Daniel Bennett was working as an accountant for a shipping company owned indirectly by the Romano family.”
I stared at him.
“He worked for a logistics company.”
“Yes.”
“He handled payroll.”
“He handled more than payroll.”
Damiano slid several documents across the desk.
Bank transfers.
Shipping manifests.
Photographs.
Daniel had apparently discovered that millions of dollars were being moved through shell companies controlled by Isabella Romano.
“He contacted federal investigators,” Damiano continued. “Before he could testify, he disappeared.”
My knees weakened enough that I finally sat.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You knew?”
“Not when you first came here.”
“When?”
“About eighteen months ago.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“You knew for eighteen months that Daniel might have been murdered and you said nothing?”
“I knew he had disappeared because of the Romanos. I did not know exactly who ordered it.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
For once, Damiano Moretti had no defense.
I pushed the papers away.
“Why investigate me at all?”
His silence lasted too long.
“Damiano.”
“Because I recognized your name.”
“From Daniel?”
“Yes.”
He walked toward the window.
“Years ago, Daniel gave one of my men a copy of a ledger. It contained evidence that someone inside the Romano organization was stealing money and secretly building alliances. Daniel disappeared before we could meet him.”
My anger shifted into confusion.
“Then why hire me?”
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
“My house manager hired you. I saw your employment file afterward.”
“And you kept me here because of Daniel?”
“At first.”
Those two words changed the air between us.
“At first?”
Damiano turned around.
“After that, I kept you here because this estate was one of the safest places you and Emma could be.”
I laughed bitterly.
“There was a bomb under your desk tonight.”
His jaw tightened.
“Until tonight.”
I stood again.
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe Daniel abandoned his daughter.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You don’t get to decide which truth I can survive.”
He absorbed that without argument.
Then he said something I wasn’t prepared for.
“Daniel may still be alive.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“One of our contacts saw a man matching his description in Montreal two years ago. I could never confirm it.”
My eyes filled with tears.
Six years.
Six years of believing Emma’s father had chosen freedom over us.
“Why wouldn’t he come home?”
“If he believed returning would lead Isabella to you, disappearing may have been the only protection he could offer.”
I covered my mouth.
Suddenly, every unanswered question from the past six years became unbearable.
Damiano stepped closer but stopped before touching me.
“There’s something else.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
He looked genuinely uncomfortable for the first time since I had known him.
“Isabella discovered that I had been protecting you.”
“Why would she care?”
He didn’t answer.
Then I understood.
The lingering looks I had dismissed.
The times he personally checked that Emma had medicine when she was sick.
The new locks installed on our carriage-house apartment after a stranger followed me home.
The Christmas when Emma received a dollhouse from “the staff” even though every servant knew Damiano had chosen it himself.
I stared at him.
“Damiano...”
He looked away.
“I never intended to involve you in my life.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“I was engaged to Isabella because marrying her was supposed to end a twenty-year conflict between our families.”
My heart beat harder.
“And me?”
His voice became quieter.
“You were the reason I kept postponing the wedding.”
Neither of us spoke.
Then someone pounded on the door.
Gabriel entered without waiting.
His expression erased everything else.
“We have to move Sophia and Emma now.”
“Why?”
Gabriel held up a phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
It showed Emma sitting upstairs less than an hour earlier.
Taken through the mansion window.
Beneath it was a message.
THE CHILD SAW TOO MUCH.
A second message appeared while we watched.
MIDNIGHT.
BRING SOPHIA AND THE GIRL TO PIER 17.
COME ALONE OR DANIEL BENNETT DIES.
My entire body went numb.
Attached beneath the message was another photograph.
A man sat tied to a chair in a dark warehouse.
His face was thinner.
Older.
A scar crossed his cheek.
But I recognized him instantly.
Daniel.
Emma’s father was alive.
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