Chapter 6 — The Photograph
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The location on Dante’s phone burned itself into Isabella’s mind.
ROMANO ESTATE.
Her father’s home.
A place she had never seen.
A place she had apparently been connected to since childhood.
“He’s alive,” Isabella whispered.
Dante didn’t answer.
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve spent years trying to find him.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Dante looked at her.
“Because every person who gets close to the truth about your family ends up dead.”
The words silenced her.
Isabella stared at the silver key in her palm.
“Then we go there.”
“No.”
Her head snapped up.
“What?”
“You’re not going anywhere tonight.”
“But my father—”
“Could be a trap.”
“Or he could be waiting for me.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“That’s exactly what whoever sent that message wants you to believe.”
Isabella stepped closer.
“You said you would protect me.”
“I will.”
“Then protect me while I find my father.”
Dante stared at her for several seconds.
Something changed in his expression.
He knew she wouldn’t back down.
“Tomorrow,” he finally said.
Isabella frowned.
“Tomorrow?”
“We go together.”
⸻
That night, Isabella couldn’t sleep.
She sat beside the window in her room, staring at the darkness outside.
Her mother’s face kept returning to her.
Dante is the only person you can trust.
But why?
What had her mother known about Dante?
And why had she trusted a Moretti?
Isabella reached beneath her blouse and pulled out the pendant.
She turned it over in her fingers.
The letter R caught the moonlight.
Then she remembered the key.
She pulled it from her pocket.
The moment she placed it against the pendant, something clicked.
Isabella froze.
A tiny compartment opened beneath the pendant.
Inside was a folded piece of paper.
Her hands trembled as she unfolded it.
There was only one sentence.
When the time comes, find the photograph behind your father’s portrait.
She read it twice.
Her heart began pounding.
My father’s portrait.
If the Romano Estate was still standing, then perhaps the answer was waiting there.
But who had hidden the message?
And how long had it been inside her pendant?
A sound came from the hallway.
Isabella quickly folded the paper.
The door opened.
Dante stood there.
“You should be sleeping.”
“So should you.”
He glanced at the pendant in her hand.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You’ve never been good at lying.”
“And you’ve never been good at telling the truth.”
For a moment, they simply stared at each other.
Then Dante walked inside.
“Show me.”
Isabella hesitated before handing him the note.
His eyes moved across the words.
His expression darkened.
“You knew about this?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I swear I’m not.”
Dante looked at the pendant.
“Your mother gave you this?”
“I don’t remember.”
He returned the note.
“Then tomorrow, we’re going to find out.”
⸻
The next morning, they left before sunrise.
Two black vehicles followed them.
Dante sat beside Isabella in the back seat.
She watched the city disappear behind them.
“How well did you know my father?”
Dante was silent.
“Please.”
He finally answered.
“Alessandro was one of the most powerful men in the city.”
“Was?”
“Before everything happened.”
“What happened?”
Dante looked through the window.
“His enemies destroyed his empire. His people were murdered. Your mother disappeared. And Alessandro vanished.”
“Why would he leave me?”
“He didn’t.”
Isabella turned toward him.
Dante’s voice lowered.
“He believed you were safer if the world thought you were dead.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Then he abandoned me to protect me?”
“Yes.”
She looked away.
She didn’t know whether to hate him or understand him.
After nearly an hour, the gates of the Romano Estate appeared.
Isabella’s breath caught.
The enormous iron gates were covered in vines.
Beyond them stood a beautiful but abandoned mansion.
She had never been there.
Yet something inside her recognized it.
“I know this place.”
Dante looked at her.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded slowly.
“I don’t remember being here.”
She touched the window.
“But it feels like I’ve been waiting to come home.”
Dante’s expression softened.
Then the gates opened.
They drove inside.
⸻
The mansion was covered in dust.
Dante’s security team searched every room.
“Clear,” one guard called.
Isabella walked slowly through the entrance hall.
A huge portrait hung above the fireplace.
A man stood in the painting beside a woman.
Her father.
Her mother.
Isabella stopped breathing.
She knew them.
Not from photographs.
From somewhere deeper.
A memory flashed.
Her mother’s arms around her.
Her father’s laughter.
A little girl running across this exact floor.
Then—
A scream.
Gunshots.
Smoke.
Isabella stumbled backward.
Dante caught her.
“Isabella!”
She pressed a hand to her head.
“I remember.”
“What?”
“My father.”
She looked at the portrait.
“There’s something behind it.”
Dante immediately turned toward the painting.
Together, they moved it.
A hidden compartment was carved into the wall.
Inside was a photograph.
Isabella reached for it.
Her fingers froze.
The photograph showed her mother standing beside three men.
Alessandro.
Dante’s father.
And Lucian.
But there was something written across the bottom.
THE FOUR FAMILIES MADE A DEAL. ONE OF THEM BROKE IT.
Dante stared at the photograph.
“This can’t be.”
Isabella looked at him.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
She turned the photograph over.
A second message had been written on the back.
Ask Dante what happened the night your mother disappeared.
Isabella slowly looked at him.
“Dante?”
He said nothing.
Her voice trembled.
“What happened that night?”
Dante’s eyes met hers.
For the first time since she had met him, she looked at him and saw something she had never seen before.
Guilt.
Then a gunshot shattered the silence.
The photograph fell from Isabella’s hand.
And from somewhere inside the mansion, a man’s voice called out—
“Isabella.”
She froze.
She knew that voice.
It was the voice from her childhood.
Her father’s voice.
“My daughter… I finally found you.”
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