Chapter 5 - The Phantom of Four Years
The words Isabella Moretti struck Clara’s mind like a physical blow.
She shook her head violently, backing her body away until her shoulders bumped against the carved leg of the circular dining table. "No... no, you're wrong! My name is Clara! I grew up in upstate New York! I have a driver's license! I have records!"
"They gave you those records, Isabella," Dante called out from the locked door, his voice tight with vigilance as his weapon remained trained on the frosted-glass courtyard entrance. "Four years ago, your convoy was ambushed on the mountain pass outside Geneva. The vehicle went over the cliff into the lake. Rico searched that water for three months. We found the driver, we found the guards... but your body was never recovered."
"We were told you drowned," Rico said, tears finally slipping down his tan cheeks, cutting through his fierce composure. "The syndicate spent forty million dollars trying to find the people who ordered the strike. We thought we lost you forever. I raised our son alone in a fortress because I thought the world had taken you from us."
Leo lifted his head from Clara’s apron, reaching his small brown teddy bear up toward her face. "Mommy no cry..." the boy whimpered sweetly, wiping a tear from Clara’s cheek with his tiny thumb.
Clara looked down at the child. The touch of his small hand sent another wave of electric shocks through her mind.
A vivid memory suddenly burst through the mental fog—a bright, sunlit bedroom overlooking an ocean cliff; a dark-haired man holding her hand while she lay in a hospital bed; and the faint, sweet sound of a music box playing a Italian lullaby.
Her breath caught in her throat. "The lullaby..." Clara gasped, her eyes widening as she stared at Rico. "Ninna Nanna, Ninna Oh... you used to play it on the piano every night before he was born..."
Rico’s breath hitched. A dark, triumphant smile broke through his grief. "You remember," he breathed. "You're coming back to us, Isabella."
Before Rico could reach out to take her hand, the heavy frosted-glass doors leading to the courtyard began to rattle violently against their brass fittings.
The dark silhouette of the woman in the wide-brimmed hat remained visible against the glass, flanked now by two broad-shouldered men holding tactical submachine guns.
May you like
The female voice spoke again through the ceiling speakers, colder and more mocking than before.
"A touching family reunion, Ricardo," the voice drawled. "But memory is a dangerous thing. Especially when those memories contain the access codes to the Moretti family’s offshore sovereign accounts."
