Chapter 2 - Sofia’s Last Instructions
The police kept the estate locked down until after dark.
I hated every second.
Not because officers were in my home.
Because the boys had eaten dinner in a pantry.
Paper plates.
Chicken.
Rice.
Apple slices.
Four children who were supposed to belong to some ordinary kitchen in Milwaukee were now coloring on the floor beside a rack of canned tomatoes while detectives photographed bullet damage outside.
Mateo drew cars.
Leo drew a house.
Nico drew four circles and called them brothers.
Tomas drew a train with six wheels on one side and none on the other.
I sat ten feet away.
Not at the head of the table.
Not behind a desk.
On the floor against a cabinet because standing over them felt wrong.
They watched me when they thought I was not looking.
I watched them too.
That probably felt worse.
Elena sat between us.
The surviving attacker had given police a name.
Victor Salvi.
Former private-security contractor.
No obvious Moretti affiliation.
His phone had been seized.
Good.
Police work.
Not my men beating answers out of him.
Old instinct still existed.
I could feel it like a second pulse.
But Sofia’s handwriting remained in my pocket.
KEEP THEM SAFE FROM ALEJANDRO.
I was not going to prove her right in the first twelve hours.
Detective Maria Chen took my statement.
She had worked organized crime before.
She knew exactly who I was.
That made her more direct.
“Mr. Moretti, are these children yours?”
“I believe so.”
“You did not know they existed?”
“No.”
She looked toward Elena.
“Do you want counsel?”
“I have counsel.”
“Not what I asked.”
I almost smiled.
“No. Not yet.”
Good.
She wrote.
“Any reason someone would target them?”
“Yes.”
“Explain.”
I told her about the trust.
Not every Moretti crime ever committed.
Relevant facts.
Old family settlement.
Potential control.
Uncle Tomas.
A memorandum Sofia may have found.
Chen did not react theatrically.
Good.
“Do you have the memorandum?”
“Elena says yes.”
She looked at Elena.
Elena crossed her arms.
“Not here.”
Chen nodded.
“Can you produce it to me through counsel?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Elena.
She looked at me.
Good.
Not to me.
To police.
That was probably safer for everyone.
At 9:40 p.m., my attorney arrived.
Rebecca Sloan.
Fifty-six.
Federal criminal defense, corporate investigations, family governance.
The only person alive who could tell me no without checking the room first.
She entered the pantry, saw four identical boys, and stopped.
“Alejandro.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“Useful.”
She looked at Elena.
Then the boys.
Then me.
“Office.”
I did not move.
“The boys are here.”
“They have Elena.”
“I’m staying within sight.”
Rebecca stared.
Then:
“Dining room.”
I looked at the long mahogany table through the open corridor.
The one no one had used since Sofia died.
I had closed the room after the funeral.
Not formally.
No order.
People simply learned.
Then Elena had brought four boys into it.
Maybe because children do not respect grief architecture.
We sat at one end.
Rebecca kept her voice low.
“Start.”
I did.
Embryos.
Surrogate.
Trust.
Attack.
Daniel Reyes hospitalized.
Tomas Moretti.
Rebecca’s expression changed at the trust clause.
“You know that instrument?”
“Enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
Fair.
She opened her laptop.
“Your grandfather amended it in 1998.”
“I was eleven.”
“Exactly.”
She pulled up a scanned document from firm records.
There.
The clause was worse than I remembered.
If a male descendant of my father’s branch died leaving minor biological issue, the legacy voting trust entered a custodial structure.
Custodian:
The named Family Protector.
Current Family Protector:
Tomas R. Moretti.
Until the eldest qualifying descendant turned twenty-five.
The trust held:
Thirty-one percent of Moretti Logistics.
Forty-four percent of Lakeshore Industrial Properties.
Several port leases.
Two investment vehicles.
Hundreds of millions.
Not my entire organization.
Enough.
Rebecca said:
“If these boys are yours, their existence materially changes succession.”
“DNA first.”
Good.
She nodded.
“And if Tomas knew?”
“Potential motive.”
“Potential.”
Good.
Not certainty.
Then:
“Where is Sofia’s memorandum?”
“Elena has it.”
Rebecca looked at her.
Elena sat with the boys across the room.
“Get it to Chen before midnight.”
“I know.”
“Chain of custody.”
“I know.”
Rebecca almost smiled.
“You’re learning.”
“Do not enjoy this.”
“I rarely do.”
I looked at the boys.
“Can I take custody?”
Rebecca’s face changed.
There.
The question.
“Do you want legal answer or human answer?”
“Both.”
“Legal: maybe eventually, if paternity is established and depending on the arrangements made with Daniel Reyes.”
“Human?”
“You met them seven hours ago.”
There.
I looked away.
Good.
“What is Daniel to them?”
“Legal father, potentially.”
“If he adopted?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“Then I have no rights.”
“Do not jump.”
“I asked.”
“If the embryos were created with your genetic material and transferred after Sofia’s death, the legal parentage is complicated. Consent forms matter. Surrogacy agreement matters. Adoption matters. State law matters.”
Good.
Complex.
Real.
“Do not treat biology like a deed.”
There.
Sofia’s fear.
I heard it.
Rebecca continued.
“And do not contact Daniel while he is hospitalized except through counsel or Elena unless he asks.”
I looked at her.
“He raised my sons.”
“Maybe.”
“They are mine.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“Biologically is not the only verb that matters.”
There.
I hated her.
Useful.
At ten, Elena came over holding a flash drive.
Not the memorandum.
A scan.
“The original is with Daniel’s attorney.”
Rebecca held out her hand.
Elena gave it to her.
Not me.
Good.
Rebecca opened the file.
Eight pages.
Opinion letter from a private trust attorney named Harold Fenwick.
Date:
Five years and eight months ago.
Seven months before Sofia died.
Client:
Tomas Moretti.
Subject:
Effect of biological issue in Alejandro Moretti line on custodial succession.
The memo did not say kill Alejandro.
Of course not.
It did something colder.
It mapped outcomes.
If Alejandro had no children at death:
Tomas’s son became next eligible trustee candidate.
If Alejandro had minor biological children:
Tomas became Family Protector and temporary custodian of voting interests.
If Alejandro’s spouse predeceased or was legally incapacitated:
Protector had broad power to select advisers, investment managers, security, educational trusts.
There.
Children would not merely inherit.
They would create twenty-one years of control.
Rebecca read quietly.
Then:
“Why did Sofia see this?”
Elena’s voice came from behind us.
“Because she found it in Alejandro’s study.”
I turned.
“What?”
Elena held my gaze.
“It was in your study.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I never saw it.”
“I believe you.”
That somehow felt worse.
“How did it get there?”
“She thought Tomas left it.”
“Why?”
“Because two days earlier you argued with him about succession.”
I remembered.
Vaguely.
Tomas had told me I needed an heir.
I told him the bloodline could rot.
Sofia had been in the library.
Maybe heard.
Elena continued.
“Sofia believed he wanted you frightened enough to produce a child, then dependent enough to let him control the trust if anything happened to you.”
“That is insane.”
“Yes.”
Good.
No argument.
“But she was already pregnant?”
“No.”
I stared.
“She had not transferred the embryos yet.”
There.
“What happened?”
“She went to the fertility clinic alone.”
Elena’s voice softened.
“She learned the remaining embryos still existed because the destruction paperwork had never been finalized.”
My chest tightened.
“She told me they were gone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because after the miscarriage, you told her you could not watch her go through it again.”
True.
I remembered saying:
Enough.
I remember holding her on the bathroom floor.
Enough.
No more hospitals.
No more injections.
No more waiting for phone calls.
Maybe she heard relief as closure.
Maybe we both did.
“She did not transfer them to herself,” Elena said.
“She asked Isabel.”
My throat tightened.
“Why four?”
Rebecca answered before Elena.
“If one embryo split.”
I looked at her.
“Identical quadruplets?”
“Extremely rare. But possible.”
Elena nodded.
“One embryo. One transfer.”
There.
One child intended.
Four arrived.
Sofia never saw them.
That realization hit hardest.
She had died before they were born.
“What killed her?”
The official answer existed.
Car crash.
Lake Shore Drive.
Rain.
Driver crossed lanes.
Sofia died at scene.
I had killed the driver six months later.
Not by my own hand.
By order.
Another old sin.
I never told Elena.
Maybe Sofia knew what I was capable of.
Rebecca watched my face.
“Do not invent a conspiracy without evidence.”
Good.
I hated that she knew where my mind went.
Elena said:
“Sofia’s death may have been an accident.”
May.
Good.
“She told me if anything happened to her, the transfer should continue.”
“Why?”
“Because she said fear had already stolen enough.”
There.
That sounded like Sofia.
My chest hurt.
“What did she want me told?”
Elena looked at the boys.
“Nothing.”
I stared.
“She wanted me never told.”
“Yes.”
“Even after Tomas died?”
“She wrote conditions.”
Of course.
“What conditions?”
Elena opened her bag.
Another envelope.
My name.
Sofia’s handwriting.
Sealed.
For five years, Elena had held it.
I took it.
My hands were steady until I touched the flap.
Then not.
Inside were three pages.
The first line:
Alejandro, if you are reading this, either Elena decided I was wrong or something has gone badly enough that hiding them is no longer safer.
I stopped.
Then continued.
Sofia wrote that she loved me.
That mattered.
She also wrote she was afraid of the man I became after her miscarriage.
Not toward her.
Toward everyone else.
More violent.
More controlling.
More certain danger justified ownership.
She wrote:
If our child survives, I do not want his first lesson to be that love means armed men deciding where he may breathe.
Singular.
She never knew four.
My vision blurred.
Then:
I am not protecting him from your love. I am protecting his freedom from the way you practice love when you are afraid.
There.
The sentence cut cleaner than any bullet.
At the bottom:
If you ever learn the truth, do not take him from the people who raised him. Ask whether there is room for you. Do not assume blood creates a vacancy.
I folded the letter.
Slowly.
Across the room, Tomas—the boy—was asleep with his head on Elena’s lap.
Mateo and Leo were building something from sugar packets.
Nico watched me.
He asked:
“Are you mad?”
The room went silent.
I looked at him.
“No.”
He stared.
“You look mad.”
Fair.
“I’m sad.”
He considered this.
Then nodded.
Children accept corrected labels faster than adults.
I looked at Elena.
“Daniel Reyes.”
“Yes.”
“I want to speak to him.”
“When he wakes.”
“Not before.”
“No.”
Good.
Then Marco entered.
“Boss.”
His face was wrong.
“What?”
“The police pulled the attacker’s phone.”
I waited.
“There are texts from someone saved as T.”
My stomach tightened.
“Content?”
Marco looked at Rebecca.
She nodded.
He said:
“They were paid to retrieve four minors alive.”
Not kill.
Retrieve.
Good.
“And the sender?”
“Police traced the payment source.”
I felt the room become cold.
“Who?”
Marco answered:
“Not Tomas.”
There.
May you like
Of course.
The first obvious suspect had just become the first wrong answer.
