Chapter 2 - THE BOY CALLED GABRIEL
The convent records led us to a foster organization in Wisconsin.
Not because Gabriel had been abandoned.
Because my mother had made sure no one person knew the whole route.
St. Agnes transferred him under the name Gabriel Martin.
Three years later, he became Gabe Carter.
My last name.
I stared at the document.
“Why Carter?”
The archivist looked at me.
“Margaret Carter filed the emergency guardianship.”
Vanessa gripped the edge of the desk.
“She became his guardian?”
“Temporarily.”
“How long?”
“Four years.”
My mother had raised a child in secret while I was away at college.
Not in our apartment.
At a rented house outside Madison.
I remembered those years.
Mom told me she was working travel nursing.
Every holiday she arrived tired.
Every birthday she sent money late.
I thought she was exhausted from work.
She had been protecting Gabriel.
Luca read the guardianship order.
“Where did he go after Margaret got sick?”
The archivist searched.
“Transferred to Joseph Thorne.”
Elias.
Of course.
Address:
Unknown.
Then another record.
School enrollment.
Gabriel, now eleven, attended a small private academy outside Rockford under the name Gabe Martin.
Current.
Vanessa stopped breathing.
“He’s in school?”
“Yes.”
“He has a normal life?”
“Mostly,” the archivist said.
Mostly.
That word became terrifying.
We drove to the school with federal child-welfare officials because Luca finally agreed this was no longer a family errand.
Good.
At the school office, the principal knew Gabriel.
Bright.
Quiet.
Excellent at drawing.
Afraid of thunderstorms.
“Who picks him up?”
“His grandfather.”
“Elias?”
The principal nodded.
Then her face changed.
“He didn’t come today.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where is Gabriel?”
“In class.”
Relief.
We waited.
A boy entered ten minutes later.
Dark hair.
Tall for eleven.
Michael Moretti’s eyes.
Vanessa’s mouth.
He looked at Luca first.
Then Vanessa.
Then me.
His backpack strap tightened in his fist.
“Who are you?”
Vanessa started crying immediately.
Wrong.
Too much.
Gabriel stepped backward.
Luca said gently:
“My name is Luca.”
The boy stared.
“Moretti?”
“Yes.”
He looked frightened.
“My grandpa said not to go with Morettis.”
Fair.
Luca nodded.
“You don’t have to.”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Gabriel looked at her.
He had seen photographs.
I could tell.
“You’re Vanessa Bellini.”
She nodded.
His face hardened.
“My mother.”
She stopped breathing.
“Yes.”
“My grandpa said you thought I died.”
“Yes.”
“He said that wasn’t your fault.”
Vanessa cried harder.
Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
Children should not have to manage adult grief.
I stepped closer.
“Hi.”
He looked at me.
“I’m Emma.”
His face changed.
“Margaret’s Emma?”
My eyes filled.
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“My grandma talked about you.”
Grandma.
Mom.
He called my mother Grandma.
That broke me more than anything.
“What did she say?”
“That you hate peas.”
I laughed through tears.
“She was correct.”
He smiled.
For one second, he became an ordinary boy.
Then a car screeched outside.
Security moved.
A black sedan.
No plates.
Marco shouted.
“Lockdown.”
The principal ushered Gabriel into an interior office.
Luca stayed with him.
Vanessa followed.
I looked through the window.
The sedan stopped.
A man stepped out.
Sixties.
Silver hair.
Cane.
I knew his face from old Moretti photographs.
Anthony Moretti.
Michael’s older brother.
Luca’s uncle.
The man who supposedly died in prison nine years ago.
Mom’s warning.
Not the only man pretending to be dead.
Anthony walked toward the school doors.
Federal officers stopped him.
He smiled.
“I’m here for my nephew.”
Luca heard.
His face went cold.
“Which nephew?”
Anthony looked through the glass at Gabriel.
“That one.”
Vanessa whispered:
“No.”
Anthony laughed.
“You really thought Michael hid him for love?”
Luca stepped closer to the doorway.
“What do you want?”
“The trust.”
Of course.
Money.
Records.
Leverage.
Anthony had been Michael’s silent partner in several offshore companies.
When he went to prison, newspapers reported he died from a stroke.
Apparently another staged death.
Why?
He became a cooperating witness.
Then disappeared.
Now he wanted Gabriel’s trust before the boy became old enough to control it.
“How much?” Luca asked.
Anthony smiled.
“Not money.”
Again.
Everyone said that.
The Michael Moretti Trust contained sealed corporate voting rights.
Thirty percent of Moretti Holdings.
Michael had moved them out of his estate before death.
Why?
To prevent Luca from inheriting everything if Michael died before telling the truth.
Gabriel, his younger son, owned them.
That meant the eleven-year-old held enough voting power to decide control of the Moretti companies when he turned eighteen.
Until then, guardian approval mattered.
Luca stared.
“So this is why Elias kept him hidden.”
“Yes.”
Anthony nodded toward Vanessa.
“And why Victor kept the mother useful.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“My father is dead.”
Anthony smiled.
“Victor Bellini is many things.”
Then:
“Dead isn’t one of them.”
I almost laughed from exhaustion.
Luca did not.
Vanessa went pale.
“My father died five years ago.”
“No.”
“Cancer.”
“Treatment.”
“Funeral.”
“Closed casket.”
There it was.
Again.
The same trick.
Anthony continued.
“Victor has been living in Montreal.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael was going to expose him.”
“Then why come now?”
Anthony looked at Gabriel.
“Because Elias ran out of time.”
“What does that mean?”
“Cancer.”
My chest tightened.
Elias.
Three days in a shed.
Coughing.
He was dying.
Anthony continued.
“He decided to bring Gabriel home before he died.”
“So you kidnapped Elias.”
Anthony shrugged.
“Temporarily.”
Luca’s face changed.
“You tied him in my shed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To find the trust records.”
“And Atlas?”
Anthony looked offended.
“I did not touch the dog.”
At least someone had standards.
Federal agents arrested Anthony for kidnapping.
He did not resist.
As they took him away, he looked at Luca.
“Ask Elias why your father died.”
Luca stopped.
“My father had a heart attack.”
Anthony smiled.
“No.”
Then he looked at Vanessa.
“And ask your father who was in Michael’s room the night he stopped breathing.”
Vanessa stared.
Victor Bellini.
Alive.
Connected to Michael’s death.
Maybe.
Gabriel stood behind us.
He had heard too much.
I knelt.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
Good answer.
He looked at Vanessa.
“Is she staying?”
Vanessa froze.
“That’s up to you.”
He considered.
“Can she sit far away?”
Vanessa nodded quickly.
“Yes.”
So we sat in the school counselor’s room.
Gabriel on one couch.
Me beside him.
Luca in a chair.
Vanessa across the room.
No one touched him without asking.
That mattered.
He told us Elias called him every night.
Taught him cards.
Fixed his bike badly.
Burned pancakes.
He loved him.
Not a keeper.
Family.
Then Gabriel reached into his backpack.
“I have something.”
A sealed envelope.
From Elias.
FOR LUCA.
Luca opened it.
Michael did not die from a heart attack.
He was killed because he tried to restore Nico’s name.
I know who did it.
I also know where Victor Bellini is.
Do not look for me.
I need one day to finish what I promised your father.
Luca looked up.
Vanessa whispered:
“What promise?”
Gabriel answered.
“Grandpa says he has to bring the dead man home.”
No one knew which dead man he meant.
Michael?
Victor?
Nico?
Or someone we had not discovered yet.
Then Gabriel added:
“He said Atlas would show him where.”
The red clay on Atlas’s paws.
The shed.
The old grounds.
May you like
Somewhere on Moretti property, the dog had been digging.
And Elias believed something buried there could finally prove who killed Michael.
