Chapter 9 - THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
The police arrived twenty minutes later.
Luka did not trust them.
Neither did I.
A detective named Harris kept asking why my mother might have been targeted.
I lied.
“I don’t know.”
Luka never looked at me, but I knew he approved.
After the police left, Marcus found a hidden compartment behind the fireplace.
Inside was a steel box.
The lock required six numbers.
I tried my birthday.
Nothing.
I tried my mother’s.
Nothing.
Luka looked at the photograph of my father on the mantel.
“Try the day Michael died.”
The lock clicked.
Inside were three things.
A passport with my father’s photograph under another name.
A handwritten letter addressed to me.
And a Polaroid.
I opened the letter first.
Elena.
If you are reading this, then Meridian found you again.
Everything I did after 1999 was meant to keep you invisible.
Claire will tell you that I left because I was afraid.
That is only partly true.
I was afraid.
But never of dying.
I was afraid of what they would do to you if they discovered whose daughter you really were.
There is one person you can trust completely.
Luka Moretti.
My hands shook.
I looked at him.
“Completely?”
Luka looked uncomfortable.
“That was Michael’s opinion.”
I unfolded the rest.
Do not trust Arthur Vale.
Do not trust any Reed connected to him.
And most importantly, do not open the final DNA envelope unless Luka is beside you.
I stopped.
“Why?”
There was no explanation.
Only a final sentence.
Because once you know who your biological father is, every person connected to M-17 will know exactly what Sofia represents.
I picked up the Polaroid.
Three men stood beside a lake.
Michael.
A younger Arthur Vale.
And a third man.
Tall.
Dark-haired.
Covered in the beginnings of tattoos.
My eyes moved from the photograph to Luka.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
Same scar near the eyebrow.
I could barely speak.
“Who is that?”
Luka took the picture.
For the first time since meeting him, his hand shook.
“My father.”
A name was written on the back.
VITTORIO MORETTI.
M-17.
I stared at Luka.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No.”
My pulse roared in my ears.
“If your father was M-17…”
Luka’s face went pale.
Then a terrible possibility entered the room.
I stepped backward.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You knew I might be your sister?”
“No.”
“Then what did you think?”
His voice broke through my panic.
“My father disappeared two years before you were born.”
I froze.
May you like
Luka turned the photograph over again.
“And according to Michael, Vittorio Moretti was already dead when your mother became pregnant.”
