CHAPTER 13 — THE TRUTH BENEATH THE FAMILY NAME
CHAPTER 13 — THE TRUTH BENEATH THE FAMILY NAME
No one spoke.
Not even the guards.
The library felt frozen in time.
Dante stared at my grandmother as if he had forgotten how to breathe.
"My father?"
The words came out quietly.
Almost like he was asking her to take them back.
Lucia didn't look away.
"Yes."
Dante stepped closer.
"You're accusing the man who raised me?"
"I'm telling you what happened."
"My father died fifteen years ago."
"And the truth survived him."
His jaw tightened.
"Careful."
Lucia's expression softened.
"I know what it sounds like."
"No."
Dante shook his head.
"You don't."
His voice grew colder.
"You don't know what my father meant to me."
Lucia nodded slowly.
"That's exactly why he was able to hide it."
The words hit harder than an accusation.
They were a wound.
Dante turned away.
For years, he had built his entire identity around his father's legacy.
The Moretti name.
The empire.
The rules.
The enemies.
Everything.
And now someone was telling him the foundation had been built on a lie.
I looked at my grandmother.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Lucia's eyes filled with regret.
"Because you were safer not knowing."
"Safer?"
I laughed bitterly.
"I spent my whole life thinking I was ordinary."
"You were never ordinary, Ava."
She walked closer.
"Your grandfather was a historian."
"He discovered records hidden inside an old Sicilian monastery."
"Records that proved the Moretti family and the Raven Circle were connected long before Dante was born."
Marco frowned.
"Connected how?"
Lucia looked toward Dante.
"Your ancestors created the organization."
The room went silent.
Dante's face changed.
"No."
"Yes."
"The Raven Circle began as a protection network."
"A group created by powerful families to protect secrets."
"Then greed changed everything."
"The people running it stopped protecting secrets."
"They started selling them."
Dante looked at the floor.
"My father knew."
Lucia nodded.
"He inherited control."
"And when Elena discovered what he was doing..."
"She threatened to expose him."
I felt a chill.
"So Elena wasn't killed because of a family enemy."
Lucia looked at me.
"She was killed because she was going to destroy the empire from the inside."
Dante closed his eyes.
For a moment, he looked less like a dangerous man.
More like a son discovering he never knew his own father.
"What does this have to do with me?" I asked.
Lucia reached into her pocket and removed a small silver pendant.
I recognized it immediately.
The same symbol.
The same raven.
Except this one was broken in half.
"My grandmother gave this to me," Lucia said.
"She gave it to Elena."
"Elena gave it back to me before she died."
"Why?"
"Because she knew you would need it."
I stared at the pendant.
"Need it for what?"
Lucia looked toward the hidden room beneath the mansion.
"For the final piece."
Marco stepped forward.
"What final piece?"
Lucia's expression became serious.
"The reason the Raven Circle has been searching for Ava since she was a child."
My stomach tightened.
"Me?"
"Not you."
She looked at the pendant.
"What your family carried."
I shook my head.
"My family had nothing."
Lucia smiled sadly.
"That's what I wanted you to believe."
She reached into her bag and pulled out an old envelope.
Inside was a birth certificate.
My name.
My date of birth.
But something else was written at the bottom.
A second surname.
One I had never seen before.
Romano-Moretti.
I stared.
"What is this?"
Dante took the paper from my hand.
His eyes moved across the page.
Then stopped.
"No."
Lucia nodded.
"Yes."
Dante looked at me.
"Ava..."
His voice was different.
Not suspicion.
Not fear.
Shock.
"What?"
He handed the paper back.
"Your mother."
I looked down.
"What about her?"
Dante swallowed.
"Her maiden name."
"She was a Moretti."
The world seemed to stop.
My entire life had been built around a missing piece.
My parents.
My grandmother.
The lullaby.
The hatred between families.
All of it connected.
I wasn't an outsider who accidentally entered the Moretti mansion.
I had been part of this family all along.
Then every light in the library suddenly went out.
Everyone reached for their weapons.
A second later, the emergency system activated.
A voice came through the mansion speakers.
A voice none of us recognized.
"Congratulations, Dante."
"You finally discovered the truth."
Dante looked upward.
"Who are you?"
A soft laugh echoed through the mansion.
"The person who has been cleaning up your family's mistakes for thirty years."
The sound distorted.
Then the voice continued.
"Bring Ava to the underground vault."
"Or the twins won't survive the night."
The speakers went silent.
Marco immediately checked his radio.
"Security breach."
Dante looked at me.
The fear in his eyes wasn't for himself.
It was for his daughters.
Lucia whispered one sentence.
"The Raven Circle has come for what belongs to them."
Dante grabbed his weapon.
"No."
He looked toward the nursery.
"They came for my family."
Then the mansion alarms began screaming.
And somewhere inside the house...
May you like
A child cried out.
"Daddy!"
