Chapter 4: The Devil’s Calling Card

My fingers tightened around the phone until the plastic groaned. The dial tone buzzed in my ear—a monotonous, mocking sound. He was gone. But the words clung to me like spider silk, sticky and impossible to brush off.

*Your mother says hello.*

She died seven years ago. I watched them lower her casket into the rain-soaked ground, watched my father’s face crumble into something I’d never seen before—a man undone. There was no mistaking the truth of her death. There was no mistaking the dirt I’d thrown over her coffin.

So who the hell was that?

I set the phone down with trembling hands. Dante’s side of the bed was empty, the sheets cold. The rain had stopped sometime in the night, leaving the world washed clean—except for me. I felt filthy. Dirty. Like something had crawled inside my skin and made a nest.

I moved on autopilot. Shower. Dress. The routine was mechanical, but my mind was a hurricane. My father’s lies. Dante’s secrets. The stranger’s whispers. They were all pieces of the same puzzle, and someone had scattered them across a dark room just to watch me stumble.

I was pulling my hair into a low chignon when a knock sounded at the bedroom door. Not the crisp, deferential tap of a servant. This was sharper. More deliberate.

I opened the door to find a man I’d never seen before. He was tall, lean, dressed in a charcoal suit that cost more than my father’s car. His face was handsome in a way that felt manufactured—sharp cheekbones, cold gray eyes, a smile that didn’t reach them.

“Mrs. Moretti,” he said, the name rolling off his tongue like a curse. “I’m sorry for the intrusion. My name is Adrian Cross. I believe we have mutual… interests.”

I kept my hand on the doorframe, ready to slam it shut. “I don’t know you.”

“No, but you know of me.” He tilted his head, studying me like a specimen. “Your father spoke of me often, I’m sure. I handled his… off-the-books affairs.”

My stomach dropped. My father had always been careful about that side of his business—the side that didn’t exist on paper. The side that kept us in designer clothes and gated mansions. I’d never met the men he worked with, and I liked it that way.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do.” He reached into his jacket pocket, and I tensed, ready to scream. But he only produced a small envelope, worn at the edges, sealed with red wax. The kind of seal my father used for his most private correspondence. “I’ve been holding onto this for a long time. I believe it was meant for you.”

I didn’t take it. “Why would my father leave something for me with a stranger?”

“Because he knew he couldn’t trust anyone close to him.” Adrian’s smile sharpened. “And because he knew what was coming.”

The words hung in the air between us, heavy with implication. My father had known he was going to die. He’d known Dante was coming for him. And he’d left something behind—something that could hurt Dante even from the grave.

I took the envelope. It was warm in my hands, like it had been waiting for this moment. Like it had been waiting for me.

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know. I was told not to open it.” Adrian stepped back, giving me space. “But I can tell you this, Mrs. Moretti. Your husband is not who he claims to be. The man you married—the man who took your name and your body and your future—he’s a ghost. A carefully crafted illusion designed to destroy everything your father built.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because I have nothing to gain by lying.” He shrugged, elegant and dismissive. “I’m not here to save you. I’m not here to be your hero. I’m here because your father made me promise to get this to you if anything ever happened to him. Consider it a debt repaid.”

He turned to leave, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. But then he stopped, glancing over his shoulder.

“One more thing, Mrs. Moretti. Your mother’s death—the one you mourned—was it really an accident? Or was it something more… convenient?”

The question hit me like a bullet. I opened my mouth to respond, but he was already walking away, his footsteps echoing down the marble hallway.

I stood there for a long moment, the envelope burning in my hand like it was radioactive. Then I closed the door, locked it, and tore it open.

Inside was a single photograph. It was old, faded, creased from years of handling. My mother, younger and brighter than I remembered her, holding a baby in her arms—a baby that wasn’t me. She was smiling in a way I’d never seen before. And standing behind her, his hand on her shoulder, was a man.

A man who looked exactly like Dante.

I dropped the photo like it had bitten me. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.

The door handle rattled. “Aria?” Dante’s voice, smooth and dangerous as ever. “Are you in there?”

I looked down at the photo, at my mother’s smile, at the face of the man who had become my husband. The pieces were falling into place, and the picture they formed was a nightmare.

“Aria.” The handle rattled again, harder this time. “Open the door.”

I stared at the photo, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Dante had known my mother. Dante had known her before she died. And that baby in her arms—

The baby had Dante’s eyes.

I heard the lock break. The door slammed open. And Dante stood in the doorway, his face dark with fury.

“What did you find?” he demanded.

I lifted my gaze to his, and for the first time since I’d met him, I saw something in his eyes that wasn’t control.

It was fear.

“Who is the baby?” My voice was barely a whisper.

Dante’s jaw tightened. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. And in that silence, I knew the answer was worse than anything I could have imagined.