Chapter 11 - The Secret Isabella Died to Protect
The following morning broke with blinding, crystalline sunlight reflecting off the snowfields of Lake Superior.
While Dante was in the communications room coordinating the strategic dismantling of the Valenti syndicate in Chicago, I sat at the kitchen island with Isabella’s journal.
After the events at the Drake Hotel, I knew there was more hidden in these pages than simple diary entries.
Taking a small paring knife from the wooden block, I carefully inspected the thick leather binding of the journal. Near the spine, the stitching was double-layered and uneven.
Gently slicing through the reinforced thread, a small, micro-thin titanium flash drive slipped out into my palm.
My breath hitched.
I plugged the drive into my laptop. The drive was encrypted, requiring a twelve-character password.
I stared at the blinking cursor. What would Isabella use as a password? Not Dante's name. Not her own.
I typed in Matteo's full birthdate: 0218-MATTEO.
ACCESS GRANTED.
A single video file appeared on the screen, accompanied by an extensive folder of offshore banking ledgers and encrypted audio files.
I clicked play on the video.
The screen flickered to life, revealing Isabella sitting in a dimly lit room, heavily pregnant, her eyes wide with exhaustion and fear. Seeing my identical face speaking to me across the void of time made the hair on my arms stand up.
“If you are watching this, it means I am gone, and Dante has found the truth,” Isabella’s voice came through the speakers, soft, melodic, and terrifyingly clear. “Dante, my love... if you are watching this, forgive me for keeping secrets. But the conspiracy against the Moretti bloodline runs deeper than Chicago.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath in the video.
“Nikolai Volkov did not act alone. He was funded by the Global Syndicate Council in Geneva. They want to control the Great Lakes shipping ports to move unregulated black-market weapons. To force you to yield, they contracted our family physician twenty-four years ago to separate me from my twin sister, Elina. They kept Elina in the shadows as a contingency leverage against our bloodline.”
Isabella looked directly into the camera lens, as if staring straight into my eyes across time.
“Elina... my sweet sister whom I never had the chance to hold. If Dante found you, know that I prayed every night for your safety. Take care of my baby boy. Raise him with love, not violence. The master decryption key to the Volkov offshore accounts is embedded in this file. Use it to destroy them and set our family free.”
The screen went black.
I sat frozen, tears streaming silently down my cheeks.
May you like
"Elina?"
I turned to see Dante standing in the doorway, his face pale as he stared at the darkened laptop screen. He had heard every single word.
