Chapter 4 - The Midnight Confession
The guest suite on the second floor was larger than Sophia’s previous apartment in the city, decorated in muted tones of cream and pale lavender, with a plush queen-sized bed for herself and a small toddler bed pushed against the wall for Emma.
By 1:30 AM, the mansion had settled into a deep, heavy slumber.
Sophia was sitting upright in bed, reading a book by the amber glow of a bedside lamp, when the sound cut through the silence.
It wasn't a scream this time. It was a low, choking sob, coming from down the short private hallway that connected her suite to Isabella’s bedroom.
Sophia dropped her book, slipped out of bed, and hurried down the hall. The door to Isabella’s room was cracked open a few inches.
Inside, the room was cast in eerie shadows by the moonlight streaming through the sheer curtains. Isabella was thrashing in her large canopy bed, her hands tangled in the silk bedsheets, her face drenched in cold sweat.
"No... no, Mommy, don't go out there..." she whimpered, her voice breaking with a terrifying, raw agony. "Don't open the car door..."
Sophia’s heart broke. She rushed across the room, sat on the edge of the mattress, and gently gathered the trembling girl into her arms.
"Shh, Isabella. Wake up, sweet girl. You're having a bad dream. You're safe here," Sophia whispered soothingly, stroking the tangled dark hair away from Isabella’s sweaty forehead.
Isabella jolted awake, her honey-brown eyes wide with terror, staring wildly around the room before they finally focused on Sophia. For a second, she looked confused, as if she didn't know where she was. Then, with a strangled sob, she threw her arms around Sophia’s neck, burying her face into Sophia’s shoulder and clinging to her with desperate, ferocious strength.
"She burned, Sophia," Isabella sobbed into her collarbone, the words tumbling out in a broken, incoherent torrent. "The car... it was so loud. Daddy tried to pull her out, but the fire was too big. He screamed... I've never heard my daddy scream before. He sounded like a monster."
Sophia rocked her gently, tears stinging her own eyes as she held the motherless child. "I know, sweetheart. I know. It's okay to cry. Let it all out."
"I try to be strong," Isabella choked out, her small frame shaking violently. "Daddy says a Moretti never shows weakness. He says we have to be iron. But I'm not iron, Sophia! I'm just seven, and I miss her so much it feels like my chest is splitting open!"
The door to the bedroom slowly creaked open further.
Sophia looked up. Standing in the doorway was Viktor Moretti.
He wasn't wearing his suit jacket. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves rolled up, revealing the lean, battle-scarred arms of a man who fought his way to the top of the underworld. He looked exhausted. The cold, ruthless capo of the syndicate was completely stripped away, leaving only a grieving father whose heart was bleeding out on the hardwood floor.
Viktor had stopped dead when he heard his daughter’s confession. He stood in the doorway, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides, his chest heaving as he listened to Isabella call him out for forcing her to be "iron."
Slowly, heavily, Viktor walked across the room. He didn't look like a kingpin now; he looked like a broken man.
He sat down on the edge of the bed opposite Sophia. Without a word, he reached out calloused, steady hands and wrapped them around his daughter, pulling her into his embrace alongside Sophia.
Isabella froze for a second, startled by her father’s sudden physical presence. But then, for the first time since the tragedy, she didn't pull away. She clung to her father just as tightly as she clung to Sophia, letting out all the pent-up grief, terror, and loneliness of the past six months.
Viktor buried his face in his daughter’s dark hair, his broad shoulders shaking once, twice, with suppressed emotion. A single tear tracked down the hardened, scarred cheek of the most feared man in Chicago.
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He looked across the crying child at Sophia, his gray eyes shining with an aching, profound vulnerability.
"You were right, my little bird," Viktor whispered against Isabella’s hair, his voice choked with raw emotion. "You don't have to be iron anymore. Neither of us do."
