CHAPTER 7 — The Truth Dominic Buried
The church remained silent long after the stranger disappeared.
Even the gunfire outside had stopped.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Chloe stared at Dominic, waiting for him to deny it.
Instead...
He lowered his head.
"I've lied to you."
The words struck harder than any bullet.
Leo looked at him in disbelief.
"Dom..."
"You don't have to."
"I do."
Dominic slowly picked up the faded photograph from the altar.
Twenty-four years had yellowed its edges, but the faces remained unmistakable.
A younger Dominic.
A beautiful dark-haired woman.
Two newborn baby girls wrapped in matching blankets.
He handed the picture to Chloe.
"The woman holding you..."
"...was my sister."
Chloe's fingers tightened around the photograph.
"You said my mother wasn't my biological mother."
"She wasn't."
"My biological mother died giving birth."
Dominic's voice had become quieter than Chloe had ever heard.
"My sister, Isabella Moretti, couldn't have children. She begged the hospital to let her adopt one of the abandoned twins."
"And they agreed?"
"They never had the chance."
Dominic closed his eyes.
"Someone came for both babies before sunrise."
Twenty-Four Years Earlier
Rain hammered the windows of St. Gabriel Medical Center.
Dominic was only ten years old.
He remembered hiding beneath a waiting-room chair while grown men shouted in the hallway.
His father...
Antonio Moretti.
Head of the Moretti family.
One of the most feared men in New England.
Antonio wasn't there for business.
He had come because his younger sister Isabella had collapsed after another failed pregnancy.
When the nurses mentioned abandoned twin girls...
Everything changed.
Antonio wanted to help.
He offered to pay every medical expense.
He promised both girls would have homes.
But before the adoption paperwork could be completed...
The hospital lost power.
Thirty-seven seconds.
That was all.
When the lights returned...
The nursery was empty.
Both babies had vanished.
"I spent years believing they were dead," Dominic said.
"My father spent millions trying to find them."
"What happened?" Chloe whispered.
Dominic looked away.
"My father was murdered before he could."
"And the search ended."
"No."
"It became my life's obsession."
Leo spoke for the first time.
"You never told me there were two children."
"Because if people knew..."
Dominic looked toward the shattered church windows.
"...they would never stop hunting them."
Suddenly...
The elderly priest gasped.
"No..."
He pointed toward the old photograph.
Something Chloe hadn't noticed before.
Written in tiny handwriting across the back...
PROPERTY OF THE ARGUS PROGRAM
Chloe frowned.
"What's Argus?"
The priest slowly crossed himself.
"It wasn't a family."
"It wasn't a criminal organization."
"It was something far worse."
ARGUS
A covert government experiment.
Officially...
It never existed.
Unofficially...
It recruited infants with extraordinary genetic markers.
Children disappeared.
Birth certificates changed.
Entire families were paid to forget.
Those who refused...
Simply vanished.
Dominic's expression hardened.
"So that's why."
Leo looked confused.
"Why what?"
"The Black Wolves."
"They weren't trying to kill Chloe."
"They were trying to recover government property."
The words chilled everyone inside the church.
Chloe stepped backward.
"I'm not property."
"No."
Dominic answered immediately.
"You're a woman."
"And I'll burn this city down before anyone takes you."
At that exact moment...
Dominic's encrypted phone vibrated.
One message.
No number.
No signature.
Only a single photograph.
It showed Chloe...
At age six.
Standing in the playground of an elementary school.
Someone had been watching her for nearly two decades.
Beneath the picture were eight words.
WE NEVER LOST HER. WE LET YOU FIND HER.
Dominic's blood ran cold.
Everything they believed...
Had been planned.
The attack.
The restaurant.
The church.
Even Chloe's rescue.
It had all led to this.
Across the Atlantic...
Inside a heavily guarded estate overlooking the Mediterranean...
The silver-haired man entered a private office.
A woman sat facing the sea.
She never turned around.
"Did you meet her?" she asked.
"I did."
"And Dominic?"
"He finally told her enough."
The woman smiled faintly.
"Not everything."
"No."
"He still doesn't know..."
She picked up another photograph.
This one showed Chloe beside a second young woman who looked exactly like her.
The picture had been taken only three weeks earlier.
The twin was alive.
And she was already working for the people hunting Dominic Moretti.
The woman whispered,
May you like
"Phase Two begins tonight."
END OF CHAPTER 7
