Not after watching Mikhail’s entire organization crumble from within.
Father Miguel enters from the back room, carrying a tray with coffee and bread.
He’s a small man in his seventies, with kind brown eyes and weathered hands that shake slightly as he sets down the tray.
He was my father’s confessor for years, one of the few people Vincent Moretti actually trusted.
“Eat,” Father Miguel says gently. “You both look like death.”
I sink into a chair across from Mikhail and reach for the coffee.
It’s weak and bitter, but it’s warm, and right now that’s enough.
Mikhail doesn’t touch his cup.
He just stares at it like he’s trying to divine our future in the dark liquid.
“Father,” I begin, my voice cracking. “What do you know about my father’s final days? Before Mikhail found him?”
The old priest’s expression grows somber. He lowers himself into a chair with a soft groan. “Your father came to me three weeks before he died. He was terrified, Sophia. Said he’d discovered something terrible about Lorenzo and needed to get the information to Mikhail before it was too late.”
Mikhail’s head snaps up. “What information?”
“He never said. Didn’t want to put me at risk.” Father Miguel’s hands tremble as he clasps them together.
Tears burn my eyes. “He tried to save her. He tried to save Nicole.”
“Your father, for all the bad he did, was still a good man at heart.” Father Miguel reaches across the table and takes my hand.
Mikhail’s jaw tightens. “Why didn’t he come to me? Why didn’t he tell me the truth?”
“He tried,” Father Miguel says quietly. “But messages disappeared or got blocked. When he resolved to tell you in person and risk his identity, he died.”
The room falls silent except for the ticking of an old clock on the wall. I watch Mikhail process this information.
Guilt and anguish war in his expression.
He killed my father for crimes he didn’t commit.
He tortured an innocent man.
Well, not entirely innocent. My father was many things, but he wasn’t a rapist. He wasn’tthatkind of monster.
“There’s something else you should know, Sophia.” Father Miguel’s voice is gentle. “About the closet.”
My blood runs cold. “What about it?”
“He confessed his guilt about the closet so many times, he… The day your father locked you in there. You thought it was punishment for not cleaning your room.” Father Miguel’s grip on my hands tighten. “It wasn’t. Lorenzo’s men had come to your house looking for your father. He hid you in that closet to protect you. The tv was to keep you drown you out. He was downstairs, keeping them there. He never knew how to tell you after.”
The memory shifts in my mind, taking on new meaning.
I remember my father’s voice through the door, low and urgent before he walked away and turned on the tv.
I’d thought he was angry, but now I realize he was terrified.
Terrified for me.
“He loved you,” Father Miguel says. “Both you and Tony. Everything he did, every terrible choice he made, was trying to protect his children from the world he’d gotten himself into.”
