Page 4 of Vows Made in Silence
The head of the Moretti crime family—the architect behind the boy who was once a prince and is now the newly appointed Don. He didn’t just raise me. He forged me, piece by brutal piece, in his own image. And in doing so, he taught me how to destroy everything I loved.
He turns to me, and for a second—just one fragile, faltering breath—I see him as something I never expected: vulnerable. There are tears in his eyes, clouded with age and regret, and his hand trembles as he tries to lift his oxygen mask.
I help him, because even now, even after everything, I can't watch him struggle.
His lips move at first without sound. Then, hoarse and broken: “You were wrong about her.”
I freeze.
“It wasn’t her choice,” he whispers, voice like rusted metal scraping through glass. “I regret what I did but it was the only way. I told myself it was for your own good, for the family—but the truth is, I was afraid to lose you too.”
His eyes gloss over, and he looks past me, like he’s confessing to a priest. “You were too young, too full of fire. Love would’ve softened you. She would’ve taken you away from all of it. From your place at the head of the family. I couldn’t let that happen.”
He coughs hard, a broken gasp tearing from his chest. “I can’t take this with me. Not this. I thought I was building a legacy—but I started with a lie. And now I’m dying with it in my lungs.”
His breath rattles. “Your destiny was to lead, not to fall in love.”
A bitter laugh scratches the back of my throat.
He looks away like he can’t bear the weight of his own words. “I told her if she didn’t disappear, I’d make sure she had nothing left to protect. I thought… it was the only way to keep you apart.”
My blood runs cold.
A hundred questions explode in my head all at once.
“What the hell are you saying?” I demand, the disbelief clawing up my throat. “You threatened her? Forced her to leave?”
My voice shakes—not from weakness, but from the kind of rage that only comes when the past is ripped wide open and everything inside it is a lie.
His eyes flutter, yellowed and cracked like old parchment. “I told her to disappear and never come back to Chicago, or I would bury her.”
I stare at him, every breath slicing like broken glass.
He coughs, a wet, hollow sound. “I was wrong. I’ve had to live with it and watch you turn that love into hate.”
His fingers twitch, reaching for mine, brittle and desperate. “But I need something from you before I go.”
I stare at him, jaw tight.
“I need your forgiveness,” he rasps. “I can’t face what’s coming with this between us. I need to believe… that you understand why I did it, even if it was wrong.”
I say nothing.
“If you give me that,” he adds, weaker now, “I’ll tell you where they went. Where I sent them. Everything I kept from you, I’ll lay bare. Just… don’t let me take this sin to my grave.”
I rise from the chair slowly. Deliberately. My hands are fists. My heart? It’s something worse.
Because I remember the night I thought she betrayed me. The day she vanished without a word. And now, sitting here beneath a halo of machines and lies, I realize everything I built from that pain—every ruthless step I took to become the man I am—was built on the wrong fucking enemy.
I turn my back to him, the weight of it all crashing down in silence. The girl I thought destroyed me? He destroyed her first.
I close my eyes for half a breath.
When I turn back—he’s gone.
His chest has stilled. His eyes are open but empty. The machines hum quietly beside him, indifferent to the man they were too late to save.
He took the location to his grave.
