Four Empty Coffins, One Terminal Diagnosis Chapter 07
When I woke up, I thought I was dead.
The ceiling was white. The lights were dim. The air smelled like roses and antiseptic. Birds were singing outside the window.
“Am I dead?”
My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was hoarse. Scraped raw.
“Legally speaking? Yes.” Someone answered.
A man sat in an armchair by the window. Black suit. No tie. The top button of his shirt was undone He looked about thirty-five, with a jawline sharp as a blade. The way he flipped through his documents was elegant. Almost aristocratic.
His eyes were dark gray. Then he spoke. “Dante Moretti. You’re on my property.”
I stared at him.
Moretti. The youngest Don of New York’s Five Families. The outside world knew very little about him-only that he controlled the East Coast’s underground medical networks and half the shipping
lanes.
“I’m not dead?”
“Your body is still alive.” He rose from his chair and walked to my bedside. He placed a file next to my pillow. “Vivienne Vale is dead. Death certificate, morgue records, cremation paperwork-all
complete.”
I picked up the file. “How did you pull this off?”
“The head of oncology at St. Clement’s works for me. Your time of death, the death certificate, the body identification process-all of it is legally sound. The body in the morgue wasn’t you.”
He set a photograph in front of me. “Her name was Elena Rossi. Brain-dead patient. Her family signed off on organ donation. My people performed facial reconstruction and fingerprint replacement.”
I set the photo down. “Why did you save me?”
Dante didn’t answer right away. He walked back to the window and pushed it open. “Your maternal
grandmother was Caterina Rosso.”
I went still.
“When she was young, she saved the life of the Moretti family’s old Don-my grandfather. A promise in exchange for a life. That’s family law.” He glanced back at me.
“When did you find out about me?” I asked.
“Three months ago.” Dante’s tone was even. “My physician discovered your file at St. Clement’s Stage IV gastric cancer. Treatment refused. Estimated one month to live.”
He held my gaze.
“The Moretti family pays its debts. My grandfather had one thing to say before he died-‘Caterina Rosso’s granddaughter. If she ever needs something, repay it for me.””
“For that one line?”
“For that one line.”
Silence.
“You have two choices now.” Dante stood and pulled a black envelope from the desk drawer. “First option: Walk out that door. You’ll be recognized, sent back to the Vale estate, and die of gastric cancer within a month.”
“Second option: Vivienne Vale dies here. You walk out with a new identity. You get treatment. Surgery. Then you decide for yourself whether to go back.”
I opened the envelope. Inside was a new ID.
[Name: Vittoria Moretti.]
Same birth date. Same nationality. My photo. But my last name had been changed to Moretti.
“Vittoria Moretti?”
“Everyone under Moretti protection uses that name.” Dante shrugged. “You don’t have to marry me. It’s just a cover.”
I stared at the card.
Vivienne Vale was abandoned three times-by her parents, by her brother, by her fiancé.
Vittoria Moretti starts from zero.
“I’ll take the second option.”
Dante nodded. No extra expression. No unnecessary words. He pressed the call button by my bed, and a woman in a white coat walked in.
“Dr. Romano. Vittoria is yours starting today.”
He stopped at the door.
“Your surgery is in three days. Stage IV gastric cancer, but the metastasis is less extensive than the hospital report claimed. Their head of pathology was on Serena’s payroll. He exaggerated your condition.”
He looked back at me once.
“You’re going to survive.”
The door closed.
It wasn’t until three weeks after surgery that I could stand in front of a mirror.
Most of my hair was gone. There was barely any flesh on my face. I looked like a skeleton. But Dr. Romano said they’d cleared the majority of the cancer cells. The rest would be handled by follow-up
treatment.
“Your body was neglected for three years,” she said. “Recovery will take time.”
Time.
I had time now.
A month later, I started walking in the Moretti estate gardens to rebuild my strength. A hundred meters became a kilometer. A kilometer became three.
Dante came for breakfast every morning. He didn’t talk much. Sometimes he flipped through the newspaper. Sometimes he took a call. Sometimes he just slid his coffee across the table to me.
One night, two months in, he set a tablet in front of me.
The screen showed security footage.
The Vale estate living room.
Gideon sat on the sofa. His hair had gone completely white. Evelyn wasn’t there-I learned later that she’d suffered a heart attack three days after my “death” and never recovered.
Damian sat at the dining table. A bottle of whiskey in front of him. More than half of it was gone.
Adrian stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows. Motionless. Like a statue.
No one was speaking.
“They come to Moretti territory once a week,” Dante said. “Looking for me.”
“For you?”
“For you.” He met my eyes. “Adrian Bellandi doesn’t believe you’re dead. He tracked down the hospital’s body-swap records. But he doesn’t have proof.”
I didn’t say anything.
I stared at Adrian’s back on the screen. A silhouette I’d seen in my dreams more times than I could count. Now I was actually looking at it, and I felt nothing at all.
“Do you want to go back?” Dante asked.
“No.”
On the third day, Dr. Romano brought in a file. My new lab results. All indicators normal. Cancer in
remission.
“You’re officially cleared for discharge,” she said.
Dante was waiting for me at the end of the hall.
“There’s something you should know.” He paused. “The Five Families’ charity gala is next Saturday. The Vales and the Bellandis will both be there.”
He handed me a black garment box.
“You don’t have to go.”
I took the box. “I’m going.”
