The Photograph
Chapter 04 - The Photograph
Emergency lighting came on seconds later.
Guests murmured and security moved through the ballroom, but Leah heard none of it. She was staring at the woman near the west doors—a stranger holding an old photograph.
The woman was in her sixties, elegantly dressed, with silver hair and a face Leah had never seen.
She looked directly at Leah.
“You look just like her.”
“Like who?”
“Your mother.”
Dante appeared beside Leah.
The stranger smiled at him.
“You never told her, did you?”
Dante stepped forward.
“Leave.”
The woman laughed softly.
“Still protecting her.”
Leah's stomach dropped.
Dante took the photograph from the woman's hand.
She did not resist.
Leah saw the image before he could turn it over.
Her mother stood beside Bianca.
And between them was a younger Dante.
But there was someone else in the photograph.
A little girl.
About seven years old.
Leah stared.
“Who is she?”
Nobody answered.
The stranger leaned closer.
“Ask Bianca's diary.”
Dante's face went pale.
“She's dead.”
“So is your excuse.”
Security escorted the woman away.
Leah waited until the ballroom settled before turning toward Dante.
“Who is the girl?”
He looked at the photograph.
“I don't know.”
“That is a lie.”
His silence answered her.
She walked away.
Dante followed.
“Leah, wait.”
She turned sharply.
“You knew.”
“I knew there was a photograph.”
“Not what was in it?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look terrified?”
Dante stopped.
Because there were some truths a man could hide from the world but never from a woman who had watched him for twelve years.
“I've spent half my life making sure you never had to know what this family did.”
Leah stared at him.
“What did they do?”
He could not answer.
Adrian appeared at the end of the hall.
“Because Bianca didn't trust Dante with the truth.”
Dante turned.
“Get out.”
Adrian ignored him.
“She left the diary with me.”
Leah looked between them.
“You both knew about it?”
“No,” Adrian said. “I knew where it was.”
“Where?”
Adrian looked at Dante.
“Under the chapel.”
Dante's face changed.
Leah realized then that the mystery was not only about her mother.
May you like
It was about Bianca.
And perhaps about Dante himself.
