Chapter 1 - THE SUITCASES AT THE FUNERAL
The first thing Giovanni noticed was not his wife’s coffin.
It was the luggage.
Two identical black suitcases rolled through the doors of the private funeral hall while every person inside turned to look.
Emilio and Clarissa walked in slowly.
Too slowly.
Like they were hoping nobody would notice them.
But everyone did.
The room fell completely silent.
Their mother was lying at the front of the room, surrounded by white flowers and candles.
And her two children had just arrived from the airport.
Three hours late.
Carrying suitcases.
Giovanni stood near the coffin, his face empty.
A man who had spent the last seven days accepting that the woman he loved was gone.
A man who had cried until he had no tears left.
But the moment he saw that luggage tag hanging from Emilio’s suitcase…
Everything changed.
His eyes locked onto the small piece of paper.
The color drained from his face.
“No…”
The word came out almost like a whisper.
Emilio stopped walking.
“Dad?”
Giovanni stepped closer.
Slowly.
Almost like he was afraid of what he was seeing.
“Where did you go?”
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Clarissa looked at her brother.
Emilio immediately grabbed the suitcase handle tighter.
“We can explain.”
Giovanni’s voice became colder.
“I didn’t ask what happened.”
He pointed at the luggage tag.
“I asked where you went.”
The funeral guests started whispering.
A few family members exchanged confused looks.
Giovanni had always been a calm man.
A businessman who controlled every room he entered.
But now…
He looked terrified.
“The island,” he said quietly.
Emilio froze.
“What?”
“The island your mother went to.”
Clarissa’s face changed.
Just for a second.
But Giovanni saw it.
And that was enough.
“You knew,” he said.
The words cut through the room.
“You both knew.”
“Dad, it’s not what you think,” Clarissa said quickly.
Giovanni looked at her.
His eyes were filled with pain.
“Then tell me what it is.”
Silence.
That silence hurt him more than any answer.
Because Giovanni already knew something was wrong.
Three weeks before her death, his wife Elena had disappeared for five days.
When she came back, she was different.
She barely slept.
She stopped wearing her wedding ring.
She burned old photographs in the backyard.
And when Giovanni asked where she had been…
She only said one thing.
“Promise me you will never look for that place.”
He remembered her voice.
The fear in her eyes.
The way her hands were shaking.
“Giovanni,” she had whispered.
“If anyone in this family finds out where I went… everything will fall apart.”
He thought she was hiding an affair.
A secret debt.
A problem from her past.
But he never imagined this.
Because the place on that luggage tag…
Was the same place Elena had tried to erase from their lives forever.
A small tropical island thousands of miles away.
A place nobody in the family had mentioned since.
A place called Maravilla.
Giovanni grabbed Emilio’s arm.
“What was my wife doing there?”
Emilio pulled away.
“Dad, please.”
“No.”
Giovanni’s voice cracked.
“No more lies.”
He looked at both of them.
“Your mother is dead. Whatever secret you’re protecting died with her.”
He stepped closer.
“Unless…”
His eyes moved toward the suitcases.
“Unless you brought something back.”
Clarissa suddenly looked afraid.
Not guilty.
Afraid.
Giovanni noticed.
“What’s inside?”
“Nothing,” Emilio said too quickly.
A mistake.
A terrible mistake.
Giovanni knew his son.
He knew every lie.
Every nervous habit.
Every time Emilio avoided eye contact.
“Open the suitcase.”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
Everyone in the room gasped.
Giovanni stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
Emilio realized what he had done.
“Dad…”
“Open. The. Suitcase.”
The room became a battlefield.
Two brothers from the family security team stepped forward, waiting for Giovanni’s command.
Clarissa grabbed Emilio’s arm.
“Just tell him.”
Emilio looked at her.
“You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do,” she whispered.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“We came here because we thought we finally had the truth.”
Giovanni’s expression changed.
“The truth about what?”
Neither child answered.
And that was when Giovanni lost control.
He slapped Emilio.
Once.
The sound echoed through the funeral hall.
Then again.
A second slap.
Clarissa screamed.
“Dad!”
The bodyguards moved forward.
But Giovanni raised his hand.
“No.”
His breathing was heavy.
He looked at his son with heartbreak instead of anger.
“You stood next to your mother’s coffin while hiding something from me.”
Emilio touched his face.
Tears forming in his eyes.
“You don’t know what she asked us to do.”
Giovanni froze.
“What did you say?”
Emilio looked toward the coffin.
“She knew she was dying.”
The room went silent.
“She called us two weeks before she passed away.”
Giovanni felt his stomach drop.
“That’s impossible.”
“She told us everything.”
“What everything?”
Emilio swallowed hard.
Then he looked at the suitcase.
“She told us to go back to Maravilla…”
A cold feeling moved through Giovanni’s body.
“Why?”
Emilio’s voice became barely audible.
“Because the person who caused her death is still there.”
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
And then…
From inside the suitcase…
A phone began to ring.
Everyone turned.
Giovanni stared at the black suitcase.
His dead wife’s secret was sitting three feet away from him.
Calling.
And somehow…
May you like
He already knew who was on the other side.
TO BE CONTINUED…
