Chapter 3 - The Name My Mother Buried
I left Belladonna House at 2:13 in the morning.
Vincent wanted me to stay.
I refused.
Marco wanted to send two men with me.
I refused that too.
Eventually Vincent made a compromise.
A car.
One driver.
No bodyguards.
I hated accepting even that.
But somewhere between learning that my mother had lied about her last name and discovering that a supposedly dead man knew I existed, stubbornness began to feel less like independence and more like stupidity.
My apartment was in Queens.
Third floor.
No elevator.
The driver stopped at the curb.
I climbed the stairs alone.
The front door was open.
I knew immediately.
I never left it open.
I pushed it with one finger.
The lock had been broken.
My living room was destroyed.
Cushions ripped open.
Books emptied from shelves.
Kitchen drawers overturned.
My mattress had been cut.
Whoever came here had not wanted money.
My television remained on the wall.
The twenty-dollar bills inside an envelope near the refrigerator were untouched.
They had been searching.
For one thing.
I reached beneath my sweater.
The locket.
My mother’s final gift.
They hadn’t found it because I had worn it to work.
For years I had almost stopped wearing it.
Tonight, for reasons I couldn’t explain, I had put it on.
I called Vincent.
He answered before the first ring finished.
“Yes?”
“My apartment.”
His voice changed.
“What happened?”
“Someone searched it.”
“Are you inside?”
“Yes.”
“Get out.”
“I just got here.”
“Nora.”
“I’m not leaving until I know what they wanted.”
“You know what they wanted.”
My fingers found the locket.
“Yes.”
“Go downstairs.”
“I have something here they didn’t find.”
Silence.
“What?”
“My mother’s box.”
It sat inside a cabinet beneath the kitchen sink.
An ugly blue sewing box with yellow flowers.
Nobody had touched it.
Whoever searched my apartment had gone after expensive-looking containers.
My mother had understood people.
I carried the box downstairs.
Vincent arrived seven minutes later.
Not twenty.
Seven.
That told me how fast his driver had called him.
He came without the overcoat.
Without the party.
Without Vivian.
He looked almost ordinary.
Almost.
We sat in the back of his SUV.
I placed the sewing box between us.
“I haven’t opened this since she died.”
“Why?”
“She told me not to until I had no other choice.”
Vincent looked at me.
“Eleven years?”
I nodded.
“I was seventeen.”
I opened the lid.
Thread.
Needles.
Buttons.
A measuring tape.
Vincent said nothing.
I removed everything.
At the bottom was cardboard.
I pushed it.
Nothing.
Then remembered my mother always pressed the right corner before closing it.
I did.
A hidden panel lifted.
Inside was a photograph.
A letter.
And a wedding ring.
The photograph showed my mother at about twenty-three.
Beside her stood a young man with dark blond hair.
He was kissing her temple.
She was pregnant.
On the back, two names were written.
Elena Moretti & Dominic DeMarco.
Vincent stopped breathing.
“Dominic.”
“You knew him?”
“My sister loved him.”
His voice turned bitter.
“My father hated him.”
“Why?”
“He was a DeMarco.”
“That explains nothing.”
“In our family, sometimes it explained everything.”
I picked up the letter.
My name was written across the envelope.
Nora.
My hands shook.
I unfolded it.
My dearest girl,
If you are reading this, then something I spent your entire life preventing has finally happened.
The Morettis found you.
I looked at Vincent.
He had gone pale.
I continued.
Before anything else, you deserve one truth.
I am your mother.
My breath escaped.
Vincent looked sharply at the letter.
I read faster.
The woman you knew as Elena Rossi was born Elena Vittoria Moretti.
Rossi was my mother’s maiden name.
I did not steal another woman’s identity.
I buried my own.
Tears blurred the words.
My mother had been my mother.
I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed that.
I kept reading.
Your father was Dominic DeMarco.
He loved you before you were born.
He died trying to keep you alive.
My chest tightened.
If Vincent is with you now, look at him carefully.
I stopped.
Vincent stared at me.
“What?”
I read aloud.
“‘He was only twelve when I disappeared. Whatever you have been told about him, Vincent had nothing to do with what happened to us.’”
Vincent turned toward the window.
For the first time, his control broke.
Just slightly.
His jaw trembled.
I continued.
But do not confuse innocence then with innocence now.
Vincent looked back.
There it was.
The knife hidden inside the comfort.
The Moretti family became something I no longer recognized.
Vincent inherited a throne built by men who believed fear was the same thing as loyalty.
If he offers you that throne, refuse it.
I glanced at him.
He almost smiled.
“Sounds like Elena.”
The next sentence erased the humor.
And if anyone named Renato Moretti knows you are alive, run before he learns what your grandmother left you.
My fingers went cold.
“What did she leave me?”
Vincent didn’t answer.
I looked farther down the page.
The final paragraph contained only four lines.
Dominic did not die in an accident.
I did not die in the fire.
Both were arranged by the same man.
And that man once sat at our family table.
Below it was one name.
Renato.
Then there was a postscript.
Nora, your necklace is not jewelry.
Never let anyone remove the green stone.
I looked down.
At the tiny green stone in the center of the locket.
Vincent leaned closer.
Neither of us touched it.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
No greeting.
Only a man’s voice.
Old.
Calm.
Almost amused.
“You finally opened Elena’s box.”
My entire body went cold.
Vincent heard him.
The voice continued.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
“Renato?”
A soft laugh.
Then:
“Ask your uncle what your blood is worth.”
The call ended.
I looked at Vincent.
“What did he mean?”
Vincent closed his eyes.
When he answered, I understood why he had avoided the question.
“My mother created a trust before she died.”
“So?”
“If Elena survived, it belonged to her.”
“And?”
“If Elena had a child…”
He looked directly at me.
“It belongs to you.”
I swallowed.
“How much?”
Vincent was quiet for several seconds.
Then he said,
“Fifty-one percent.”
May you like
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
