Chapter 4 - The Other Half of My Blood
The number meant nothing to me at first.
Fifty-one percent.
It sounded like a spreadsheet.
A vote.
A technicality.
Then Vincent’s attorney arrived.
Eleanor Price was sixty-three, silver-haired, and looked like the sort of woman who had spent forty years making powerful men regret underestimating her.
She placed three folders on the dining-room table.
“Belladonna Holdings.”
I stared at her.
“What is Belladonna Holdings?”
Vincent answered.
“The legitimate part of the Moretti family.”
Eleanor corrected him.
“The publicly defensible part.”
Vincent gave her a look.
She ignored it.
Hotels.
Commercial real estate.
Shipping interests.
Restaurants.
Agricultural land.
Investment funds.
A private hospital network.
The numbers became absurd.
Then obscene.
I pushed the folder away.
“I don’t want it.”
Eleanor didn’t blink.
“That may become an option.”
“Good.”
“But refusing money doesn’t erase your legal identity.”
“I had a legal identity yesterday.”
“You had an incomplete one.”
That irritated me.
“I was doing fine.”
“You were being beaten in a ballroom.”
Vincent looked at her.
“That wasn’t necessary.”
“No,” she said.
“It was accurate.”
I liked her immediately.
Eleanor explained the trust.
Vincent’s mother, Vittoria Maria Rossi Moretti, had created it thirty-one years earlier.
Her daughter Elena was first beneficiary.
If Elena died, her biological descendants inherited her voting rights.
Vincent received the remaining forty-nine percent.
“What about your father?” I asked.
Vincent leaned back.
“My mother didn’t trust him with ownership.”
“Smart woman.”
Eleanor almost smiled.
Vincent did too.
Then the dining-room doors opened.
Carlo DeMarco walked in.
He was seventy.
Gray-haired.
Perfectly dressed.
And furious.
Vivian followed him.
She had changed out of the wine-stained gown.
Now she wore black.
No makeup.
No jewelry.
Her face looked younger.
Meaner.
Carlo saw me.
Stopped.
For one impossible second, the anger vanished.
“Elena.”
I stood.
“My name is Nora.”
He stared at my face.
Then the locket.
His hand gripped the back of a chair.
“You’re alive.”
Vincent stepped between us.
“She is not Elena.”
Carlo looked at him.
“You knew?”
“Tonight.”
Carlo turned toward Vivian.
“What did you do?”
Vivian’s face hardened.
“Nothing.”
“You touched her?”
“She embarrassed me.”
Carlo crossed the room.
He didn’t slap his daughter.
He didn’t need to.
The look he gave her was worse.
“You idiot.”
Vivian stared at him.
“You told me to watch for the necklace.”
Every person in the room went still.
Carlo closed his eyes.
Vivian realized what she had done.
Vincent moved closer.
“He told you what?”
Vivian’s breathing changed.
Carlo turned slowly.
“Vincent.”
“You told Vivian to watch for Nora’s locket?”
“I told her if she ever saw a black enamel locket with a green stone, she should call me.”
“Why?”
Carlo looked at me.
“Because it belonged to Vittoria.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“No.”
Carlo sat.
Suddenly he looked tired.
Much older than seventy.
He pointed toward the photograph from my mother’s box.
“Dominic was my brother.”
I had expected it.
Hearing it still hurt.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
Carlo’s eyes shifted toward Vincent.
“The Morettis killed him.”
Vincent’s expression became stone.
“My sister said Renato killed him.”
“Renato was a Moretti.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s true.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Then why did Elena spend seventeen years hiding from both families?”
Carlo said nothing.
I did.
“Because neither family deserved her trust.”
Both men looked at me.
Good.
They needed to hear it.
“You two can continue blaming each other after I get answers.”
I pointed to my father’s photograph.
“What happened?”
Carlo’s face softened.
“Dominic wanted out.”
“Out of what?”
“Everything.”
He looked at Vincent.
“Your sister wanted the same.”
Carlo told us about 1997.
Dominic DeMarco and Elena Moretti had fallen in love against both families’ wishes.
They planned to marry.
When Elena became pregnant, they believed the child might finally force peace.
Instead, it terrified the men around them.
A child carrying both bloodlines could one day claim influence in both families.
Especially after Vittoria created the trust.
“Who knew about the trust?” I asked.
“Very few.”
“Renato?”
Carlo nodded.
“Renato.”
Vincent’s fist tightened.
Carlo continued.
“Dominic discovered Renato was stealing from both families and engineering conflicts between them.”
“Why?”
“To weaken everyone except himself.”
Dominic collected proof.
Elena helped him.
They planned to give it to federal authorities.
Then Dominic’s car went over an embankment.
The official report said mechanical failure.
Carlo’s voice cracked when he said:
“I identified his body.”
“What about my mother?”
“Three weeks later, a house she was using burned.”
Vincent stared at him.
“We found a body.”
“Yes.”
“But it wasn’t her.”
“No.”
“Did you know?”
Carlo looked down.
“Eventually.”
Vincent stood so fast his chair scraped across the floor.
“You let me believe my sister was dead?”
Carlo rose.
“Your father did the same.”
“My father was trying to protect her.”
“And you think I wasn’t?”
Vincent stepped closer.
For the first time, I saw why people feared him.
Not because he shouted.
Because he became completely still.
I stood between them.
“Enough.”
Neither moved.
“I spent twenty-eight years not knowing any of this.”
I looked at Carlo.
“You knew I existed?”
His silence answered me.
“When?”
“Before you were born.”
“Did you ever look for me?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find me?”
Carlo’s eyes filled with something I hadn’t expected.
Shame.
“Yes.”
My heart dropped.
“When?”
“You were seven.”
I couldn’t speak.
“I saw you outside a school in Queens.”
“You knew where I was?”
“Your mother begged me to leave you alone.”
I took a step back.
“You watched me grow up?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Three times.”
I felt sick.
“Three?”
“When you were seven.”
He swallowed.
“Twelve.”
Another pause.
“And seventeen.”
Seventeen.
The year my mother died.
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“When she was dying?”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing?”
“She wouldn’t let me.”
I hated that answer.
Carlo reached inside his coat slowly.
Vincent’s men moved instantly.
Carlo froze.
“It’s a photograph.”
He removed an envelope.
Placed it on the table.
I opened it.
My mother lay in a hospital bed.
Thin.
Bald from chemotherapy.
Carlo sat beside her.
She was holding his hand.
On the back she had written:
Carlo kept one promise.
I looked up.
“What promise?”
His eyes went toward Vivian.
Then back to me.
“To keep Renato away from you.”
Vivian laughed.
It sounded nervous.
“You’re acting like he’s some ghost.”
Carlo turned toward his daughter.
“You should be afraid of him.”
“You said he was dead.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I hoped he was.”
My phone buzzed.
A photograph arrived from the anonymous number.
It showed the outside of Belladonna House.
Taken seconds earlier.
Beneath it:
YOU HAVE BOTH FAMILIES IN ONE ROOM.
Another message followed.
JUST LIKE OLD TIMES.
Vincent read it over my shoulder.
Then the lights went out.
Someone screamed.
Glass shattered.
A sharp crack came from the library window.
Vincent pulled me down.
Security rushed forward.
When emergency lights came on, a bullet was buried in the wall directly behind the chair where I had been sitting.
Marco inspected the broken window.
Then bent.
Something glittered on the carpet.
He picked it up.
A gold ring.
Vincent saw the crest.
His face changed.
“What?”
I asked.
May you like
He looked at me.
“It’s Moretti.”
