Chapter 3 - A Name That Shouldn't Exist
Miguel refused to speak.
Not to Elina.
Not to D’Angelo.
Not even when Adrian dismissed the restaurant staff and had every door locked.
He sat in a chair inside the wine cellar with his wrists held behind him by one of Adrian’s guards.
Elina remained upstairs.
She did not want to know what men like Adrian Moretti did when somebody refused to answer questions.
To her surprise, Adrian returned twenty minutes later without blood on his hands, without violence in his expression, and without the confession she expected.
“He says he was paid to watch you,” Adrian told her.
“By whom?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“You believe that?”
“He was contacted through encrypted messages.”
Elina hugged herself.
“How long?”
“Five months.”
She stared at him.
“Five?”
“Which means someone was interested in you before tonight.”
“Lucia died six months ago.”
“Yes.”
The timing felt like a fist closing.
“Could Lucia have hired him?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because Lucia hated surveillance.”
He looked away.
“And because she was dead before the payments began.”
Leo slept in a portable carrier near the fireplace.
For the first time that evening, Elina had been able to put him down without him immediately waking.
She watched his tiny chest rise and fall.
That child had unknowingly opened a door nobody could close again.
Adrian handed her a phone.
“My investigator sent copies of the records.”
Elina stared at two old documents.
One listed a female infant born to Rosa Valdez.
The other had been partially sealed by court order.
Baby girl.
Same hospital.
Same date.
Same attending physician.
Then another document showed an adoption six weeks later.
Lucia Elena Serrano.
“Why Serrano?”
“Adoptive family.”
“She was adopted?”
“Yes.”
Elina sat.
“My mother never told me.”
“Maybe she believed Lucia was dead.”
“You’re defending her?”
“No.”
Adrian’s expression softened slightly.
“I’m reminding you we don’t know enough yet.”
Elina laughed bitterly.
“That is surprisingly reasonable advice coming from someone who locked down a restaurant.”
“I have layers.”
Despite herself, a small sound escaped her.
Not quite laughter.
Adrian noticed.
It vanished quickly.
“Can we do a DNA test?” Elina asked.
“Yes.”
“How fast?”
“Hours.”
“That’s possible?”
“For me.”
Of course it was.
Money shortened every waiting room.
Adrian made a call.
A private physician arrived before midnight.
He took cheek swabs from Elina and Leo.
“Why Leo?” she asked.
“If Lucia was your identical twin, Leo should show the genetic relationship of a nephew.”
“And if she wasn’t?”
“Then we stop making assumptions.”
Elina gave the sample.
Afterward she called Rosa.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
“Does your mother usually ignore calls?”
“Never this many.”
Adrian looked toward his security chief.
“Send someone to the address.”
Elina stood.
“No.”
“We need to know if she’s safe.”
“You’re not sending armed strangers to my mother’s apartment.”
“Then we go.”
Adrian’s townhouse was twenty minutes away.
Elina had expected dark marble and men with guns.
She found both.
But she also found something else.
Baby bottles drying beside a spotless kitchen sink.
A stuffed lion on an expensive sofa.
A stack of parenting books on a side table.
And framed photographs everywhere.
Lucia.
Pregnant Lucia laughing in a garden.
Lucia barefoot on a beach.
Lucia asleep with newborn Leo against her chest.
Elina couldn’t look for long.
It was like witnessing a life she might have lived in another universe.
Adrian noticed her discomfort.
“I can have the photographs removed from the room where you’re staying.”
“No.”
“They’re upsetting you.”
“They belong here.”
He looked at her carefully.
“Thank you.”
At one in the morning, the doctor called.
Adrian put the phone on speaker.
“The results are conclusive enough for relationship analysis,” the doctor said. “Ms. Valdez and the child share approximately the expected amount of DNA for an aunt-nephew relationship.”
Elina gripped the edge of the kitchen counter.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the likelihood that you are the biological sister of Leo’s mother is extremely high.”
The room tilted.
Elina sat down.
Twin.
Lucia had been real.
Not a stranger in a photograph.
Her sister.
Her identical twin sister.
A woman who had searched for her.
A woman who had written her name on an envelope.
A woman who had died six months before they could meet.
The grief arrived strangely.
How could she mourn someone she had never known?
But she did.
She mourned every birthday spent unaware that somewhere another girl had blown out candles on the same date.
Every scraped knee.
Every school dance.
Every heartbreak.
Every lonely night.
There had been another person in the world with her face.
And Elina had missed her entire life.
Adrian sat across from her.
For several minutes neither spoke.
“We should tell Leo someday,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“About her.”
“Always.”
“Not about me first.”
Adrian’s eyes met hers.
“I would never erase Lucia.”
Elina nodded.
That mattered.
A bodyguard entered.
“Sir.”
Adrian immediately stood.
“What?”
“The team reached Rosa Valdez’s apartment.”
Elina’s heart stopped.
“And?”
“Door was open.”
She stood too quickly.
“Where is she?”
“Nobody inside.”
Elina grabbed her coat.
Adrian caught her wrist.
“Wait.”
“That’s my mother.”
“I know.”
“Then let go.”
His hand released immediately.
“I’m going with you.”
They reached Rosa’s building at 1:37 a.m.
The apartment door hung slightly open.
Elina pushed inside.
“Mom?”
Silence.
The lights were off.
“Mom?”
Her mother’s purse remained beside the couch.
Her reading glasses lay on the kitchen table.
A mug of tea had gone cold.
Nothing looked violently disturbed.
That frightened Elina more.
Rosa would never leave without her purse.
“She didn’t walk away,” Elina whispered.
Adrian’s men searched every room.
One called from the bedroom.
“Elina.”
She hurried inside.
The closet door was open.
Clothes had been pulled aside.
At the back stood an old wooden chest.
Elina recognized it.
Her mother had owned it her entire life.
Rosa had never allowed her to touch it.
The lock had been broken.
Inside were photographs.
Dozens.
Elina picked up the first.
Rosa, much younger, holding two newborn babies.
Two girls.
Both wrapped in white blankets.
On the back Rosa had written:
My Elina. My Lucia. Forgive me.
Elina pressed her fist against her mouth.
Adrian looked away, giving her a fraction of privacy.
Beneath the photographs was a newspaper clipping.
LOCAL WOMAN AND INFANT MISSING AFTER HIGHWAY ACCIDENT
The article named Rosa’s younger sister, Maribel Valdez.
Maribel had disappeared twenty-six years earlier.
A baby was believed to have been in the car.
No bodies were recovered.
Elina looked at Adrian.
“Lucia.”
“Probably.”
Another envelope sat beneath the clipping.
It was addressed to Elina.
This handwriting belonged to Rosa.
Elina tore it open.
My daughter,
If you are reading this, then the past finally found us.
I lied because I thought the lie would keep you alive.
You had a sister.
Her name was Lucia.
I believed she died when you were babies.
Years later I learned she survived.
Elina stopped.
“What?”
Adrian stepped closer.
She continued.
I wanted to find her.
Then a man came to my door.
He showed me a photograph of you leaving school.
He told me that if I contacted Lucia, I would lose both daughters instead of one.
So I stayed silent.
It is the greatest shame of my life.
Lucia found me six years ago.
We spoke once.
She begged me to tell you.
I was too afraid.
Elina could barely see through tears.
There was more.
Lucia said she had discovered why Maribel’s car disappeared.
She believed the same people were still watching our family.
She gave me one name.
The final line had been underlined twice.
Carlo Moretti.
Adrian’s face emptied of emotion.
Elina looked at him.
“Who is Carlo?”
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then:
“My cousin.”
The silence between them became dangerous.
“Is he close to you?”
Adrian gave a humorless laugh.
“He runs half my organization.”
Elina stared.
“And Lucia believed he was connected to what happened when we were babies?”
“Yes.”
“Would he kill her?”
Adrian didn’t answer quickly enough.
That was answer enough.
His phone vibrated.
A message.
He read it.
Then handed it to Elina.
An unknown number had sent a photograph.
Rosa was sitting in a chair.
Alive.
Terrified.
A man’s hand rested on her shoulder.
Below the picture:
Bring Elina to the old Moretti vineyard tomorrow at noon. Come alone. If you involve police, Rosa dies.
Elina felt the floor disappear beneath her.
Then another message arrived.
This one was only four words.
Ask Adrian about Lucia’s brakes.
Elina slowly raised her eyes.
Adrian had gone completely still.
“You knew,” she whispered.
He said nothing.
“You knew there was something wrong with her car.”
“Elina—”
“How much did you know?”
His face tightened.
“More than I told you.”
May you like
And suddenly the man who had been helping her looked like the most dangerous secret in the room.
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