Chapter 2 - THE NAME SHE NEVER KNEW
Elena refused to leave with me.
I respected her for it.
Most people believed power meant getting whatever you wanted.
Real power was knowing when forcing someone would destroy the very thing you were trying to save.
So when Elena crossed her arms and said, “I am not getting into a car with a stranger because he claims we share DNA,” I nodded.
“You shouldn’t.”
She stared at me.
Apparently she had expected resistance.
“What?”
“You shouldn’t trust me.”
Moretti sat silently at the far end of the dining room under the watch of my security team.
The guests had been allowed to leave after their names were recorded.
The supervisor who had shoved Elena had been suspended by the restaurant’s general manager, who suddenly discovered a deep respect for workplace policy after realizing lawyers would be arriving within the hour.
Elena had cleaned the small cut on her cheek.
She stood with her coat over one arm.
I said, “There’s a private medical laboratory six blocks away. You choose the technician. You watch the samples being sealed. You keep one copy.”
“You already planned this?”
“I learned not to waste time.”
“You really think I’m your sister.”
“Yes.”
“You said I disappeared twenty-two years ago.”
“Yes.”
“How old was she?”
“Six.”
Elena looked away.
“I was told I was found abandoned when I was six.”
My chest tightened.
“By Rosa Rossi?”
“She said I was found at a bus terminal.”
“Did she ever show you adoption papers?”
Elena’s face changed.
“No.”
“Birth certificate?”
“I have one.”
“Original?”
A pause.
“I don’t know.”
I hated every question because each answer chipped away at the foundation of her life.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“For being the person bringing this into your life.”
She studied me suspiciously.
“You don’t look sorry.”
“I’m very good at not looking like things.”
That almost earned a smile.
Almost.
We drove separately to the laboratory.
Elena chose the clinic herself after searching on her phone.
My men stayed downstairs.
She insisted on it.
Inside, fluorescent lights replaced the restaurant’s amber glow.
Reality looked harsher there.
We signed forms.
A technician swabbed the inside of my cheek.
Then Elena’s.
Forty-eight hours, they told us.
Elena laughed.
“What?”
“Twenty-two years and now we wait forty-eight hours.”
“I can have it expedited.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“You said I choose the process.”
“You’re right.”
That answer surprised her too.
Outside the laboratory, rain had started.
Elena stopped beneath the awning.
“Was she happy?”
“Who?”
“Your sister.”
I looked toward the street.
“She liked strawberry ice cream but hated strawberries.”
Elena frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“She said real strawberries had seeds and seeds were suspicious.”
Elena stared at me.
“What?”
I looked back.
She touched her lips.
“My mother used to say that.”
Cold moved through me.
“What exactly?”
“That strawberries were suspicious because they had seeds on the outside.”
Neither of us spoke.
Traffic rushed through wet streets.
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
“It could be something Rosa heard from you.”
“I don’t remember saying it.”
“You were six.”
She stepped into the rain before I could offer an umbrella.
I followed.
“Elena.”
“I need to go home.”
“I’ll have someone drive behind you.”
“No.”
“For security.”
“I lived twenty-eight years without your security.”
“That may be exactly why you need it now.”
She turned sharply.
“Stop.”
I stopped.
“You don’t get to become my brother because you decided it.”
She was right.
So I said the only thing that mattered.
“Okay.”
She looked almost disappointed.
Then walked away.
That night, I returned to the Valenti townhouse.
The house had belonged to my grandfather.
Then my father.
Then me.
My mother had refused to change Elena’s bedroom for twelve years.
After she died, I kept it untouched another ten.
I opened the door.
Dust did not cover anything.
The staff cleaned carefully.
A white wooden horse still sat on the dresser.
A faded paper moon hung above the bed.
I opened the bottom drawer.
Inside was an old photograph.
Elena at five years old.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
A mischievous smile.
I placed the picture beside the photograph Marco had taken discreetly at the restaurant.
Same eyes.
Same slight asymmetry in the eyebrows.
Same dimple near the left side of the mouth.
Marco entered without knocking.
“You see it too.”
“I saw it before the test.”
He leaned against the door.
“We traced Rosa Rossi.”
“And?”
“Not Rosa Rossi originally.”
I turned.
“Her legal name before 2004 was Rosalind Mercer.”
“Who was she?”
“Nurse.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“St. Catherine’s.”
The same hospital where Elena had been born.
Marco continued.
“She worked neonatal care.”
I stared at him.
“How does a maternity nurse become the mother of a missing six-year-old?”
“That’s not the worst part.”
“What is?”
“Rosa disappeared from hospital employment three days after Elena vanished.”
I closed my eyes.
“Money?”
“Two deposits into an account opened that week.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
“In 2004?”
“Yes.”
“Source?”
“Shell corporation.”
“Moretti?”
“Not directly.”
“Who?”
Marco handed me a page.
I read the name.
VALENTI FAMILY HOLDINGS.
My own family.
I looked at Marco.
“That’s impossible.”
“The account was authorized by someone with access to your father’s corporate office.”
“My father was in the hospital after the crash.”
“Then someone used his authorization.”
“Who had it?”
Marco did not answer immediately.
That was worse than any answer.
“Who?”
“Your uncle.”
I stared at him.
Vittorio Valenti.
My father’s younger brother.
The man who had raised me after my parents died.
The man who had helped me search for Elena.
The man who had stood beside me every year on the anniversary of her disappearance.
I called him.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Marco said, “His driver says he left the city this afternoon.”
“Where?”
“Nobody knows.”
I looked again at Elena’s childhood photograph.
For twenty-two years I had believed the Morettis took my sister.
Maybe they had.
But now the first money trail led back to my own blood.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
No voice.
Then a recording played.
A woman singing.
Softly.
An old lullaby.
My mother’s lullaby.
The one she had only ever sung to Elena.
Then a distorted voice spoke.
“If you want your sister to survive being found, stop looking into 2004.”
The call ended.
Marco was already tracing it.
I looked toward the dark window.
“Find Elena.”
He reached for his phone.
I stopped him.
“No.”
“What?”
“Don’t scare her.”
“Dante, someone just threatened her.”
“I know.”
I called Elena myself.
She answered after four rings.
“What?”
“Are you home?”
Silence.
“Why?”
“Are you home?”
“No.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Where are you?”
“At my mother’s old apartment.”
I stood.
“Why?”
“Because I found something.”
“What?”
“A box she told me never to open.”
I grabbed my coat.
“Elena, listen carefully. Lock the door.”
“Dante?”
“Lock it now.”
A floorboard creaked through the phone.
Elena went silent.
Then whispered:
May you like
“I’m not alone.”
The line went dead.
