Chapter 5 - THE OTHER BABY
Lorenzo read the message twice.
Then he locked his phone.
“Who was the other baby?” Lily asked.
“I don't know.”
“Don't lie to me.”
He looked at her.
“I know about Matteo's disappearance. I know my grandmother left him a pendant. I know my father spent years trying to control every person who carried the Moretti name. But I've never heard of another child.”
“Then someone wants you to believe there is one.”
“Or someone wants me to remember something I've tried very hard to forget.”
They returned to Oyster Bay shortly after noon.
Lorenzo went directly to his private office and summoned Marco, his head of security. Lily remained in the library with Mrs. Alvarez, reading her mother's letter until she could recite entire passages from memory.
At three, Marco arrived with a stack of old records.
“The family archive contains two birth certificates connected to Matteo,” he reported. “One is Lily's. The other belongs to a boy born eleven months later.”
Lily looked up.
“Who was his mother?”
“The record is incomplete. The mother's name was removed from the digital copy. The original was apparently transferred to the family lawyer's office twenty years ago.”
“Who was the lawyer?”
“Arthur Pembroke. He died five years ago.”
Lorenzo opened the folder.
A photograph had been attached to the second birth certificate. It showed a baby in a hospital bassinet with a small silver bracelet around one wrist.
The bracelet bore the same crescent-shaped emblem as Lily's pendant.
“Where is the boy now?” Lorenzo asked.
Marco shook his head.
“We have no record of an adoption, no school records under the name on the certificate, and no death certificate. Someone deliberately erased him.”
Lily's stomach tightened.
“Could Vincent be involved?”
“He may be,” Lorenzo said. “But I don't think he's the one who sent the message.”
“Why?”
“Vincent wants power. This feels personal.”
That evening, Lorenzo arranged for Lily to meet a lawyer outside the Moretti organization. Her mother's letter and the birth records were placed in secure custody, and Lily was advised of her rights before any further investigation.
It was the first time anyone had explained the legal consequences of her situation without trying to dictate what she should do.
When they returned to the mansion, Lily found a small envelope outside her suite.
Inside was a photograph of her mother standing beside a woman Lily had never seen.
Both women were holding babies.
On the back, someone had written:
TWO CHILDREN. ONE PROMISE. ONE LIE.
Lily took it to Lorenzo.
He stared at the image for a long time.
“The woman is Sofia Bellandi,” he said at last.
“Who is she?”
“My father's sister. She died when I was twelve.”
“Did she have children?”
“Not that I know of.”
Lily studied the photograph.
The baby in Sofia's arms wore a bracelet.
The baby in her mother's arms wore the silver pendant.
“Maybe the other child wasn't Matteo's,” Lily said. “Maybe he belonged to Sofia.”
Lorenzo looked again.
“That's possible.”
“Then why would someone erase both records?”
Before he could answer, the mansion's security alarm sounded.
Marco appeared in the doorway.
“Boss, we've got a problem. Someone entered the old east wing. The cameras went dark for four minutes.”
“Was anything taken?”
“We don't know yet.”
Lorenzo stood.
“Secure the house.”
Lily followed him down the corridor despite his protest.
The east wing smelled of dust and old wood. At the end of the hall stood a door that had remained locked since Lorenzo's father died.
The lock had been forced.
Inside, the room was almost empty. A writing desk stood beside a covered piano, and portraits leaned against the walls. On the desk lay a leather-bound ledger.
Lorenzo opened it.
The first pages listed names, dates, and payments.
Then Lily saw her mother's name.
Beside it was a second name.
Sofia Bellandi.
A note had been written in the margin.
The girls must never meet.
Lily looked up.
“Girls?”
Lorenzo turned the page.
Two names had been written side by side.
Lily Moretti.
Isabella Bellandi.
May you like
Beneath them was a date.
Tomorrow.
