Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW HER NAME
The name Isabella Bellandi meant nothing to Lily.
But Lorenzo reacted as if someone had struck him.
“Where did you get this ledger?” he asked Marco.
“It was on the desk when we entered.”
“Who knew this room was open?”
“Only the security team.”
Lorenzo closed the ledger.
“Then one of them is working for Vincent.”
He ordered the room sealed and the staff interviewed individually. He also arranged for Lily to stay in a private apartment outside the estate, with security selected by an independent investigator.
Lily agreed to leave the mansion.
She needed distance from the Moretti name, even if it was now part of her own.
Before she left, Lorenzo handed her a small envelope.
“Your mother had a bank account we found in the records. It contains enough money to cover her outstanding medical debt and provide you with a financial cushion. The account was established in her name, and the funds belong to you.”
Lily stared at him.
“Did you put the money there?”
“No. The deposits began twenty-two years ago. We don't yet know who funded them.”
She accepted the envelope but did not open it.
“Thank you.”
It was the first time she had thanked him without feeling that the words were a form of surrender.
At the apartment, an investigator named Sarah Mitchell interviewed Lily about her mother, Matteo, and the pendant. Sarah was calm, direct, and careful not to promise answers she couldn't deliver.
She also arranged a meeting with Isabella Bellandi.
The woman arrived the following afternoon.
She was twenty-four, with dark hair, gray eyes, and a small scar near her right temple. She wore a plain black coat and carried no jewelry except a silver bracelet.
Lily recognized the crescent emblem immediately.
Isabella sat across from her.
“You're Lily?”
“Yes.”
“I've spent most of my life wondering whether you existed.”
Lily's heart began to race.
“Why?”
“Because my mother told me I had a sister who had been taken away before I was born.”
“Your mother was Sofia Bellandi?”
Isabella nodded.
“She raised me in Connecticut. She died when I was sixteen. Before she died, she gave me a letter and told me never to trust the Moretti family.”
Lily took the photograph from her bag.
“Is this her?”
Isabella studied it, then covered her mouth.
“Where did you find this?”
“My mother kept it.”
The two women stared at the photograph.
Then Isabella reached into her coat and removed a folded letter.
“My mother said that if I ever met you, I should give you this.”
Lily unfolded it.
To the daughter I may never know,
Your mother and I made a promise. If one of us died, the other would protect both girls. We believed we could keep the men in our family from turning children into weapons.
We were wrong.
One child was given a name. The other was given a secret.
If you have found this letter, then someone has finally begun to uncover what your grandfather did.
Lily looked up.
“Your grandfather?”
Isabella nodded.
“Lorenzo's father. My grandfather, too.”
The family tree had become a maze of secrets, and every new discovery led back to the same man.
“Do you know what happened to the other child?” Lily asked.
Isabella shook her head.
“No. But my mother kept a photograph of a hospital bracelet with the number 4172. She said it belonged to the child everyone had forgotten.”
Lily felt a chill.
The bracelet in the old photograph bore the same number.
Before she could ask another question, Sarah entered the room.
“We have a lead on Vincent,” she said. “He was seen near a private marina in Connecticut. But there's something else.”
She placed a printed photograph on the table.
It showed a man entering a courthouse in Manhattan.
Lorenzo stood beside him.
The man had dark hair, gray eyes, and a scar beneath his left ear.
Lily stared at the image.
“Who is that?”
Sarah's voice lowered.
“His name is Daniel Moretti. According to the official records, he died twenty years ago.”
Isabella went pale.
“That's impossible.”
“Why?” Lily asked.
Isabella looked at the photograph.
“Because my mother used to receive letters from a man named Daniel. She said he was the only person who knew what happened to the other baby.”
Lily turned back to Sarah.
“Where is he now?”
Sarah pointed to the courthouse date.
“According to the security footage, he was there yesterday.”
May you like
The man who had supposedly been dead for twenty years had returned.
And he had come looking for Lily.
