Chapter 2 - The Photograph That Shouldn’t Exist
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because there are truths so impossible your body rejects them before your mind gets a vote.
“No.”
Dominic watched me.
“My mother was Rosa Valdez.”
“I heard you.”
“She raised me.”
“I’m not disputing that.”
“She gave birth to me.”
“Did she ever show you photographs from the hospital?”
That stopped me.
Every childhood album began when I was almost four months old.
I had never questioned it.
Mom said there had been a flood in our first apartment and most of the early photographs were ruined.
Suddenly that explanation felt thin.
I stepped back.
“I need to work.”
Dominic’s guard looked at him, waiting.
Dominic surprised me.
He nodded.
“All right.”
That was it.
No command.
No threat.
No grabbing my arm.
I walked toward the kitchen.
My legs barely worked.
Inside, my manager, Marco, caught me by the shoulders.
“You need to leave.”
“What?”
“Now.”
His face had lost all color.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“Marco.”
“I said go home.”
“How do you know Dominic Rinaldi?”
“I run a restaurant in Manhattan. Everyone knows Dominic Rinaldi.”
“But you looked scared before he even showed you that photograph.”
Marco looked toward the kitchen doors.
Then lowered his voice.
“Alina, there are questions that become dangerous the moment certain people realize you’re asking them.”
My skin prickled.
“My mother knew the Bellinis?”
He closed his eyes.
That was enough.
“Tell me.”
“Not here.”
“Tell me now.”
Marco opened his mouth.
Then the kitchen door swung inward.
Dominic stood there.
Alone.
His guards remained outside.
Marco went rigid.
Dominic ignored him.
“I’m leaving.”
“Great.”
I tried to sound stronger than I felt.
He handed me a business card.
No title.
Just his name and one phone number.
“If you decide you want answers, call me.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s your choice.”
He turned.
Then stopped.
“Sofia spent the final three years of her life looking for her sister.”
My throat tightened.
“She believed Alessia survived.”
I stared at his back.
“Why?”
Dominic looked over his shoulder.
“Because someone sent her a photograph.”
He held up his phone again.
Another image.
Grainy.
Taken through glass.
A waitress carrying two plates across Aurelia.
Me.
I recognized the burgundy uniform we had worn last winter.
The date on the photograph was nine months earlier.
Before Sofia died.
My mouth went dry.
“She knew about me?”
“She was trying to confirm who you were.”
“Why didn’t she come inside?”
“I don’t know.”
For the first time, Dominic Rinaldi looked helpless.
“She died three weeks later.”
He left.
I stared at Marco.
He refused to meet my eyes.
I untied my apron.
“I’m not finishing my shift.”
He nodded.
I walked five blocks before realizing someone was following me.
Not one of Dominic’s men.
An older sedan remained half a block behind every time I turned.
I ducked into a pharmacy.
The car stopped.
I called Marco.
He answered immediately.
“I told you to go home.”
“Someone’s following me.”
Silence.
Then:
“Do not go to your apartment.”
My blood turned cold.
“Why?”
“Because if Dominic recognized the pendant, other people will too.”
“Other people who?”
Marco exhaled.
Then finally said the sentence he had apparently spent twenty-seven years avoiding.
“Your mother was my sister.”
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
“Rosa Valdez was my older sister.”
The pharmacy seemed to disappear around me.
“You’re my uncle?”
“Not by blood.”
My knees weakened.
“Marco…”
“Listen carefully.”
His voice trembled.
“Rosa did not give birth to you.”
I closed my eyes.
“She took you out of St. Catherine’s Hospital on August nineteenth, 1999.”
My hand went numb around the phone.
“Why?”
May you like
Marco’s next words tore apart the only childhood I had ever known.
“Because your real mother begged her to save you.”
