Chapter 5 - The Twin Who Was Declared Dead Twice
I stared at my own death certificate.
There are few experiences stranger than seeing the government declare you dead before you learned your real name.
“Who filed it?”
Dominic’s answer came quickly.
“A Bellini family attorney.”
“On whose instructions?”
“We don’t know.”
“Carlo?”
“I suspect him.”
“Suspect.”
I stood.
“Everyone keeps having suspicions while my entire life turns out to be paperwork somebody hid.”
Dominic did not stop me.
Marco did.
“Alina.”
I turned.
“What?”
“If Rosa protected you this long, don’t make the mistake of running alone now.”
I wanted to argue.
Instead, I started crying.
Not elegantly.
Not quietly.
Twenty-seven years of identity collapsed all at once.
Rosa was still my mother.
But she wasn’t.
My birthday was mine.
But it belonged to another name.
My face belonged to a dead woman I had never met.
And a baby had recognized something in me before I recognized myself.
Dominic waited until I could breathe again.
Then he asked:
“Will you take a DNA test?”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want another person telling you who you are without proof.”
That answer mattered.
I agreed.
A private accredited lab arranged collection from me and Leo, with Sofia’s stored medical sample available through her estate.
No dramatic instant result.
We waited.
Thirty-one hours.
I slept maybe two.
When the report arrived, Dominic did not open it first.
He handed the sealed envelope to me.
My fingers shook.
The relationship estimate was overwhelming.
Leo was my biological nephew.
And the comparison to Sofia’s stored sample showed the genetic profile expected of identical twins.
I sat down.
Dominic remained standing.
“So it’s true.”
“Yes.”
My voice sounded far away.
“I’m Alessia.”
He shook his head.
“You’re Alina.”
I looked at him.
“That name mattered to the woman who raised you.”
Something in my chest softened.
Only slightly.
Then Dominic’s attorney arrived.
A woman named Grace Chen.
She placed another folder on the table.
“Your identity has financial consequences.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course it does.”
The Bellini family trust had been written by Sofia’s grandfather.
His descendants inherited voting interests in Bellini Holdings.
If both granddaughters survived, Sofia and Alessia were entitled to equal portions of Elena Bellini’s branch.
Because Alessia was declared missing, then later dead, those interests had been consolidated.
“Into whose control?” I asked.
Grace looked at Dominic.
Then at me.
“Carlo Bellini.”
My missing existence had made him richer.
My death certificate had protected that control.
Sofia’s discovery threatened it.
The motive was suddenly obvious.
But there was another complication.
“If your identity is legally restored,” Grace said, “you may become the single largest voting beneficiary in the Bellini family trust.”
I stared at her.
“How much money are we talking about?”
She gave me a number large enough to become meaningless.
I stopped listening after eighty million.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
“Who is it?” I asked.
He stood.
“I need to take this.”
He walked outside.
He never came back.
Security footage from the diner showed him leaving through the rear door.
A black sedan waited.
Marco got inside voluntarily.
The passenger who opened the door for him was someone Dominic recognized immediately.
May you like
His own adviser.
Enzo Caruso.
