Chapter 7 - The Sixth Name
There were five children.
I had counted them myself.
Four boys born from one embryo.
Ana from the second.
There could not be six.
Yet Vittorio claimed there were.
“He’s bluffing,” I said.
Marco wasn't convinced.
“Vittorio rarely bluffs when paperwork is involved.”
We left Ana with Isabel and doubled her protection.
Elena came back with us.
I wasn't ready to forgive her.
But I wasn't willing to lose sight of her either.
At the family council, Vittorio Moretti sat at the head of a long walnut table as if the chair belonged to him.
He was sixty-eight.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
He looked more like a retired senator than the man Sofia believed had killed her.
“Alejandro.”
“Vittorio.”
He smiled.
“I hear fatherhood suits you.”
Nobody in that room should have known.
I said nothing.
Vittorio opened a folder.
“The trust requires disclosure of all legitimate descendants.”
“So?”
“You've concealed them.”
“I didn't know they existed.”
“Convenient.”
My fists tightened beneath the table.
Then he slid out six birth-registration forms.
Four for the boys.
One for Ana.
And one more.
Female.
Born two days after Ana.
Name:
Sofia Elena Moretti.
My vision blurred.
“That’s fake.”
“Is it?”
I looked at Elena.
She looked genuinely shocked.
For once, I believed her.
Vittorio leaned back.
“Your late wife was very busy.”
Marco examined the document.
“Different gestational carrier.”
“Yes.”
“Where is this child?”
Vittorio smiled.
“That's what I'd like Alejandro to tell us.”
The council meeting ended with nothing resolved.
But Vittorio had accomplished exactly what he wanted.
He made me doubt everyone again.
Back at the mansion, Marco ran the sixth registration through private databases.
The document was legitimate.
A child named Sofia Elena Moretti had been born in Minnesota.
The mother's genetic record matched Sofia.
The father's field was sealed.
I stared at the screen.
“How?”
There were only two embryos.
Unless Sofia had created others at another clinic.
Or unless the birth record had been manipulated.
We tracked the child.
The trail ended at a closed adoption agency.
Its director had died three years earlier.
But one former employee agreed to talk.
She remembered the unusual case.
A baby girl.
Private adoption.
High confidentiality.
A man handled everything.
“What man?” I asked.
She thought for several seconds.
“Older. Italian. Very polite.”
She found a photograph online.
Vittorio.
My blood ran cold.
He hadn't merely known about the child.
He had arranged her adoption.
“Where is she?”
The employee shook her head.
“Records were sealed.”
Marco's investigators worked through the night.
At 2:13 a.m., they found a court petition filed four years earlier.
Adoptive parents requesting a name change.
The little girl had been renamed Lily.
She lived outside Chicago.
Twenty-six miles from my mansion.
We drove there at dawn.
A modest suburban house.
Bicycles on the lawn.
Chalk drawings on the driveway.
A woman opened the door.
Behind her stood a little girl with dark hair.
She looked like Ana.
Not identical.
But similar.
The adoptive mother listened as our attorney explained enough to prevent panic.
She had believed the adoption was completely legal.
She had never heard of Vittorio.
Then she brought out the original sealed packet she received from the agency.
Inside was a letter.
Written by Sofia.
To whoever loves my daughter,
If you are reading this, then something happened that prevented me from raising her.
Please understand she was never abandoned.
She was hidden.
My hands trembled.
But one sentence changed everything.
Her biological father is not my husband, Alejandro.
I stopped breathing.
Marco stared at me.
The adoptive mother covered her mouth.
Sofia had another child.
But Lily wasn't mine.
Then I turned the page.
Sofia had written the father's name.
And when I read it, I understood why Vittorio had hidden her.
May you like
The father was Vittorio Moretti's only son.
A son who supposedly died ten years earlier.
