Chapter 7 - THE MAN WHO STOOD BESIDE HER CRADLE
Dante read Sophia's letter three times.
He recognized the handwriting.
He recognized the silver iris symbol.
But he couldn't accept what the final sentence implied.
"The man who ordered the fire was present when Elena was born," he repeated.
Elena studied him.
"Who was there?"
Dante looked toward Boston Harbor.
"My mother. Sophia. Caroline. A physician."
"And?"
He hesitated.
"My father."
The name Vincent Moretti had once been spoken with fear from New York to Boston.
He had built the family's shipping empire before Dante was old enough to understand what that meant.
Officially, Vincent died of a heart attack twelve years earlier.
Unofficially, even death hadn't erased the stories about him.
Elena folded her arms.
"Do you think your father tried to kill my mother?"
"I think he was capable of more than I wanted to believe."
Dante called Marco.
"Bring me every document connected to Sophia's work in 2007. And find out who attended Elena's birth."
That evening, Elena sat inside Dante's private library, surrounded by leather-bound books and photographs of people she had never met.
She had refused the expensive dress his housekeeper offered.
Instead, she wore her own jeans and a soft blue sweater.
Dante appeared carrying two mugs of coffee.
"You've barely eaten."
"I've had enough surprises to last a lifetime."
He placed a plate of sandwiches beside her.
"Eat anyway."
She looked up.
"You give orders even when you're being kind."
"It's a habit."
"Not a particularly attractive one."
His mouth curved.
"Then I'll work on it."
Elena took a sandwich.
For several minutes, they worked in silence.
Then Marco entered with a medical record.
"Boss, we found the birth certificate."
Dante took it.
Elena watched his expression change.
"What?"
"The physician attending your birth was Nathaniel Price."
The same psychiatrist who wanted Elena committed.
She stared at the document.
"That can't be a coincidence."
"No," Dante said. "It isn't."
Marco handed him another photograph.
It showed Vincent Moretti outside a private maternity clinic.
Beside him stood Caroline Whitmore.
But Sophia wasn't the woman Vincent was speaking to.
It was Victoria Belandi's mother.
A woman named Margaret Belandi.
Dante frowned.
"Margaret died in 2010."
Marco shook his head.
"That's what the public record says."
Elena felt a familiar coldness spreading through her chest.
"What do you mean?"
Marco placed an immigration report on the table.
Margaret Belandi had entered the United States from Switzerland six months earlier.
Under a different name.
A name connected to the private medical facility where Sophia had been held.
Elena leaned forward.
Then she noticed something peculiar about the photograph.
Her mother was standing in the background, holding a newborn.
Elena.
Beside Sophia was another infant wrapped in a white hospital blanket.
"Who is that baby?" she asked.
Dante examined the image.
Marco answered quietly.
"That's what we've been trying to determine."
On the back of the photograph, Sophia had written a single sentence.
One child was born into a fortune. The other was born into a lie.
And beneath it were two names.
May you like
Elena Marlo.
Victoria Belandi.
