Chapter 10 - The Woman in the GraveFor several seconds nobody moved.
Dante lowered his weapon slightly.
“What did you say?”
Victor smiled.
“Isabella isn't dead.”
I stared at him.
“You said she was murdered.”
“I said everyone believed she was.”
Dante stepped forward.
“Where is she?”
Victor looked at me.
“She has been beside you longer than you realize.”
My skin crawled.
“What does that mean?”
Victor nodded toward the photograph.
“The woman in that picture was Elina.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
He continued.
“Isabella was the twin who disappeared.”
My mind struggled to process it.
The woman who died in the accident had been me?
But I was alive.
“I don't understand.”
Victor smiled.
“You were both given different identities.”
“Why?”
“Because one of you had something the other didn't.”
“What?”
“The bloodline.”
Dante stared at him.
“Enough.”
Victor laughed.
“Your father wanted an heir. Carlo wanted leverage. Gabriel's birth changed everything.”
“What was Gabriel's real significance?” I asked.
Victor looked directly at me.
“He was the only child who could expose them.”
I frowned.
“He's a baby.”
“Exactly.”
He pointed toward the medical file.
“His DNA contains markers linking three families.”
“Three?”
“Valdez. Moretti. Rinaldi.”
I looked at him.
“You're saying…”
“Your mother had been investigating a genetic inheritance program controlled by wealthy families.”
Dante's face hardened.
“This is nonsense.”
Victor smiled.
“It wouldn't be if you had read your father's private files.”
A gunshot came from outside.
Victor ducked.
Dante's men rushed in.
When I looked back, Victor had disappeared through a hidden passage.
We chased him.
The passage led to a basement.
Empty.
Except for one room.
A morgue.
Three drawers.
One was open.
Inside was a body.
A woman.
Dark hair.
Black dress.
My face.
Dante stopped breathing.
I couldn't move.
The woman's eyes were closed.
There was a scar on her cheek.
The same scar as the woman in the photograph.
Dante stepped toward her.
“No.”
He touched her face.
His hand trembled.
Then he whispered her name.
“Isabella.”
I stared at the body.
My mind screamed.
The woman looked exactly like me.
Exactly.
But there was one difference.
A tiny scar above the eyebrow.
I had never had it.
Dante looked at the body.
“She's real.”
I swallowed.
“What?”
“This is Isabella.”
I stared.
Victor had lied.
She really was dead.
But then why had he said she was alive?
Dante examined the body.
“She's been dead less than a year.”
I felt sick.
“How long?”
“Ten months.”
Gabriel had been born nine months ago.
Dante looked at me.
“She died one month before Gabriel was born.”
My heartbeat stopped.
“That means…”
“She wasn't the woman in the accident.”
“What?”
Dante turned to one of his men.
“Find the accident report.”
Minutes later, the truth emerged.
The woman who died in the supposed accident had been unidentified.
The body had been buried under Isabella Moretti's name.
But dental records were missing.
DNA had never been performed.
Someone had simply told the authorities who she was.
I whispered:
“They buried the wrong woman.”
Dante nodded.
“Then who was in the grave?”
We returned to the archive.
The answer was waiting in a file.
A woman named Elena Valdez.
I stared.
“My name.”
Dante looked at me.
“Someone created a death record for you.”
The dates matched.
The fake death had happened twenty-four years ago.
I had been declared dead as a child.
Then an entirely different woman had been buried under my sister's name.
I felt dizzy.
“So who am I?”
Dante looked at the DNA records.
“That's what we're going to find out.”
Then Gabriel started crying.
We ran upstairs.
The baby was awake.
He stared at the hallway.
His little face changed.
His arms stretched toward an empty doorway.
Nobody was there.
Then a woman's voice came softly from the darkness.
“Gabriel.”
The baby smiled.
Dante went pale.
I turned.
A woman stood at the end of the corridor.
Dark hair.
Black dress.
My face.
She looked at me.
May you like
And whispered:
“Elina.”
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