Chapter 4 - The Name on the Marriage RecordThe church contained one secret that could destroy Alessandro's empire.
The church stood three neighborhoods south of the river.
Old stone.
Black iron gates.
Rain streaking down the stained-glass windows.
Alessandro parked beneath the side entrance.
Two guards stayed outside.
I carried Mia inside.
The woman from the phone had told me to come alone.
Alessandro ignored that instruction.
We entered the sanctuary.
No one was there.
The candles were still burning.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The second was the photograph.
It stood on the altar.
My mother.
I walked toward it.
There was writing beneath the frame.
FOR THE WOMAN WHO KEPT THE WRONG SECRET.
My hands went cold.
Alessandro stood beside me.
“We shouldn't be here.”
“You came anyway.”
“I don't leave you alone with people who threaten you.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
He didn't answer.
A door opened behind the altar.
An elderly priest appeared.
Father Gabriel.
His eyes immediately found Mia.
Then mine.
“You look like Marina.”
“You knew my mother?”
He smiled sadly.
“I married her.”
I stared.
“My mother wasn't married.”
“She was.”
Alessandro stepped forward.
“To whom?”
Father Gabriel looked at him.
Then at Mia.
“To a man named Adrian Bellini.”
My knees almost buckled.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
I had spent my entire life thinking my father was unknown.
A mistake.
A disappearance.
A name my mother refused to discuss.
But he existed.
Adrian Bellini.
Father Gabriel led us into a side room.
He placed a register on the table.
Old.
Leather-bound.
My mother’s name was inside.
Marina Bellini.
Married.
The date was twenty-seven years ago.
Then I saw something underneath.
Witnesses.
Vittorio Duca.
Alessandro stiffened.
“My father attended the wedding?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Father Gabriel folded his hands.
“Because Adrian Bellini wasn't just Marina's husband.”
Alessandro leaned forward.
“Who was he?”
“Your father's biological son.”
The room went silent.
I looked at Alessandro.
He looked like he had been struck.
“My father had two sons.”
“No.”
Father Gabriel corrected him.
“One son.”
A pause.
“And a daughter.”
My heart began pounding.
“Who?”
Father Gabriel looked at me.
“Marina.”
I couldn't breathe.
“My mother was Vittorio Duca's daughter?”
“Yes.”
Alessandro stepped backward.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if you know the story.”
Father Gabriel opened another page.
“Marina was born from Vittorio Duca's affair with a woman named Sofia Bellini.”
My mother's name.
My father's surname.
Everything was beginning to connect.
Then Father Gabriel reached for another document.
“A marriage contract.”
He slid it toward me.
It was between Marina Duca and Adrian Bellini.
The surname Bellini had been added to conceal her identity.
She was Duca blood.
And Adrian was her half-brother.
I stared at the document in horror.
“That marriage wasn't legal.”
“No.”
Father Gabriel shook his head.
“Because it was never a marriage.”
Alessandro stared.
“What?”
“It was protection.”
My confusion deepened.
Father Gabriel lowered his voice.
“Adrian wasn't Marina's husband. He was her assigned protector.”
“Assigned by whom?”
“Your father.”
Alessandro's eyes narrowed.
“My father protected her from whom?”
Father Gabriel looked at me.
“From the Duca family itself.”
A cry escaped Mia.
I looked down.
She had started crying.
The sound echoed through the empty church.
Father Gabriel went pale.
“She has the same birthmark.”
“What birthmark?”
He pointed beneath Mia's left ear.
A tiny crescent-shaped mark.
I had always thought it was just a stain.
“What does it mean?”
Father Gabriel didn't answer.
Instead he opened a drawer and removed one final envelope.
My mother's handwriting.
Elena,
You deserve the truth.
You are not my only child.
I stopped reading.
My eyes moved to the next line.
I have another daughter.
Alessandro suddenly grabbed the letter.
“What did you say?”
I looked at him.
My voice barely worked.
“My mother had another daughter.”
“Where is she?”
I kept reading.
Her name is Isabella.
She was taken from the hospital eight months ago.
The same night Mia was born.
My vision blurred.
I looked down at my baby.
“No.”
Alessandro took the letter from me.
His eyes scanned the page.
Then he looked at Mia.
“Elena.”
“What?”
“She doesn't say Isabella was taken.”
“What does she say?”
May you like
His face hardened.
“She says Isabella was replaced.”
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