Chapter 7 - The Name They Buried
The DNA results arrived two days later.
I was Isabella Moretti.
Not Sofia Reed.
Not the girl I had spent twenty-seven years believing I was.
Isabella Moretti.
Dante’s younger sister.
My brother's biological sister.
The truth should have destroyed me.
Instead, it gave every missing piece a place.
My mother had not lied because she hated me.
She lied because Victor Hale wanted me dead.
She had given me a new name.
A new life.
A new family.
And when Thomas learned the truth, he protected it.
Dante stood beside me when I opened the report.
“I should have known.”
“You couldn't.”
“I looked at your face for six months.”
“You didn't know me.”
“I knew your eyes.”
I looked at him.
He smiled sadly.
“Those were always the same.”
It was the first time I saw him smile for real.
It changed his entire face.
Thomas entered.
“Victor moved.”
“To where?”
“An abandoned courthouse downtown.”
Dante looked at him.
“Why?”
“He wants the database.”
“And?”
“He knows we have the last key.”
I held the key Margaret had given me.
Thomas looked at it.
“That's not the key to the safe.”
“What?”
“It opens something else.”
“What?”
“The archive.”
We followed the coordinates to an old courthouse scheduled for demolition.
Beneath the basement was a hidden archive.
Thousands of files.
Photographs.
Passports.
Birth certificates.
Death certificates.
Lives.
Victor had collected people.
He had rewritten them.
He had erased them.
And at the center was a red folder.
Isabella Moretti.
Inside was a photograph of me as a baby.
Beside it was another photograph.
A woman holding me.
My mother.
Behind her stood a younger Victor.
At the bottom of the folder was a note.
If she survives, she becomes the key.
Dante read it.
“What key?”
Thomas pointed to another document.
A list of offshore accounts.
The accounts could only be accessed using biological information from the Moretti family.
Victor had designed the entire system around Dante's father.
But when Isabella disappeared, he believed the key was lost.
Until now.
I understood.
“He doesn't want me dead.”
Dante looked at me.
“He wants access.”
Thomas nodded.
“And he needs Isabella alive.”
We heard applause.
Victor stepped from the shadows.
“With your intelligence, you might have made an excellent member of my organization.”
Dante raised his weapon.
Victor laughed.
“You really should stop pointing guns at me.”
“Why?”
“Because you're going to need me alive.”
He smiled at me.
“I can restore your identity.”
“You mean the identity you stole.”
“Borrowed.”
“You killed my family.”
“Not all of them.”
He pointed behind me.
A figure stepped into the room.
Margaret.
She was holding a gun.
Tears ran down her face.
“I tried to stop him.”
Victor shook his head.
“Everyone says that eventually.”
Dante moved toward Margaret.
She fired.
The bullet struck the floor.
Thomas tackled Victor.
Chaos erupted.
I grabbed the red folder.
Victor escaped through a side door.
Dante chased him.
I followed.
We ran through the courthouse.
Up stairs.
Across corridors.
Finally we reached the rooftop.
Victor stood at the edge.
Dante aimed at him.
“It's over.”
Victor laughed.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“She still doesn't know the last secret.”
I froze.
“What secret?”
Victor smiled.
“You weren't the child we thought.”
“What does that mean?”
“You weren't switched by accident.”
He stepped backward.
“Your mother chose you.”
“Why?”
“Because Dante’s father had another daughter.”
Dante stared.
Victor smiled wider.
“A real one.”
“What?”
“The girl you think you replaced was never Isabella.”
Silence.
Victor turned to me.
“You were always yourself.”
Then he jumped.
Dante ran to the edge.
But Victor had landed on a lower rooftop.
He disappeared into the smoke.
I stood frozen.
Thomas arrived.
“What did he mean?”
Thomas looked at me.
Then said the words that shattered the last piece of my certainty.
“Victor was lying.”
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“How do you know?”
“Because I found your mother's final letter.”
