Chapter 3 - The Secret Hidden in the Boys’ Mother’s Room
The security lockdown lasted forty minutes.
No one entered.
No one left.
Victor moved the boys into the safest room in the house.
They huddled around me.
Marco pretended not to be afraid.
Nico shook visibly.
Alessandro kept asking whether someone would break through the windows.
Luca held my hand.
I kept my voice steady.
“Your father won't let anyone hurt you.”
Marco whispered, “People have said that before.”
I looked at him.
“Then we'll make sure nobody gets the chance to prove them wrong.”
After midnight, Victor entered.
His shirt sleeve was torn.
There was blood on his knuckles.
But it wasn't his.
The boys rushed toward him.
He crouched.
“I'm fine.”
Marco looked at the blood.
“You promise?”
Victor nodded.
“I promise.”
That word sounded different coming from him.
As though he had learned to be careful with it.
When the boys finally slept, Victor asked me to follow him.
We walked to the second floor.
He opened a door.
Inside was Isabella's room.
Nothing had been changed.
A perfume bottle sat on the dresser.
Books remained on the nightstand.
A dress hung inside the closet.
Six years of dust covered everything.
“She died here?”
“No.”
“Then why keep it?”
“Because destroying it felt worse.”
I understood.
On the desk was an old wooden box.
Victor opened it.
Inside were letters.
Photographs.
And a hospital bracelet.
I picked it up.
“Whose?”
He answered:
“Yours.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He took out another document.
My name.
My birth date.
A hospital.
I couldn't breathe.
“This is impossible.”
Victor looked away.
“You were born twenty-eight years ago.”
“Yes.”
“At St. Catherine's.”
I nodded.
“My mother told me.”
“Your mother worked there.”
My fingers trembled.
“What does Isabella have to do with me?”
Victor handed me a letter.
Isabella had written it.
“Serena,” it began.
My knees nearly buckled.
I read.
The letter said Isabella had once known my mother.
They had shared an apartment during their early twenties.
They had both worked at the hospital.
Isabella had discovered that Victor's father was secretly involved in a network trafficking information through the port.
She had helped expose part of it.
My mother had protected her.
Then came the part that shattered everything.
Isabella had discovered that one of the babies in the hospital had been switched.
My baby.
Me.
The letter stated that my original birth records had been altered because someone powerful wanted to hide my biological father's identity.
I looked at Victor.
“Who is my father?”
He didn't answer.
“Victor.”
He handed me another photograph.
A young man.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
I recognized him.
My breath stopped.
It was Victor's older brother, Alessandro Rinaldi.
Victor's dead brother.
“You're saying…”
He nodded.
“You and my brother were connected.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“Your mother believed Alessandro was your father.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
Everything I believed about myself was breaking.
“Then why didn't anyone tell me?”
“Because Alessandro was murdered.”
“By who?”
“We don't know.”
He paused.
“But Isabella was investigating.”
I looked at the letter.
It ended with another sentence.
“Protect Serena if anything happens to me.”
My eyes filled.
“Why would she write that?”
Victor sat across from me.
“Because she believed you were the missing piece.”
“Of what?”
“The reason Alessandro died.”
Silence.
I suddenly understood why my mother had hung up.
Why Victor had known my name.
Why someone had written it on Isabella's photograph.
Someone thought I knew something.
But I didn't.
I had been a poor single mother.
A waitress.
A nanny.
A woman trying to survive.
I had no hidden empire.
No secrets.
No power.
Then Luca walked into the room.
His face was pale.
He looked at the letter.
Then at me.
“That's Mommy's writing.”
Victor froze.
Luca approached me.
“She told us about you.”
I blinked.
“When?”
“Before she died.”
“What did she say?”
He whispered,
“She said someday Serena would come.”
My heart broke.
“Why?”
“She said you would save Daddy.”
Victor went completely still.
“Luca.”
The boy looked at him.
“Mommy said Daddy would forget how to be good.”
I looked at Victor.
He looked devastated.
The next morning, another piece of the mystery appeared.
A courier arrived with a sealed envelope.
Inside was an old photograph of Alessandro holding a baby.
Me.
On the back:
“Rinaldi blood can survive in one of two places. The son or the daughter. Protect both.”
I looked at Victor.
He looked at me.
Then at the four boys.
The implication was terrifying.
Someone had spent twenty-eight years manipulating the Rinaldi bloodline.
And now they believed I had returned.
Not as a maid.
May you like
Not as a nanny.
As an heir.
Related Stories
