Chapter 3 - Blood Doesn't Lie
By dawn, the tension inside the estate had stretched into an agonizing wire. A private medical team had arrived under heavy guard, taking cheek swabs and blood vials from both Eleanor and Isabella. Eleanor sat on the edge of a massive guest bed upstairs, feeling hollowed out. A silk robe had been left for her, but she refused to take off her wrinkled work uniform. Stripping it off felt like surrendering the only identity she had ever owned.
A knock sounded, and the heavy oak door creaked open. It was Isabella, wrapped in a dark cashmere shawl, walking with the aid of a silver-tipped cane. Without her makeup, the woman looked ancient, but her eyes possessed a ferocious, lucid clarity.
""May I sit with you, child?"" the matriarch asked softly.
Eleanor hesitated, then nodded. ""You don't need to call me 'child'. My name is Eleanor.""
""Eleanor,"" Isabella tested the name on her tongue, smiling with heartbreaking tenderness. ""It suits you. Strong. Beautiful. But your mother named you Sophia. She used to sing to you while pressing that willow locket to your tiny chest, promising that our roots would always protect you.""
""Why didn't anyone find me?"" Eleanor’s voice cracked, betrayal rising unbidden from the depths of her childhood memories—the freezing foster bedrooms, the abusive guardians, the nights crying herself to sleep wondering what she had done wrong to be discarded. ""If your family is so powerful, if you own politicians and police, how could you leave me in a system that treated me like garbage?""
Isabella’s eyes filled with tears, reaching out to gently touch Eleanor’s cheek. Eleanor wanted to flinch away, but the sheer, agonizing warmth of the touch held her still. ""Because the man who set that fire was not a stranger from the outside. It was someone inside our bloodline who wanted Chiara dead to inherit her shares. They made sure the trail went cold. They paid off the state workers to lose your birth records. We searched for a ghost, darling, while you were hiding in plain sight.""
The heavy door was pushed open suddenly. Alessandro stood in the threshold, an unsealed Manila envelope in his hand. His expression was completely unreadable, a mask carved from granite.
""The lab just finished running the rapid PCR,"" Alessandro said, his voice dropping an octave.
May you like
Isabella stood up slowly, gripping her cane. ""Alessandro. Tell me.""
He pulled out the document, his dark eyes locking onto Eleanor with an intensity that made the air vanish from her lungs. ""It’s a 99.9% maternal match to Chiara Moretti’s DNA profile on file. She isn't an impostor, Nonna."" He paused, a shadow of something dangerous and fiercely protective flickering across his features. ""She is Sophia Moretti. She is family.""
