She was not merely compatible with him.
She was his half sister.
Elena read the page twice.
“No.”
“Salvatore had another child.”
“No.”
“Your mother—”
“Was not my biological mother.”
She sank onto a wooden pew.
I sat beside her.
For once, I did not know what to say.
The implications were monstrous. Salvatore had fathered Elena, hidden her existence, then allowed his own son to fall in love with her.
But one detail made no sense.
Lily’s DNA did not show the abnormalities expected from such a relationship.
I requested a second analysis.
The result arrived an hour later.
Matteo was not Lily’s biological father.
Elena stared at the screen.
“That’s impossible.”
“Did you sleep with anyone else?”
Her face hardened.
“No.”
“Then the records are wrong.”
“They aren’t.”
A voice came from the darkness behind us.
Matteo stepped into the candlelight.
He was pale, bandaged beneath a stolen coat, but alive.
Elena ran to him.
He caught her with one arm.
“You were kidnapped,” I said.
“No. I left.”
My relief turned instantly to fury.
“You staged the message?”
“I needed to know who followed me.”
“You nearly caused a war inside my house.”
“I discovered one.”
He looked toward Lily, asleep beneath a blanket near the piano.
Then he lowered his voice.
“Elena, I’m sorry.”
She pulled away.
“Lily isn’t yours.”
“I know.”
Her face collapsed.
“What?”
Matteo sat heavily on the pew.
“The night I met you, I was already investigating Salvatore’s genetic accounts. He had created children under false identities because only direct descendants could access different sections of his fortune.”
I understood before Elena did.
“You were assigned to protect her.”
Matteo nodded.
“Elena is Salvatore’s daughter. My half sister.”
She slapped him too.
Matteo accepted it.
“You knew?”
“Not when we fell in love.”
“But you learned.”
“After you became pregnant.”
Her voice broke.
“And you stayed?”
“I stayed because you were carrying a child and because the truth would have destroyed you.”
