Chapter 2 - THE NAME ON THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE
“Your father never had another child, Mr. Moretti.”
Henry Walker's voice was barely audible above the stunned murmurs around the dinner table.
“Then explain this.”
Luca held the birth certificate between two fingers.
The child's name was Eleanor Rose Moretti.
The father's name was Marco Vincent Moretti.
Luca's father.
And beneath the mother's name was a woman Luca had never heard of.
Catherine Rose Carter.
My knees nearly gave way.
Carter.
My own last name.
I had spent twenty-five years believing my mother was a quiet widow who had worked herself into an early grave.
Now her name was printed on a document that claimed she had given birth to Luca Moretti's sister.
“Olivia?”
Henry was watching me.
I couldn't speak.
Luca noticed.
“Do you recognize that name?”
I looked at him, then at the certificate.
“Catherine Carter was my mother.”
A terrible silence settled over the ballroom.
Vanessa stopped crying.
Richard Bellini slowly lowered himself into his chair.
And the chief financial officer beside him, David Mercer, turned so pale that I thought he might faint.
Luca stared at me.
“That's impossible.”
I almost laughed.
He had said those words twice in less than five minutes.
And both times, I wished he was right.
“My mother died when I was sixteen,” I whispered. “She raised me and my younger brother, Noah. She never mentioned your family.”
Henry closed his eyes.
“Then she kept her promise.”
“What promise?”
He reached for the birth certificate.
I pulled it away before I realized what I was doing.
“Don't.”
Henry's expression softened.
“Miss Carter, I knew your mother.”
My throat tightened.
“You knew her?”
“She was the bravest woman I ever met.”
The words hurt more than I expected.
For years, I had been angry with my mother.
Angry that she'd worked nights instead of attending school concerts.
Angry that she'd refused to tell me anything about my father.
Angry that she'd left behind unpaid bills and a small wooden box filled with things she never explained.
And now a stranger was telling me she'd been brave.
“Then why did she die alone?” I asked.
Henry looked down.
Before he could answer, Vanessa stepped forward.
“Luca, darling, this is clearly some elaborate scheme. The maid and the old driver are working together.”
I turned toward her.
“Five minutes ago, you called him a beggar. Now he's a criminal?”
Her cheeks flushed.
“You've already been fired.”
“No,” Luca said quietly.
Everyone looked at him.
“Olivia works for me. And she is not leaving.”
For the first time that evening, Vanessa seemed to understand that her usual influence over him had vanished.
Luca turned to Henry.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Henry gripped the back of a chair.
“Eleven years ago, your father discovered someone was using the Moretti shipping companies to move money into private accounts. He suspected Richard Bellini, but the records had been altered.”
Richard slammed his palm on the table.
“That's a lie!”
Henry didn't look at him.
“Marco asked Catherine Carter to help him. She was an accounting clerk at one of your warehouses. She found the discrepancies everyone else had missed.”
Luca frowned.
“My father had hundreds of employees.”
“He trusted very few.”
“Why her?”
Henry hesitated.
“Because years earlier, she'd saved his life.”
I remembered my mother keeping a photograph inside her Bible.
A dark-haired man standing beside a blue Chevrolet.
Whenever I asked about him, she said he was someone she'd helped a long time ago.
I had assumed he was a former employer.
“What happened after she discovered the theft?” I asked.
Henry looked toward David Mercer.
“She copied the original records. Three days later, Marco's brakes failed.”
David abruptly stood.
“I refuse to participate in this circus.”
Luca's security chief, Anthony Russo, stepped into his path.
“Sit down, David.”
The CFO obeyed.
But his hand slipped beneath his jacket.
I saw the movement.
So did Henry.
“Don't let him destroy the folded paper in his pocket,” Henry said.
Anthony retrieved it.
David protested, but Luca raised one hand.
“Open it.”
The paper contained three handwritten account numbers and a payment authorization dated eleven years earlier.
The authorization bore Richard Bellini's initials.
Luca studied it.
“Where did this come from?”
David swallowed.
“Your father gave it to me.”
Henry shook his head.
“No. Your father gave the original to Catherine. That's a copy someone created afterward.”
Richard looked toward the doors.
For the first time, the powerful businessman seemed frightened.
Luca turned back to me.
“Olivia, how old is your brother?”
“Twenty.”
“And your mother raised you both?”
“Yes.”
“Was there anyone else?”
I hesitated.
There was something.
A memory I had dismissed for years.
When I was fourteen, my mother had taken us to a church outside Chicago.
She'd insisted we wear our best clothes.
A priest had met us near the back entrance.
And there had been a little girl standing beside him.
She couldn't have been older than four.
She wore a yellow coat and held a silver bracelet.
My mother had knelt in front of her.
She'd kissed the girl's forehead.
And she'd cried.
I remembered asking who the child was.
My mother had answered, “Someone who deserves a family.”
I looked at Luca.
“There was a little girl.”
Henry's fingers tightened around the chair.
“What little girl?”
“I saw her once. At a church. My mother knew her.”
Henry closed his eyes.
“Dear God.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Was her name Eleanor?”
“I don't know.”
Henry reached into his briefcase.
He removed a faded photograph.
It showed my mother standing outside a small brick church.
Beside her was a little girl wearing a yellow coat.
The same child.
The same silver bracelet.
I touched the photograph.
“That's her.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Who is she?”
Henry's eyes filled with tears.
“Her name was Eleanor Rose.”
“Was?”
Henry shook his head.
“Her name was changed after Catherine took her away.”
“Then where is she now?”
Henry looked at me.
And I saw something in his expression that made my stomach turn.
“Olivia, when your mother died, who took care of your brother?”
“I did.”
“Did she ever tell you why he couldn't remember anything before he was five?”
My breathing stopped.
Noah had always been different from me.
He had nightmares about a burning car.
He hated the smell of gasoline.
And whenever he heard church bells, he became strangely quiet.
But Noah was my brother.
My little brother.
The child I'd raised after our mother died.
Henry placed a second photograph beside the first.
It showed two children standing in front of the same church.
A dark-haired girl.
And a little boy holding her hand.
Henry touched the boy's face.
“That's Noah.”
I stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
Henry's next words came slowly.
“I'm saying Catherine Carter didn't give birth to the child on that certificate.”
Luca frowned.
“Then why is her name there?”
Henry turned the birth certificate over.
On the back was a handwritten sentence.
IF THEY FIND THE GIRL, THEY WILL FIND THE BOY.
My hands began trembling.
Henry looked directly at me.
“Olivia, your mother was protecting two children. And one of them was never supposed to survive the night Marco Moretti died.”
Across the room, David Mercer suddenly whispered something to Richard.
I caught only three words.
“The boy knows.”
And then I remembered what Noah had told me that morning.
He'd found an old silver watch inside our mother's wooden box.
Its glass was cracked.
Its hands had stopped at 2:17.
May you like
And engraved on the back were two initials.
M.V.
