Chapter 6 - THE NAME ON THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE
“Dante, you're frightening her.”
Elena's voice stopped me.
I hadn't raised my voice.
But I was standing so abruptly that my chair had scraped across the kitchen floor.
Sophie stared at me with wide eyes.
I immediately crouched beside her.
“I'm sorry, sweetheart.”
“Are you mad?”
“Not at you.”
She looked at the folded card.
“Did I do something bad?”
“No.”
I made myself smile.
“You helped me understand something important.”
Sophie considered that.
“Can I still have spaghetti?”
I almost laughed.
“Absolutely.”
She returned to her drawing.
And I sat back down, carrying the weight of what she'd just handed me.
Someone had interfered with her birth records.
Someone had hidden her identity.
And Vittorio had known enough to tell her about it.
The next morning, Elena took me to the Philadelphia clinic where Sophie had been born.
We didn't bring guards inside.
Angelo waited across the street.
The building was smaller than I expected.
Two floors.
Blue shutters.
A waiting room with mismatched chairs and a fish tank.
Elena looked uncomfortable the moment we entered.
“I hate this place,” she admitted.
“Why?”
“Because I was so alone.”
I looked at her.
She kept her eyes on the reception desk.
“I remember sitting in that chair when I was seven months pregnant. Everyone else had someone holding their hand.”
I wanted to tell her what I would have done if I'd known.
But that wouldn't change the memory.
So I said nothing.
The clinic manager, Mrs. Rebecca Stanton, agreed to meet us after Elena presented identification and requested her own maternity records.
She was a careful woman with kind eyes and an old-fashioned cardigan.
“I remember you,” she told Elena.
Elena smiled politely.
“I remember you too.”
Mrs. Stanton looked at me.
“And you must be Mr. Moretti.”
The room went silent.
“How do you know my name?” I asked.
She appeared confused.
“It was in the correspondence.”
“What correspondence?”
Mrs. Stanton opened the archive folder.
“Your family office handled the expenses.”
Elena leaned forward.
“We thought the clinic had arranged reduced-cost care.”
“The foundation covered the fees.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who requested that?”
Mrs. Stanton turned a page.
“Katherine Bell.”
There it was again.
Katherine.
The woman who had engineered our separation.
“Was she present when Sophie was born?” Elena asked.
Mrs. Stanton hesitated.
“She visited the clinic that afternoon.”
Elena looked stunned.
“I never saw her.”
“You were recovering.”
“Why would she come?”
Mrs. Stanton opened another folder.
“According to the notes, she was verifying confidential family records.”
She showed us a copy of the original birth registration worksheet.
Elena's name was correct.
Sophie's first name was correct.
But the father's section contained a name I had never seen before.
Daniel Carter.
Elena stared.
“I didn't write that.”
Mrs. Stanton frowned.
“Are you certain?”
“I left the father's name blank.”
A cold silence followed.
Then I noticed the handwriting.
The letters leaned sharply to the right.
A particular way of writing the capital D.
I had seen that handwriting before.
On the forged medical reimbursement forms.
On the papers Samuel found.
Someone had invented a father.
Someone had decided Sophie Carter should belong to a man who didn't exist.
Mrs. Stanton contacted the county records office while we waited.
An hour later, she returned looking troubled.
“There was a correction filed three days after the original registration.”
“What correction?” Elena asked.
“The father's field was removed before the official certificate was finalized.”
I exhaled.
“So the official certificate lists no father?”
“Yes.”
“Then why create the false name?”
Mrs. Stanton shook her head.
“I don't know.”
But I had an idea.
The invented name wasn't meant to appear on Sophie's permanent record.
It had been used temporarily.
Long enough to support another document.
A financial document.
I called Samuel.
“Find everything associated with Daniel Carter.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Dante, are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“I'll call you when I have something.”
On our way home, Elena asked me to pull over.
We stopped beside a small park.
Children played near a climbing structure while parents watched from benches.
She sat silently for a long time.
Then she said, “I almost told you.”
I turned.
“When?”
“When I found out I was pregnant.”
Her voice was barely audible.
“I had a little yellow envelope with the first ultrasound picture. I carried it in my purse for three days.”
I looked at her.
“I was going to come to the mansion.”
“What stopped you?”
“Luca.”
The name made my jaw tighten.
“He met me outside the hospital.”
She stared ahead.
“He said you were dead. He showed me photographs of a burned car. He told me the people responsible would find me next.”
I closed my eyes.
“Elena…”
“I thought I'd lost you.”
She wiped at her cheek.
“And then he told me your father blamed me for everything.”
I reached across the console.
This time, she didn't pull away.
“I would have wanted her,” I said.
“I know that now.”
“I would have wanted you both.”
Elena looked at me.
“Would you have left that world?”
I didn't answer immediately.
Because she deserved the truth.
“I was trying to. But I hadn't finished.”
She nodded.
“That was what frightened me before any of this happened.”
“I know.”
“Dante, I can't raise Sophie in a house where every problem is solved with fear.”
I looked down at our joined hands.
“Neither can I.”
By afternoon, Samuel had found Daniel Carter.
Not a person.
A file identity.
The name appeared in trust records connected to a private holding company established five years earlier.
The holding company's beneficiary was listed as a minor.
Sophie Carter.
The fund had originally contained almost twelve million dollars.
It now held less than two hundred thousand.
I stared at the figures.
“Who withdrew the money?”
Samuel's voice sounded tight.
“The withdrawals went through medical and security contracts.”
“Katherine?”
“Some. Others were approved by Luca Ferraro.”
“And Vittorio?”
“His foundation authorized the original transfer.”
I felt sick.
My daughter had been used as a financial instrument before she could walk.
But something about the arrangement confused me.
If Vittorio wanted the money, why place it in Sophie's name at all?
And why had he told her about the forged birth record?
“There's more,” Samuel said.
I waited.
“The holding company is due for an independent audit on Friday.”
“The charity benefit.”
“Yes. The audit committee is meeting immediately before the event.”
“Who requested the audit?”
Samuel hesitated.
“Vittorio.”
I stared at the ceiling.
My uncle had initiated an investigation into the very structure that implicated him.
Either he was far more calculating than I understood…
Or he was trying to expose something.
That evening, I made an unexpected decision.
I went to Vittorio's townhouse alone.
No guards inside.
No weapons.
Just questions.
My uncle was sitting in his library, looking exhausted.
He seemed older than he had two days earlier.
When I placed the birth registration worksheet before him, his face changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Philadelphia.”
He closed his eyes.
“Then Katherine lied.”
“About what?”
Vittorio looked at me.
“I was told Elena had signed an agreement.”
“What agreement?”
“That the child would be privately supported, and that you would never be told.”
I stared.
“You believed she'd agree to that?”
“I was told she feared your father.”
“She did.”
Vittorio rubbed his forehead.
“But I didn't know they had falsified records.”
“Who is they?”
He looked toward the fireplace.
“Your father. Katherine. Luca.”
“And you?”
He met my eyes.
“I helped create the fund.”
I felt anger rise again.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to make sure your daughter had money your father couldn't take away.”
I almost laughed.
“You hid twelve million dollars under a false name to protect her?”
“Yes.”
“Then where did it go?”
His face tightened.
“That is what I'm trying to discover.”
I studied him.
For the first time, I believed he might be telling part of the truth.
Not all of it.
But part.
“Why tell Sophie about the birth certificate?”
Vittorio looked confused.
“I didn't.”
I went still.
“She said you gave her a card.”
“What card?”
I showed him.
He stared at the photograph of the watch.
Then his expression changed completely.
“This isn't my watch.”
I frowned.
“It looks exactly like it.”
“The crystal,” he whispered.
He held out his wrist.
The real watch had a long scratch crossing the lower right corner.
In the photograph, the scratch crossed the upper left.
A mirrored image.
Someone had photographed the watch years earlier.
And deliberately altered the image.
Vittorio looked up.
“Dante, listen carefully. I visited Sophie because I wanted to meet her. I gave her the rabbit. But I never gave her that card.”
“Then who did?”
He hesitated.
And when he spoke, his voice was barely audible.
“Someone who knew she'd trust a message from Grandpa V.”
He reached into his desk and removed a small leather notebook.
“Your father left this behind. I thought it was nothing.”
Inside were dates, initials, and financial amounts.
On the final page was a handwritten instruction.
If the girl is ever found, Katherine must deliver the original letter.
I looked at my uncle.
“What original letter?”
May you like
He swallowed.
“The one Elena supposedly wrote when she left you.”
