Chapter 5 - THE PROMISE LUCA FORGOT
“Alessandro Moretti wrote this?”
I stared at the signature on the back of the photograph.
My mother nodded.
“He sent it to me four months after your adoption was finalized.”
“Why?”
“He wanted me to understand that he hadn't forgotten you.”
I felt anger rise in my chest.
“Then why didn't he come for me?”
“Because by then he understood that you were safer away from the estate.”
“Safer from whom?”
She shook her head.
“I never knew.”
I looked again at the photograph of the teenage Luca holding my hand.
The little girl beside him was smiling.
Not frightened.
Not lonely.
For one brief moment, I could almost remember standing on those stone steps.
And I remembered something else.
A boy promising that if I ever got lost, he'd come looking.
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“Mom, I need to speak to Luca.”
She looked frightened.
“Emily—”
“I've spent eleven months working in his house. I've served him coffee. I've cleaned his office. I've taken care of his son.”
My voice broke.
“And all that time, he might have been somebody who once promised to protect me.”
My mother reached for my hand.
“Then you deserve to ask him why he didn't.”
The following morning, Marco arrived to drive me back to the mansion.
He didn't mention the dinner.
But when we reached the gates, I noticed that the flowers and banners prepared for the engagement celebration had been removed.
Inside, the house felt different.
Quieter.
Luca waited in the library.
He had changed into a charcoal sweater and dark trousers.
His tattoos showed beneath his rolled sleeves.
On the desk lay both red mittens.
Nicholas sat on the rug nearby, drawing a picture.
When he saw me, his face brightened.
“Miss Emily!”
He ran toward me.
I knelt and hugged him.
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
“Daddy said you hurt your finger.”
“Just a little.”
He inspected the bandage.
“Does it still hurt?”
“Not much.”
He nodded seriously.
“Okay. I made you a snowman.”
He held up his drawing.
Three round circles.
An orange scarf.
A tiny red hat.
And beside the snowman stood four stick figures.
Daddy.
Mommy.
Nicholas.
Emily.
My eyes filled.
“That's beautiful.”
He smiled.
“Mommy's up in heaven, so I put her in the sky.”
He pointed to a little yellow star.
I kissed his forehead.
Then Luca asked Nicholas to have breakfast with Marco.
The little boy hesitated.
“Is Emily staying?”
I looked at Luca.
He answered carefully.
“She'll tell us what she wants to do.”
Nicholas nodded.
Then he left.
Luca waited until the door closed.
“Emily, I owe you an apology.”
I shook my head.
“Before you apologize, I need to show you something.”
I placed the photograph from my mother's biscuit tin on his desk.
He looked at it.
His expression changed immediately.
“Where did you get this?”
“My mother kept it.”
He picked it up.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he whispered, “Clara.”
I felt my chest tighten.
“You remember me?”
Luca looked up.
His eyes were wet.
“I remember a little girl who followed me everywhere.”
I sat slowly.
He turned the photograph toward himself.
“You were always asking questions. You wanted to know why the clocks in the hallway chimed at different times.”
Despite everything, I smiled faintly.
“That sounds like me.”
“You used to call me Lucky because you couldn't say Luca properly.”
My eyes burned.
“Did you promise to find me?”
His face changed.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
He lowered the photograph.
“One afternoon, my father told me you'd been placed with relatives. He said you'd be happier there.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“I asked for your address. He refused.”
Luca ran a hand through his hair.
“I was eighteen. I argued with him. I threatened to leave the house. He told me that if I tried to find you, the people looking for you might follow me straight to your new home.”
“Who was looking for me?”
“He wouldn't say.”
I studied his face.
“Did you stop trying?”
“No.”
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk.
Inside was an old silver wristwatch with a cracked leather strap.
He placed it between us.
“My father gave me this when I turned sixteen. I sold it to pay someone to search the placement records.”
I looked at him.
“You sold his watch?”
“He bought it back before I knew. Then he locked it away.”
“Did the search find anything?”
“Only that your legal name had changed and the adoption was sealed.”
He looked at me.
“When I inherited the house, I found the watch among his belongings. I kept it because it reminded me of the promise I hadn't kept.”
I touched the old leather strap.
“You didn't recognize me when I came to work here.”
His expression tightened.
“You were introduced as Emily Carter. You were twenty-four. You had different hair. Different eyes than I remembered in that little girl's face.”
He swallowed.
“And I never imagined my father had hidden you in the same city.”
I wanted to be angry.
Part of me still was.
But the sight of that old watch made it harder.
“You knew about the family connection?”
“Not the truth. I thought you were a child my father had taken into his care.”
“Mr. Bellini said you were a ward.”
“Yes.”
I turned the photograph over.
“Your father wrote something.”
Luca read the message.
His jaw tightened.
“Daniel.”
“Do you know him?”
Luca nodded.
“Daniel Mercer. My father's former accountant.”
“Was he dangerous?”
Luca hesitated.
“He was accused of stealing money from the family trust. My father dismissed him around the time you disappeared.”
“And you believed he did it?”
“For years.”
I looked at him.
“But your father wrote that Daniel wasn't the one who betrayed me.”
Luca stared at the photograph.
Then reached for the telephone on his desk.
He called Marco into the library.
“Find out where Daniel Mercer is living.”
Marco nodded.
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Nobody touches Emily's belongings or the documents in this room.”
After Marco left, Luca looked at my bandaged finger.
“I spoke with Vanessa this morning.”
I stiffened.
“She admits she took the mitten and tried to open Amelia's storage case.”
“Why?”
“She says her father convinced her the contents could destroy several families.”
“Does she believe him?”
“I don't know.”
He looked toward the door.
“I've postponed the wedding indefinitely.”
I was surprised by the word.
“Postponed?”
“Until I understand what she did and why.”
I nodded.
It wasn't my decision.
But I hoped Luca understood that Vanessa's cruelty toward Nicholas couldn't simply be explained away.
He seemed to read my thoughts.
“She won't be living here while we sort this out.”
I looked at the red mittens.
“Good.”
Luca moved toward the window.
“There is something else. Adrian says Amelia left a separate instruction concerning you.”
My stomach tightened.
“What instruction?”
“He can't release it until he establishes that Clara Moretti and Emily Carter are the same person through the original adoption and custody records.”
I folded my hands.
“Then we'll find those records.”
Before he could answer, Marco returned.
His expression was grave.
“Mr. Moretti, I found Daniel Mercer.”
Luca straightened.
“Where?”
“He's living in a small assisted-care apartment outside Milwaukee. He's seventy-one.”
“Can he speak?”
“Yes.”
“Then arrange a meeting.”
Marco hesitated.
“There's something else.”
He handed Luca a recent photograph.
It showed an elderly man sitting in a wheelchair beside a young boy.
I didn't recognize the man.
But the boy wore a red winter coat.
Around his neck hung a small brass disk.
A snowflake was engraved on its surface.
I stared.
“Where did he get that?”
Marco looked at me.
“That's what I was hoping you could explain.”
He turned the photograph over.
Written across the back were six words.
For Clara, when she remembers Daniel.
Luca looked toward the two mittens.
May you like
Then back at the photograph.
And said quietly, “Emily, I think we found the person Amelia was trying to protect.”
