Chapter 7 - THE LAST LIE ELIZABETH TOLD ME
I couldn't stop staring at the date.
October 18, 2020.
Six years earlier.
The day I had sat beside Elizabeth Brooks's hospital bed and watched her take her last breath.
She had been fifty-two.
She had worked until she could barely stand.
And in the final week of her life, she had apologized repeatedly for leaving Emily and me with so little.
I remembered the hospital room.
The pale green walls.
The paper cup of untouched water.
The way Elizabeth had squeezed my hand.
Promise me you'll look after your sister.
I had promised.
Now Gabriel's notebook suggested even that memory had been surrounded by lies.
“What does it mean?” I whispered.
Gabriel shook his head.
“I don't know.”
I turned toward Luca.
“You need to tell me the truth.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“Your initials are beside my mother's name.”
“Then someone used them.”
“Who?”
Luca looked at Adrian.
Adrian shook his head.
“I never handled those payments.”
Gabriel stepped between us.
“Before anyone accuses anyone else, we need to understand the notation.”
He opened the notebook to an earlier page.
“Look.”
Beside several entries were initials.
V.M.
C.B.
A.R.
And L.M.
Gabriel pointed to the first three.
“Vittorio Moretti. Celeste Bellini. Adrian Russo.”
Then he tapped the last pair.
“Luca Moretti.”
I swallowed.
“But Luca was only twenty when those payments began.”
“Exactly.”
Gabriel turned another page.
“His initials appear on payments dated before he inherited control of the company.”
Luca frowned.
“Then whoever recorded these wasn't using them as authorization by me.”
Adrian studied the page.
“Maybe L.M. wasn't Luca.”
Gabriel looked up.
“There was another L.M. in the family.”
Luca froze.
“My father.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Lorenzo Moretti.”
The room went silent.
Lorenzo.
The father who had supposedly died thirty years earlier.
The man whose wedding ring lay inside a wooden box.
I stared at the initials.
Another truth had changed shape.
But my mother was still dead.
And someone had still hidden the circumstances.
Gabriel drove us to the hospital where Elizabeth had spent her final days.
The building had been renovated.
The pale green walls were now white.
The reception desk had moved.
But the familiar smell of disinfectant brought everything back.
I remembered standing in that corridor at nineteen, too frightened to ask the doctor whether Elizabeth was dying.
A medical records administrator named Mrs. Carver met us in a private office.
She was a woman in her sixties with kind eyes and a practical voice.
Gabriel had arranged the meeting after I authorized the release of the records.
Mrs. Carver placed a folder in front of me.
“Your mother's medical records show a chronic heart condition.”
I swallowed.
“She told us it was pneumonia.”
“She was treated for pneumonia during her final admission,” Mrs. Carver said. “But her underlying condition was serious heart failure.”
I stared at the pages.
“Why didn't she tell me?”
Mrs. Carver's expression softened.
“Families don't always share everything, especially when they're trying to protect their children.”
There were no signs of poisoning.
No suspicious medication changes.
No hidden murder.
Elizabeth had died from an illness she had kept mostly private.
But that answer raised another question.
Why had the payments stopped before her death?
Mrs. Carver looked through the file.
Then she pointed to a section near the back.
“Your mother had been receiving financial assistance through a private trust.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“What trust?”
“The Sparrow Foundation.”
My heart stopped.
Sparrow.
Elizabeth's nickname for me.
The same word Margaret knew.
The same bird on Luca's silver charm.
Mrs. Carver continued.
“The trust paid for treatment and certain living expenses. But the account was frozen in 2020.”
“Who froze it?” I asked.
Mrs. Carver checked the file.
“The notice came from an attorney representing the trust administrator.”
She handed me a photocopy.
The name at the bottom was familiar.
Bellini Family Holdings.
I looked at Luca.
His expression was grim.
“Celeste.”
We returned to the Moretti mansion that evening.
Vanessa was sitting alone in the library.
She looked up when we entered.
“Did you find anything?”
I placed the hospital records on the desk.
“You knew about the Sparrow Foundation?”
Her face changed.
She didn't answer.
Luca stepped forward.
“Vanessa.”
She lowered her eyes.
“My mother mentioned it.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Why didn't you tell us?”
Vanessa looked at me.
“Because I thought it was a charity.”
I felt anger rise in my chest.
“My mother couldn't afford her heart medication.”
Vanessa flinched.
“I didn't know.”
“She worked until she collapsed.”
“Natalie—”
“She died believing she'd failed us.”
Vanessa's eyes filled.
“I am sorry.”
I wanted to scream at her.
I wanted to make her understand what it had been like to count pennies at the grocery store while Elizabeth pretended she wasn't hungry.
But then Vanessa said something unexpected.
“My mother told me the foundation paid for a woman's care because the Moretti family had ruined her life.”
Luca frowned.
“What woman?”
“Isabella.”
Margaret, who had been sitting quietly near the window, lifted her head.
Vanessa continued.
“I thought the payments were compensation. I thought Mother was helping someone the Morettis had hurt.”
“Then why stop the payments?” I asked.
Vanessa looked ashamed.
“Because I found the account.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
She wiped her face.
“In 2020, I was helping Mother restructure the family companies. I saw payments going to a woman named Elizabeth Brooks.”
My fingers went cold.
“I asked who she was. Mother said she was someone who had been taking money for years.”
“And you believed her?”
“Yes.”
Vanessa's voice cracked.
“I believed my mother.”
She looked down.
“I told her the payments should be reviewed. I didn't know they were paying for medical treatment. I didn't know Elizabeth had children.”
I closed my eyes.
The woman who had humiliated me for being poor had helped stop the money that might have eased Elizabeth's final months.
She hadn't known who Elizabeth was.
But her ignorance had still caused harm.
Luca spoke quietly.
“You could have asked questions.”
Vanessa nodded.
“I know.”
For once, she didn't defend herself.
Margaret asked to speak with me privately.
We went into the smaller sitting room.
She took my hands.
“Elizabeth didn't tell you about her illness because she wanted you to have a childhood.”
“I was nineteen.”
“She'd been ill for years.”
I stared at her.
“Did you know?”
Margaret nodded.
“Yes.”
Anger surged through me.
“And you never came?”
“I tried.”
She reached into her handbag.
She removed an old train ticket.
The date was October 17, 2020.
One day before Elizabeth died.
“I was on my way to see her.”
“What happened?”
“Someone stopped me at the station. A man I'd never met. He told me if I went to Pennsylvania, Emily would be taken away.”
I felt sick.
“Who was he?”
Margaret shook her head.
“I never knew his name.”
“Why didn't you go to the police?”
“I did. But I had no evidence, and the man vanished.”
I looked at the ticket.
All these years, I had thought Elizabeth died alone except for Emily and me.
Now I knew someone had tried to reach her.
Margaret opened her handbag again.
She removed a small envelope.
“Elizabeth gave this to a nurse before she died. She asked that it reach me if anything happened.”
Inside was a folded letter.
My name was written on the front.
Natalie.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
My darling Sparrow,
If you are reading this, then I wasn't brave enough to tell you everything while I was alive.
I loved you from the first day I held you. Nothing about your birth changes that.
There is a woman you deserve to know. Her name is Isabella.
And there is a man you must be careful of. His name is Lorenzo Moretti.
I stopped breathing.
The next sentence was written with a shaky hand.
He isn't the father everyone thinks he is.
I looked at Margaret.
“What does that mean?”
She began crying.
“Elizabeth wanted you to hear it from Isabella.”
I stared at the letter.
Then turned the page.
The final paragraph contained a name and an address.
If Isabella is ever found, take her to St. Agnes Rehabilitation Center. Ask for Sister Helen. She knows why Lorenzo kept the truth hidden.
I looked up.
“Where is St. Agnes?”
Margaret swallowed.
“Connecticut.”
Luca entered the room just as I asked.
He saw the letter in my hands.
“What happened?”
I looked at him.
“Elizabeth knew your father.”
Luca's expression tightened.
“What did she say?”
I handed him the letter.
He read it.
Then his face went pale.
“Lorenzo isn't the father everyone thinks he is?”
Before either of us could speak, Gabriel appeared in the doorway.
He had been studying the original negatives.
His expression was grave.
“I think I know what Elizabeth meant.”
Luca looked at him.
Gabriel held up a restored photograph.
It showed Lorenzo standing beside Isabella at the hospital on the day I was born.
But there was something I hadn't noticed before.
On Lorenzo's wrist was a hospital identification band.
Gabriel turned the photograph over.
Written on the back were four words:
He gave her his name.
Luca whispered, “Who?”
May you like
Gabriel looked directly at me.
“Natalie, Lorenzo Moretti wasn't your biological father.”
