Chapter 9 – The Second Page

The bright morning sun streaming through the dining room windows suddenly felt ice cold.

I stared at the screen of my phone.

Emergency Contact / Spouse: Carlo Russo.

Matteo’s father.

Rose’s husband.

My fingers trembled so badly I nearly dropped the phone into my tea.

“Maggie?” Matteo asked, noticing my sudden pallor. “Are you alright?”

I quickly shoved the phone into my pocket, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs.

“I… I just remembered I left the iron on in the laundry room,” I stammered, standing up so fast my chair scraped loudly against the hardwood. “Excuse me.”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I practically ran out of the dining room.

I locked myself in my small bedroom in the staff quarters.

I pulled the phone out and stared at the document again.

It had to be a mistake. A coincidence. Carlo Russo was a common enough name.

But as I zoomed in on the document, I saw the address listed next to his name.

1400 Palisades Estate Drive.

This house.

My mother, a poor immigrant woman who died of illness when I was six, had claimed the most powerful mafia boss in New York was her husband.

I paced the small room, struggling to breathe.

If this was true, I wasn’t just the head of the household.

I was Matteo’s half-sister.

I walked over to my small wooden dresser. I pulled out a hidden box where I kept my mother’s few remaining possessions.

Inside was a tarnished silver bracelet.

My mother had tied it around my wrist the day she died. I had worn it until the clasp broke, then kept it hidden safely in this box.

It had a strange, interlocking pattern engraved on the metal.

I had never thought much of it.

Until now.

I needed to know the truth. But I couldn’t just walk into the dining room and accuse Carlo Russo of having a secret family. It would destroy Rose.

I needed proof.

I remembered the envelope.

The letter Carlo had left for Matteo. The one that exposed Lauren and Anthony.

Matteo had taken it to his study after we returned from Chicago.

That night, after the house fell silent, I crept down the grand hallway toward Matteo’s office.

The heavy oak doors were unlocked.

I slipped inside, leaving the lights off, using only the moonlight filtering through the windows.

Matteo’s massive mahogany desk was impeccably organized.

I opened the top drawer.

There it was. The thick manila envelope.

I pulled out the heavy parchment paper.

I read the first page again, the one exposing Lauren.

But as I flipped it over, I noticed something Matteo had missed in the chaos of the dinner party.

The paper was unusually thick.

I rubbed the edge between my fingers.

It wasn’t one page. It was two pages, carefully glued together at the edges.

I grabbed a silver letter opener from the desk and gently sliced the seal.

The pages separated.

Written on the hidden second page, in Carlo’s bold handwriting, were the words:

To Matteo. When the war with the Morettis is over, you must fulfill my final oath.

Twenty-six years ago, a woman named Sofia Cole saved my life during an ambush in Brooklyn. She hid me. She bled for me. I promised to protect her family forever.

She had a daughter named Maggie.

I brought the girl into our home as a housekeeper to keep her safe from the rival families who still hunt Sofia’s bloodline.

Maggie is not your sister, Matteo.

She is the true heir to the Cole Syndicate. The only family that ever commanded more respect than the Russos.

I stopped breathing.

The letter opener clattered to the desk.

I wasn’t Carlo’s illegitimate daughter.

My mother wasn’t a poor immigrant.

She was a mafia queen. And I was her heir.

Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the study swung open, flooding the room with light.

Matteo stood in the doorway, staring at me holding the torn letter.

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