Chapter 5

The piece of paper slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the hardwood floor like a dead leaf.

“No,” I whispered, stumbling backward until my legs hit the mattress. I collapsed onto the edge of the bed. “That’s impossible. My mother was a waitress. She worked at a diner in the South Side. She never even mentioned the Moretti family!”

Luca paced the room, running a hand through his dark hair. The revelation was tearing him apart just as much as it was me.

“My father owned half the real estate on the South Side,” Luca said grimly. “He was known for having affairs. My mother, Isabella, turned a blind eye to all of them—except one.”

He stopped pacing and looked at me.

“You told me your mother died of cancer when you were sixteen,” Luca said.

I nodded, wiping a tear from my cheek. “She did. We couldn’t afford her treatments. Arthur—the man I thought was my father—he drank away what little money we had.”

“I remember looking into your background when we first started dating,” Luca continued, his voice tight. “Your mother’s medical bills were paid off anonymously a week before she died. I always assumed it was a charity.”

“It wasn’t?”

“It was Isabella,” Luca said, his eyes darkening with rage. “I found the old bank ledgers a few years ago but didn’t connect the dots. She paid your mother off. But she couldn’t get rid of you. And when I brought you home… when I introduced you as the woman I was going to marry…”

“She panicked,” I realized, the horrifying truth settling over me. “Because she knew I was your half-sister.”

The word half-sister felt like poison on my tongue. I looked at Luca, the man I had loved, the man I had married, the man who fathered my child.

Bile rose in my throat.

“Oh my god,” I gagged, covering my mouth. “Grace… Luca, if we share a father…”

Luca rushed forward, grabbing my shoulders. His grip was firm, grounding me in the spiraling nightmare.

“Emily, look at me,” he commanded. “Look at me!”

I forced my eyes to meet his.

“I am not Lorenzo Moretti’s biological son,” Luca said clearly.

I stopped breathing. “What?”

“I found out three years ago,” Luca confessed, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Lorenzo was sterile. He had an accident in his twenties. He could never have children.”

My mind short-circuited. “But… Isabella… the family legacy…”

“Isabella had an affair,” Luca said bitterly. “With a rival boss in New York. When she got pregnant with me, Lorenzo claimed me to save face. He raised me as his heir because he had no other choice. But I do not have a single drop of Moretti blood in my veins.”

Relief, so intense it made my knees weak, washed over me. I wasn’t related to the man I loved. Grace was safe from the genetic horrors I had just imagined.

But the relief was instantly replaced by a new, terrifying reality.

“If Lorenzo was sterile,” I said slowly, tracing the logic, “then how could he be my biological father?”

Luca stared at me, the exact same realization dawning in his eyes.

“He couldn’t be,” Luca said.

We both looked down at the birth certificate on the floor.

It was a fake. A brilliantly constructed lie meant to tear us apart forever.

“Who would do this?” I asked, shivering. “Who would go to such sickening lengths to make us believe we were siblings?”

Before Luca could answer, a loud, frantic banging echoed from the heavy oak doors.

“Boss! Boss, open up!” Marco yelled from the hallway.

Luca drew his gun again and opened the door.

Marco stood there, bleeding from a cut above his eye.

“What happened to you?” Luca demanded.

“Vanessa,” Marco gasped, clutching his ribs. “When we were escorting her and your mother off the property… Vanessa pulled a gun from her purse. She shot one of the guards and took Isabella hostage.”

“Hostage?” I repeated, stunned. “Why would Vanessa take Isabella hostage?”

Marco looked at Luca with terrified eyes.

“Because Vanessa isn’t just your ex-fiancée, boss. She just screamed that Arthur Vance is her uncle. And they’re coming back for the little girl.”

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