Chapter 2

The next morning, I returned to the Moretti estate for my passport and birth certificate.

My attorney needed them to finalize my will, health-care proxy, and final-disposition directive.

The new guard at the gate did not recognize me.

He checked my name twice, then rested one hand near the gun beneath his jacket.

“You’re not on the approved list, ma’am.”

I stared through the iron gates at the house where I had spent the past ten years.

Before I could answer, Mr. Romano, the Morettis’ longtime house manager, hurried down the drive.

His expression tightened when he saw me.

“Miss Adriana. I apologize. Security was replaced last month, and the access list was recently updated.”

Recently updated.

Apparently, leaving this family required no formal goodbye.

They only had to remove my name from a list.

Mr. Romano ordered the gate opened and escorted me inside.

White roses filled the foyer. Photographs of Caesar covered the walls, documenting the dog’s life from puppyhood to his final days.

My mother was adjusting a silver frame above the mantel.

The family portrait from my eighteenth birthday was gone.

She turned at the sound of my footsteps and froze.

“Adriana?”

Her gaze moved over my pale skin and the coat hanging too loosely from my shoulders.

“What are you doing here? Isabella barely slept last night. Please don’t upset her again.”

“I only came for my passport and birth certificate. My lawyer needs them.”

“What lawyer?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll leave as soon as I have them.”

Her eyes lingered on my face.

I thought she might finally see that something was wrong.

Instead, she sighed.

“You’ve starved yourself thin over a cemetery plot?”

“I’m not starving myself.”

“Then stop making yourself sick to punish us. You know how much Isabella loved that dog.”

I did not explain again.

My old bedroom door stood open upstairs.

The bed and desk were gone. The walls had been repainted a warm cream, and glass display cases now lined the room.

Isabella was arranging Caesar’s collar, toys, and silver food bowl inside them.

When she saw me, she clutched the box in her arms.

“I know this used to be your room,” she said carefully. “But Caesar always slept in the sun by that window. Mama thought turning it into his memorial room might make me feel like he was still here.”

My eyes fell on a black trash bag in the corner.

One faded rabbit ear stuck out from the opening.

The stuffed rabbit had been given to me by the director of the children’s home on my seventh birthday.

It was the only possession I had brought with me when I became a Moretti again.

I bent to retrieve it, but my mother stepped between us.

“Those old things were covered in dust. I told the staff to throw them away.”

“That rabbit is mine.”

“You moved out a year ago, Adriana. You can’t leave this room untouched forever.”

Her voice gentled, as if she were trying to reason with a difficult child.

“Isabella is your younger sister. Try to understand what she’s going through.”

Understand.

When Isabella was rejected from the semester program in Rome, I gave up my own place so she would not be left behind.

When the Moretti Foundation held its centennial gala, she was afraid the press would ask why Don Moretti suddenly had two daughters. I stayed away and let New York continue believing she was the family’s only principessa.

Now my bedroom had become a memorial for her dog.

A violent pain tore through my stomach.

I grabbed the doorframe as nausea surged up my throat.

Then I vomited.

Dark blood splashed across the open memorial album, staining Caesar’s final photograph.

Isabella screamed.

“His picture!”

My knees buckled.

My mother caught my arm before I hit the floor.

“Adriana!” Her face drained of color as she stared at the blood. “What happened?”

“The tumor.” I struggled to breathe. “It’s bleeding.”

For one suspended second, she looked terrified.

Then Isabella threw herself into her arms, sobbing.

“She’s lying.”

Mother turned toward her.

“What?”

“It’s fake blood,” Isabella said, her voice beginning to shake. “She must have hidden one of those stage-blood capsules in her mouth.”

She pointed at the ruined album.

“She came straight into Caesar’s room and threw up on the last photograph I ever took of him. She planned this.”

“I didn’t—”

“Why would she do this here if it wasn’t deliberate?” Isabella cried. “She already forged a cancer report to make us feel guilty. Now she’s using fake blood because no one believed her.”

My mother looked back at me.

For one foolish moment, I thought she might finally believe me.

Then the fear in her eyes gave way to suspicion.

Her chest rose and fell with anger. She raised her hand and slapped me across the face.

“Enough. The Moretti family has no daughter who lies as easily as she breathes.”

How pathetic. After everything, one frightened look from her was still enough to make me imagine that my mother might choose me.

Father and Luca entered moments later.

Father took in the blood, the ruined album, and Isabella’s tear-streaked face.

“This lie again?”

“Adriana, I know you’ve suffered from stomach ulcers before. But cancer?”

He turned to the staff.

“Pack up whatever she still has here. If this house has made her so miserable, there’s no reason to keep a room for her.”

My clothes, books, awards, and the rabbit were packed into two boxes.

No one stopped me as I carried them downstairs.

Rain had begun to fall outside.

Mr. Romano reached for an umbrella, but Father’s voice stopped him.

“Romano, Father Vitale is here for Caesar’s memorial. Isabella needs you inside.”

Mr. Romano hesitated, then he murmured an apology and returned to the house.

I had almost reached the gate when my mother ran after me.

“Adriana.”

I stopped.

She looked at the rain soaking through the cardboard and then at the blood on my sleeve.

For a moment, I thought she might ask me to stay.

Instead, she said, “Send the Moretti document case back when you’re finished. They belong to the family.”

I nodded.

Back at the condo, I opened the leather case.

Inside were my passport, my reissued birth certificate, and the court order that had restored my name ten years ago.

Adriana Moretti.

At twelve, I had believed that name meant I finally belonged somewhere.

Now it was nothing more than ink on a legal document.

I removed my passport and birth certificate, then placed everything back inside the case.

A courier returned it to the estate that afternoon.

The delivery note contained only one sentence.

Everything that belongs to the Morettis has been returned.

What they didn’t know was that the daughter who should have belonged to them had only seven days left to live.

Soon, there would be no daughter left to return.