Chapter seven

THE GIRL WHO STOLE A LOCATELLI’S HEART

“She’s standing in your bedroom, Gio.”

Isabella Locatelli’s voice trembled through the phone.

“Your sister is alive.”

Gio went completely still.

I watched his face, waiting for him to deny it. Instead, his expression changed into something I had never seen before.

Pain.

“Mother, what are you saying?”

“Twenty-four years, Gio. Your father told me my daughter died during childbirth. He showed me a death certificate. But I found the original hospital records tonight. She was born alive.”

My fingers tightened around the doorframe.

“She had dark hair,” Isabella continued, crying now. “And a small crescent-shaped birthmark beneath her left shoulder.”

My hand flew to my shoulder.

The mark was there.

The same one my mother used to kiss whenever I complained about it as a child.

Gio noticed.

His eyes moved from my shoulder to my face.

“Mother…” His voice cracked. “Are you saying Amelie is—”

“She’s my daughter.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“No,” I whispered.

Gio lowered the phone.

“Amelie—”

“Don’t.”

I stepped backwards.

“Are you telling me that your mother is my mother? That makes you my brother?”

He swallowed.

“If the records are true, yes.”

A broken laugh escaped me.

Three days ago, I had been angry about an arranged marriage. Now I was discovering that the feelings I had begun to develop for the man standing before me were built on a truth neither of us had known.

“Get out,” I whispered.

“Amelie, please.”

“GET OUT!”

He flinched. For once, he had no command to give and no solution to offer.

He nodded and left.

I locked the door, slid down against it, and cried until my chest hurt.

Not because I feared Gio.

Because everything I thought I understood about my life had become a lie.

Isabella arrived forty minutes later, carrying an envelope containing the original birth records.

When I entered the sitting room, she stood beside the fireplace, her eyes swollen from crying.

“Oh, my darling,” she whispered.

I stopped.

She looked at me as though she had spent twenty-four years memorising a face she had never been allowed to see.

“I imagined what you would look like,” she said. “Whether you would have my eyes. Whether you would laugh like your father.”

“Please don’t,” I interrupted.

She stopped immediately.

“I won’t touch you unless you want me to.”

She placed the envelope on the table.

Inside were two birth records.

Female infant. Born at 2:14 a.m. Mother: Isabella Locatelli. Father: Vittorio Locatelli.

The second record belonged to a male infant.

Gio.

A discharge document stated that the girl had died shortly after birth. But the signature at the bottom made my stomach turn.

Daniel Pearce.

“Why would he sign this?” I whispered.

Isabella shook her head.

“Your mother told me years later that Daniel helped arrange the transfer. She said she was trying to protect you from Vittorio.”

“Protect me from my own father?”

Isabella’s expression darkened.

“Vittorio believed blood could be used to control people. He wanted to secure loyalty between powerful families, and children were part of his plans.”

I stared at her.

“You mean he traded children?”

“I don’t know how far he went. I only know he took my daughter, and someone helped him.”

My entire childhood suddenly felt like a transaction.

“And my mother allowed it?”

“She didn’t,” Isabella whispered. “She fought him. Daniel promised to protect you, but he believed keeping you with the Pearces would prevent a war.”

“Everyone had a reason,” I said bitterly. “Everyone had an excuse. Yet I’m the one who has to live with what they did.”

Isabella lowered her eyes.

“You have every right to hate us.”

I looked at Gio, standing silently near the window.

“Say something.”

He approached slowly.

“For twenty-four years, I believed I had lost a brother. Now I’ve discovered I have a sister, and someone deliberately arranged for us to marry.”

His jaw tightened.

“I’m angry, Amelie. But I won’t force you into anything. The wedding is over.”

“Good,” I replied.

It was all I could manage.

By dawn, the estate had become a fortress.

Gio entered the breakfast room carrying another folder.

“My mother found this in Vittorio’s safe.”

Inside was a photograph of a newborn wrapped in a white blanket. On the back, my mother’s handwriting read:

My beautiful girl. Forgive me for the life they chose for you.

Beneath it was a letter addressed to Isabella.

I did not give her away willingly. Vittorio wanted to use her to control Daniel. Daniel believed keeping her with the Pearces would prevent a war. Neither understood that they were placing a child between two families who would eventually destroy each other.

If she ever discovers the truth, tell her I loved her.

I lowered the letter.

“Why would Vittorio want me?”

Gio studied the photograph.

“Perhaps he wanted something you inherited.”

“What could a newborn possibly inherit?”

“I don’t know.”

I sighed.

“That answer is becoming exhausting.”

He almost smiled, but the expression disappeared.

“The wedding is cancelled,” he said. “Whatever happens next, you’re not being used to secure an alliance.”

For the first time, I believed him.

But before I could respond, a guard entered and handed me a sealed envelope.

“No return address, Miss.”

I recognised the handwriting immediately.

My mother’s.

The letter inside was short.

Amelie, if you’re reading this, the truth about your birth has finally come out.

Vittorio did not steal you because he wanted a daughter. He stole you because you were the only child who could inherit what he had hidden.

The fortune was never the important part. Neither was the power.

It was the name.

Find Luca before Daniel does. And whatever happens, do not let Gio see the final page of his father’s ledger.

My hands began to shake.

At the bottom was one final sentence.

Your real father is alive.

I read it again.

Vittorio Locatelli was supposed to be dead.

A knock interrupted my thoughts.

Gio entered, holding his phone.

“Amelie, we have a problem.”

On the screen was a photograph of Daniel Pearce being forced into a black vehicle by two armed men.

A message appeared beneath it.

THE WEDDING IS BACK ON.

Then another.

THREE DAYS. NO EXCEPTIONS.

And finally:

OR DANIEL PEARCE DIES.

I looked up at Gio.

“Who sent this?”

He turned the screen towards me.

The number was registered to a man who had supposedly died twenty-four years ago.

VITTORIO LOCATELLI.

My real father.

The man who had stolen me.

The man whose death certificate had fooled an entire family.

And now, from beyond the grave—or whatever place he had been hiding—he was demanding that I marry his own son.

I looked at Gio.

His expression had turned murderous.

The wedding was no longer an alliance.

It was a threat.