Chapter 2 - The Photograph Vincent Had Been Told Never Existed
I did not stay at Belladonna House because Vincent ordered me to.
I stayed because my coat, purse, and phone were still locked inside the temporary staff room.
That distinction mattered to me.
Apparently it mattered to Vincent too.
He did not block the door.
He did not surround me with guards.
Instead, he told a woman named Teresa Marino, the estate’s sixty-two-year-old house manager, to bring my things and a first-aid kit.
Teresa looked at the welts on my arm and whispered something in Italian that did not sound charitable toward Vivian.
Then she gently cleaned the skin.
Vincent stood ten feet away.
Not closer.
“Do you need a hospital?”
“No.”
“You should be checked.”
“I've had worse from falling boxes at banquet jobs.”
His jaw tightened.
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Teresa almost smiled.
When my phone was returned, I immediately texted my roommate, Lena Park.
Alive. Weird night. Will explain.
She replied:
If “weird” involves rich people, leave.
Good advice.
I should have followed it.
Instead, I remained because Vincent placed a photograph on the table.
Old.
Creased.
A young woman stood on a Brooklyn rooftop beneath strings of laundry.
Dark curls.
Wide smile.
Round face.
She was plus-size.
Like me.
That should not have mattered.
But after years of looking nothing like Marianne Bennett—thin, pale, sharp-featured Marianne—I had trained myself not to search mirrors for family resemblance.
This woman looked like someone I could have become if photographed thirty years earlier.
My chest tightened.
“Who?”
Vincent sat across from me.
“Lucia Moretti.”
“Your aunt?”
“Yes.”
I stared.
The locket around Lucia's neck was unmistakable.
Same oval.
Same vines.
But her engraving showed a tiny crescent moon.
Mine had star.
“Where’s the other photo?”
“What other?”
“You said two lockets.”
Vincent's gaze darkened.
“My mother had the star.”
I looked down.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“So this was your mother's?”
“Possibly.”
“Then why would a baby have it?”
“That's what I don't understand.”
He pulled another photograph.
A younger woman beside Lucia.
Slimmer.
Older by perhaps five years.
Same dark hair.
Same locket—but star.
“My mother, Sofia.”
My fingers went cold.
The necklace I wore matched Sofia Moretti's.
Not Lucia's.
“Maybe someone bought a copy.”
Vincent shook his head.
“My grandfather was a jeweler before he became…” He stopped.
“Before he became whatever makes people stop talking when your last name comes up?”
A flash of amusement.
“Yes.”
“He made both by hand. The star and moon represented Sofia and Lucia.”
“Then why did your mother's locket end up with my adoptive mother?”
“I don't know.”
I stood.
“This is too much.”
Vincent did too, but kept distance.
“You can leave.”
“Good.”
“But take my number.”
“No.”
“Rosa.”
“No.”
His expression hardened automatically.
Then he caught himself.
Interesting.
He wrote a number on plain card and placed it beside purse.
“If you decide you want answers.”
“I’ve lived twenty-eight years without them.”
“Have you?”
That irritated me because it landed.
Adoption creates questions even when you're loved.
Especially when you're loved.
Marianne had been a good mother.
Strict.
Exhausted.
Funny when she forgot to be worried.
She told me I came through St. Agnes after birth mother surrendered rights.
She never hid adoption.
But she knew almost nothing else.
Or said she didn't.
Before cancer took her, I had asked again.
“Was there a name?”
She stared at ceiling.
“No.”
Now I wondered whether that pause had contained a lie.
I picked up card.
Not agreement.
Evidence.
Then went home.
Lena opened apartment door before I finished first knock.
She was thirty, Korean-American, a pharmacy technician with a talent for detecting nonsense.
“What happened to your arm?”
“Engagement party.”
“Did you attend one in medieval Europe?”
I told her.
She listened without interrupting until I reached locket.
Then:
“No.”
“That's what I said.”
“You are not secretly mafia royalty.”
“I didn't say royalty.”
“You’re literally wearing mysterious family jewelry.”
“Please stop enjoying this.”
“Sorry.”
She became serious.
“DNA test.”
I stared.
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't want some database selling my chromosomes.”
“Private lab through attorney.”
“Whose attorney?”
“Not Mafia Batman's.”
I laughed despite myself.
Lena continued.
“You need your own lawyer before you hand anything to Vincent.”
Correct.
Next morning I contacted Maya Feldman, an adoption-records attorney recommended by coworker whose husband had been adopted.
Maya listened.
“Do you have original birth certificate?”
“I have amended one.”
“Agency records?”
“Sealed.”
“Adoption finalized where?”
“Kings County.”
She began process.
Because New York access rules had changed over time, adult adoptees could obtain certain pre-adoption birth records, though exact details depended circumstances.
Within days, Maya requested certified records.
Meanwhile, Vincent did his own investigation.
I knew because three days later he called.
I almost ignored.
“Rosa.”
“How did you get number?”
“Staffing file.”
“That feels illegal.”
“It probably isn't.”
“Comforting.”
He said:
“I found St. Agnes archive.”
My heart changed rhythm.
“How?”
“Money.”
At least honest.
But records for year of my birth contained missing pages.
Not merely incomplete.
Removed.
“By who?”
“Someone signed them out in 1998.”
I was born in 1997.
“Name?”
Vincent hesitated.
“Vivian's father.”
I sat.
Anthony DeMarco.
Vivian's father was a prominent attorney who handled charities, estates and adoptions for wealthy Catholic families.
Why would he access my infant records one year after adoption?
“I don't know,” Vincent said.
“You don't know many things for terrifying man.”
He ignored.
“DeMarco represented St. Agnes.”
That connected Vivian indirectly.
Not proof she knew.
Then Vincent told me something else.
The DeMarco family foundation currently funded New Horizons Family Initiative, a charity arranging housing, legal services and private placements for pregnant women and children.
Vivian chaired it.
“Adoptions?”
“Officially, counseling and support.”
“Unofficially?”
“We don't know.”
I disliked “we.”
“There is no we.”
He paused.
“Fair.”
The next week Maya Feldman called.
“I have your pre-adoption birth certificate.”
I stopped breathing.
“Name?”
“Do you want to come in?”
“No. Tell me.”
A pause.
“Birth name: Rosalia Sofia Bell.”
Not Moretti.
I exhaled strangely.
“Mother?”
“Listed as Lucia Bell.”
My knees weakened.
Lucia.
Not Moretti.
Bell.
“Father?”
“Blank.”
“Birthplace?”
“St. Vincent’s Hospital, Brooklyn.”
“Date?”
Same birthday I'd always known.
I closed eyes.
Lucia Bell could be anyone.
But then Maya said:
“There is annotation.”
“What?”
“Maternal name amended six days after delivery.”
“From?”
She hesitated.
“Lucia Moretti.”
My hand tightened around phone.
Someone had changed my birth mother's surname from Moretti to Bell.
Then sealed it in adoption.
“Who authorized amendment?”
“That’s the problem.”
Signature belonged to attorney.
Anthony DeMarco.
I called Vincent.
He answered first ring.
“I have birth certificate.”
Silence.
“Say it.”
“My mother's name was Lucia Moretti.”
Nothing.
Then a sound like Vincent sitting down.
“Rosa…”
“Don't.”
I was angry.
At him?
Not really.
At dead people.
Missing forms.
Changed names.
A locket suddenly heavier than silver.
“I need proof.”
“Yes.”
“DNA.”
“Yes.”
“My lawyer chooses lab.”
“Yes.”
“You don't touch sample.”
“Yes.”
“You don't buy result.”
A pause.
“I deserved that.”
“Yes.”
We tested.
Ten days.
Longest ten days of my life.
On day eleven, Maya called me into office.
Vincent was not there.
My request.
She placed paper down.
Probability of biological relationship consistent with first cousins: 99.2%.
Vincent was my cousin.
My birth mother was almost certainly his missing aunt Lucia.
I felt nothing at first.
Then grief for woman I never knew hit like weather.
Maya slid another envelope.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Your adoption petition.”
I opened.
Prospective adoptive parent:
Marianne Bennett.
Approved.
But attached financial affidavit showed something strange.
Marianne, a school cafeteria worker earning modest wages, had paid private legal fees of $38,000 in 1997.
Impossible.
“Who paid?”
Maya pointed.
Third-party benefactor.
Name redacted.
But bank institution identifiable.
DeMarco Family Trust.
The family of woman who whipped me in front of two hundred people had financed my adoption.
Not charity.
Not coincidence.
A line connected them to my disappearance before I could form a memory.
And I suddenly understood why Vivian had looked terrified when she saw the locket.
She knew something.
May you like
The only question was how much.
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