Chapter 3 - THE SECRET MY MOTHER DIED HIDING
The man standing at the restaurant entrance looked directly at me.
Not Adrian.
Me.
His face changed.
Like he had seen something impossible.
“No…”
Adrian turned.
“Who sent you?”
The man ignored him.
His eyes stayed locked on mine.
“Where did you get that face?”
My stomach dropped.
The entire room went silent again.
Everyone was asking the same question.
Who was I?
Why did this keep happening?
I held Luca closer.
The baby stared at the stranger.
Then started crying.
Adrian immediately stepped forward.
“Move away from her.”
The man smiled.
A cold, ugly smile.
“So she’s alive.”
My heart stopped.
“Who?”
Nobody answered.
Adrian’s expression changed.
Not confusion anymore.
Anger.
Pure anger.
“Get out.”
The stranger laughed.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Adrian stepped closer.
“You have five seconds.”
The man looked at me.
“Ask your mother.”
My blood ran cold.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“She never told you why she ran.”
The room spun.
Because my mother had always refused to talk about her past.
She told me we had no family.
No history.
No secrets.
But now a stranger was telling me my entire life was built on a lie.
Adrian looked at me.
“Mara…”
I couldn’t look at him.
Because suddenly I remembered something.
A locked drawer in my mother’s room.
A box she never allowed me to touch.
A photograph she burned when she thought I wasn’t watching.
A name she whispered in her sleep.
Elena.
The stranger saw my expression.
And smiled.
“You know that name.”
I felt my hands go cold.
Because I did.
I just never understood why.
Adrian stepped between us.
“You’re leaving.”
The stranger laughed.
“You can protect her from me.”
He looked at Luca.
“But you can’t protect her from the truth.”
Then he walked away.
Leaving behind one sentence.
A sentence that destroyed everything.
“Ask your mother why she stole another woman’s life.”
I stood there frozen.
Holding the mafia boss’s son.
Staring at the photograph of a dead woman who looked exactly like me.
And realizing the biggest mystery in my life…
May you like
Was not who Elena Viscari was.
It was why my mother had spent thirty years hiding her.
