Chapter 4 - THE NAME FROM THE PAST
For a few seconds, nobody in the room moved.
The words Lorenzo Moretti had spoken didn’t make sense.
Not to me.
Not to Isabella.
Not even to the doctors standing around his bed.
“Mia’s mother used to sing it to me.”
The sentence stayed in the air like something dangerous.
I felt my entire body go cold.
Because there was only one person who could answer that question.
Me.
I stepped forward.
“What did you just say?”
Lorenzo slowly opened his eyes again.
He looked exhausted.
Like every word cost him more energy than he had.
“Your daughter…”
His voice cracked.
“She sings the same song.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
Isabella looked between us.
“Clara.”
I turned toward her.
“What?”
Her expression was serious.
“Who was Mia’s father?”
My heart stopped.
Nobody had asked me that question in years.
Not because people didn’t wonder.
Because I never gave them the chance.
“That has nothing to do with this.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“It does.”
The room became silent.
I felt anger rising inside me.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“No.”
He closed his eyes.
“But I know someone who does.”
The doctors insisted Lorenzo needed rest.
The room slowly emptied.
But the questions remained.
Too many questions.
I took Mia back downstairs.
She held my hand the entire way.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Why was the sleeping man crying?”
I looked down at her.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
She thought for a moment.
“Maybe he missed someone.”
Those words hurt more than they should have.
Because children sometimes say the simplest things.
And somehow, they hit the deepest wounds.
That evening, Isabella found me in the staff room.
She didn’t come with anger this time.
She came with uncertainty.
“Clara.”
I turned.
“Yes?”
“Tell me about Mia’s father.”
I sighed.
“I don’t talk about him.”
“I noticed.”
She placed a folder on the table.
Inside were old documents.
Photographs.
Records.
My heart started beating faster.
“What is this?”
“Something I found.”
I opened the folder.
And the first thing I saw was a photograph.
A young man.
Standing beside Lorenzo Moretti.
My hands froze.
Because I recognized him.
Not from memory.
From Mia’s baby pictures.
Her father.
Daniel.
“No.”
The word left my mouth before I could stop it.
Isabella watched me carefully.
“You know him.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
But my voice betrayed me.
Because I did know him.
I knew the smile.
The eyes.
The way he used to promise me everything would be okay.
Before he disappeared.
“He told me he had no family,” I whispered.
Isabella looked at the photograph.
“He was Lorenzo’s younger brother.”
My chest tightened.
I stepped back.
“No.”
“Daniel Moretti.”
The room spun.
“Mia’s father was a Moretti?”
Isabella didn’t answer.
Because she didn’t need to.
For eighteen months, I thought Daniel had abandoned us.
I thought he was just another man who made promises and ran away.
But now I was standing in a mansion belonging to the same family he came from.
And nobody had told me.
Nobody.
Later that night, I sat beside Mia’s bed.
She was asleep.
Her tiny hand held my finger.
I stared at her face.
Trying to understand how the biggest secret of my life had been hiding in front of me.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
But something made me answer.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
Low.
Cold.
“Clara Bennett.”
I sat up.
“Who is this?”
“You need to leave the Moretti estate.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
The voice became darker.
“What matters is that you don’t know what you walked into.”
The call ended.
I stared at the screen.
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And for the first time since arriving at the estate...
I felt afraid.
