The Other Daughter
Chapter 10 - The Other Daughter
On the screen, Vanessa’s mother was younger than I had imagined.
That should not have mattered, but it did.
Dead women in family stories become old even if they die young. They become portraits, pearls, perfume bottles left on vanities. But here she was on grainy footage, no older than I was now, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her face pale with fear and fury.
“Leave the child out of it,” she said again.
Bruno laughed.
“Which one?”
The room went silent.
Vanessa lifted her head.
On the video, Lucia Moretti turned sharply.
“What does that mean?”
Bruno leaned back against the desk.
“It means women are sentimental and men keep records.”
Vanessa’s mother slapped him.
The sound cracked through the laptop speaker.
Vanessa made a small noise beside us.
For once, no one looked at her with triumph.
Some revelations are too ugly to celebrate.
The video blurred as my father moved between them. Then Luca’s father spoke, low and irritated.
“Bruno. Enough.”
Bruno touched his cheek and smiled.
“You never told Lucia why Daniel mattered, did you?”
Lucia stared at him.
My father stood very still.
Then Vanessa’s mother said, “Daniel, take the box and go.”
“Not without the copies,” my father answered.
“Take them,” she said. “Take all of it. But if you love your daughter, disappear.”
The video jumped.
Static.
When it cleared, Lucia was crying quietly.
“Whose child?” she asked.
No one answered.
The laptop battery warning flashed in the corner, absurd and ordinary.
I stared at the screen.
My father.
My daughter.
Which child.
A terrible shape began to form in my mind.
“No,” I whispered.
Luca looked at me.
Peter Sloane closed his eyes.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
Vanessa stood so suddenly her chair tipped back.
“No.”
Luca spoke first.
“Peter.”
The man did not move.
“Say it,” Luca ordered.
Peter looked at me with a grief so old it had lost its sharpness and become weather.
“Daniel Vale had another child before you, Emma.”
My ears rang.
Vanessa backed away.
“No.”
“Her mother was Bellandi’s sister-in-law,” Peter continued. “Bruno kept it quiet because the child was useful as a Bellandi when it suited him and disposable when it didn’t.”
I looked at Vanessa.
Her face had gone white under the makeup.
Not because she was exposed.
Because she was listening.
“Who?” Luca asked, though I think he already knew.
Peter’s answer came softly.
“Vanessa.”
The room changed.
Not loudly.
There were no gasps, no dramatic music, no shattered glass. Only the cruel rearrangement of every face around the table.
Vanessa Bellandi was my half-sister.
The woman who had helped frame my father’s name.
The woman who had tried to use my presence as evidence.
The woman whose uncle had threatened me to control him.
Vanessa laughed.
It sounded almost sane.
“No. Daniel Vale was kitchen help.”
Peter lowered his eyes.
“He was twenty-two. Your mother was nineteen and already promised into the Bellandi family. Daniel did not know she was pregnant when she married. She sent him one letter. Bruno intercepted it.”
Vanessa’s hands shook.
“She hated him.”
“No,” Peter said. “She protected you from being called his.”
Vanessa looked at me then.
Her expression was so raw I almost forgot what she had done.
Almost.
“I am not your sister,” she said.
“I didn’t ask you to be.”
The words came out colder than I felt.
Because beneath the shock, beneath the anger, something else had opened. A room inside me I did not want. A room where my father had another child he could not reach. Another girl raised by people who used her grief until she became fluent in harm.
Luca closed the laptop fully.
“We verify this,” he said.
Vanessa laughed again.
“With what? A dead man’s rumors? An old video? A coward’s envelope?”
Peter placed the hospital bracelet on the table.
“There was blood work when Daniel died. He knew someone would need proof one day.”
Vanessa stared at the bracelet as if it were alive.
I looked at it too.
My father, still making provisions from beyond every door that had been closed on him.
Luca turned to me.
“I can have this tested quietly.”
“No,” Vanessa snapped. “You will not.”
That was when I understood something important.
She was not afraid the test would be false.
She was afraid it would be true.
Vanessa grabbed the cream handbag from the table and pulled something from the inner pocket before anyone moved.
Not a weapon.
A small glass vial.
She held it over Luca’s untouched plate.
“If you want truth so badly,” she said, “taste what all your mothers died for.”
Then she tipped the vial.
But the liquid never reached the food.
Mrs. Battista slapped Vanessa’s hand so hard the vial flew across the room and shattered on the marble floor.
May you like
The smell that rose from it was sweet, earthy, and familiar.
Mushrooms after rain.
