Chapter Thirteen
LUCIA
My mother’s photograph is the first thing I see when I wake.
I left it propped against the lamp on my nightstand. Morning sunlight catches the glossy surface, illuminating her smile.
She looks younger than I remember.
For years, I’ve tried to hold her face together in my mind. Every time I reached for it, another detail seemed to disappear.
Now she is here, with dark hair blown across one cheek, her head tipped back, and warm hazel eyes fixed on someone outside the frame.
Someone who made her laugh.
Perhaps the man who fathered me.
I pick up the photograph.
Marco promised to show me everything this morning.
I don’t know whether I’m ready, but that doesn’t matter. Readiness has never stopped the truth from existing.
I dress quickly and carry the photograph downstairs.
Angela is in the kitchen, rolling dough across the flour-covered island. Morning light enters through the western windows, illuminating the dusting of flour on her green apron and the silver in her hair.
She looks up when I enter.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
Her attention drops to the picture in my hand.
Recognition softens her expression, but she doesn’t ask.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
“Breakfast?”
“I’m meeting Marco.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I look at the dough.
“What are you making?”
“Biscotti.”
“That counts as breakfast.”
“It absolutely does not.”
She pours coffee into a cup and adds milk without asking. Apparently, she has already memorized how I take it.
“Sit.”
“I shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
“Marco will survive.”
She sets a plate in front of me containing scrambled eggs, toast, and sliced strawberries.
“I’m not very hungry.”
“Then you won’t mind eating quickly.”
I sit.
Angela returns to her dough, dividing it with the edge of a metal scraper.
“Did he tell you what’s in the files?” I ask.
“No.”
“You didn’t ask?”
She shapes the dough into two long sections.
“If Marco wants me to know something, he tells me.”
“That sounds remarkably restrained.”
“I didn’t say I never listen at doors.”
I smile despite the weight in my stomach.
By the time I finish half the eggs and one piece of toast, Angela seems satisfied.
“Go,” she says. “Before he sends a search party.”
I take my coffee and follow the hallway to Marco’s office.
The door is open.
He sits behind his desk, dressed in a dark suit without the jacket. His white sleeves are buttoned at the wrists this morning, and his tie is perfectly straight. Several files have been arranged in precise stacks across the polished surface.
There are three cups of coffee.
One sits beside him. Another has been placed in front of the empty chair. The third is already empty.
Marco looks at the cup in my hand.
“I see Angela found you first.”
“She made me eat.”
“She does that.”
“You warned her I was coming?”
“I warned her you might not have an appetite.”
I set my cup beside the one he prepared.
“She also knows everything.”
“Not everything.”
“Only because she hasn’t found the correct door to listen behind.”
His mouth moves slightly.
I take the chair across from him and place my mother’s photograph on the desk.
Marco’s attention follows it.
The green-shaded lamp casts a pool of light over the files between us. Outside the windows, the grounds are bright with morning, but the curtains have been partly drawn to keep the glare from the papers.
“Where do we start?” I ask.
“With what can be proven.”
He opens the first file.
A certified copy of my birth certificate lies on top. The paper is cream-colored and heavier than an ordinary photocopy, stamped with a raised seal near the bottom.
He turns it toward me.
I’ve seen it before. Viktor allowed me to look at it once when I asked for identification. He held it while I read, then locked it away again.
My full name is typed across the center: Lucia Irina Romanova.
“According to this, Alexei was my father.”
“No. According to that, he claimed you as his daughter.”
“That isn’t the same thing?”
“Not necessarily.”
Marco places a second document beside it.
My mother’s marriage certificate.
The ink has faded slightly, but both names remain clear.
Maria Anna Rossi and Alexei Ivanovich Romanov were married on January third.
I compare the dates.
January.
July.
I look up.
“My mother was pregnant when they married.”
“Approximately three months pregnant, assuming you were carried to term.”
“I could have been early.”
Marco taps the bottom of my birth certificate.
“Eight pounds, four ounces.”
“Okay, I was a very large premature baby.”
“That would be one explanation.”
His tone is so neutral that I almost laugh.
Almost.
“Clearly, that’s unlikely.”
“Yes, it is.”
I look at Alexei’s name.
My mother told me he was my father. She never hesitated or qualified it. Whenever I asked about him, she described a gentle man who loved music and read the newspaper from back to front.
“What if he was with her before they married?”
“It’s possible.”
“But you don’t believe that either.”
Marco removes another sheet from the file.
“This is from one of your grandfather’s business ledgers.”
The page is a photocopy of handwritten figures. The original ink must have been blue, but it has reproduced as uneven gray. Several lines have been marked in pale yellow.
“I don’t understand.”
“Three days before your mother’s wedding, Carlo Rossi forgave a substantial debt owed by the Romanov organization.”
“How substantial?”
“Close to two million dollars in today’s money. He also transferred partial control of two shipping contracts to Alexei.”
I look at the figures again. The amounts appear beside abbreviated company names and dates, all recorded in a cramped, impatient hand.
“You think my grandfather paid him to marry her.”
“I think he gave Alexei a compelling reason to marry a woman who was already carrying someone else’s child.”
The room feels colder.
“Did Alexei know?”
“I can’t prove that.”
“He must have.”
“Probably.”
The word bothers me more than certainty would.
I sit back.
“So my mother was bought a husband.”
“That’s one interpretation.”
“What’s yours?”
Marco’s gaze remains on the papers.
“Your grandfather needed to protect the Rossi name. Alexei needed money and access to the port. The marriage solved both problems.”
“And my mother?”
“No one appears to have asked what she needed.”
For several seconds, the only sound is the clock on the bookshelf.
I touch the edge of the marriage certificate.
“Why the Romanovs?”
“At that time, the Rossis needed a Russian alliance. Your grandfather had lost territory and several high-ranking men. Alexei’s organization was smaller, but it controlled shipping routes Carlo Rossi wanted.”
“My mother was part of the agreement.”
“Yes.”
Just like me.
The thought must show on my face.
Marco closes the file.
“We can stop.”
“No.”
“Lucia.”
“You promised everything.”
“I did.”
“Then keep going.”
He watches me for a moment before opening the next folder.
Inside are school records, property documents, and photographs separated by labeled paper tabs.
My entire childhood reduced to paper.
Marco removes a school photograph and places it before me.
I’m nine or ten, wearing a navy jumper and white blouse. My dark hair falls over my shoulder. Two front teeth overlap slightly.
“I hated that uniform.”
“Your attendance records suggest you hated school in general.”
“I was sick often.”
“So the records say.”
“I wasn’t.”
Marco waits.
“My mother kept me home when men came to the house.”
“What men?”
“I don’t know. She would tell me to stay upstairs. Sometimes we left through the back before they arrived and spent the night somewhere else.”
“Did it happen frequently?”
“More often before she married Dmitri.”
He takes a pen from the desk.
“Did you ever hear a name?”
“I was a child.”
“Anything you remember could help.”
I close my eyes.
At first, there’s nothing.
Then I remember the sound of a plate breaking in the kitchen and my mother’s hands gripping my shoulders. I can almost feel the pressure of her fingers through my school uniform.
“Moretti.”
Marco’s pen stops.
My eyes open.
“What did you say?”
“Moretti. I remember my mother saying it.”
“You’re certain?”
“I think so.”
“Tell me exactly what you remember.”
I look down at the school photograph.
“I was eating breakfast. I had already put on my uniform, but she told me I wasn’t going to school.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven or eight.”
“What happened?”
“Someone called the house. My mother dropped a plate after she hung up.”
The memory sharpens as I speak.
“She told the housekeeper to clean the kitchen and take the breakfast things away. Then she brought me upstairs.”
“Did she tell you who was coming?”
“She said the Morettis were coming.”
Marco writes the name on his legal pad. His handwriting is small and precise, nothing like my grandfather’s.
“Did you see them?”
“No. She took me into her bedroom and closed the curtains.”
“Did she lock the door?”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell you?”
“To stay quiet.”
“Anything else?”
I press my fingers to my forehead.
A dark bedroom.
My mother standing beside the window, peering through the narrow gap between the curtains.
Me asking why I couldn’t go downstairs.
“She said they couldn’t see me.”
Marco’s attention sharpens.
“Those exact words?”
“I think so.”
“How long did you stay upstairs?”
“Hours. She didn’t let me leave until after dark.”
“Did she say why the Morettis couldn’t see you?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear the name again?”
“Not from her.”
Marco leans back.
The silence stretches between us.
“You recognize it,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Who are they?”
“The Morettis control much of Providence and parts of New York. At the height of their power, their influence extended considerably farther.”
“Into Boston?”
“Yes. They had longstanding business interests connected to the Rossis.”
“Why would they come to our house?”
“There could have been dozens of reasons. Shipping contracts. Debts. Territory. Your grandfather’s business remained tangled with theirs for years.”
“But my mother was afraid they would see me.”
“Yes.”
“You think one of them was my father.”
“I think your mother believed your existence had to be concealed from that family.”