Chapter 3

The christening could have been postponed, but Bianca deliberately scheduled it for two days before the Council convened. The invitation called it a "family reunion," a sweet phrase with a barb tucked inside. If Isabella stayed away, she would appear to concede that the twins had the Moretti family's blessing. If she attended, she would be accused of trying to wreck someone else's new family.

In the end, she put on a long black dress and slipped the evidence bag Julian had given her into her clutch. She had not come to fight over appearances at a ceremony. She had come to learn who had stolen her mother's belongings.

She recorded everything in the black notebook she carried, labeling each page with the time, the source, what the evidence could actually establish, and her next step. Anger could not substitute for judgment, and fear could not make her choices. She knew the only reliable way forward was not a burst of lone courage, but keeping every decision firmly in her own hands.

On the day of the christening, the church was brighter than it had been for the memorial mass. White flowers were banked in layers along both sides of the steps, and the guests kept remarking how much Luca and Alex looked like Matteo. Isabella stood in the last row like a shadow that had no business in a family photograph.

In the vestry, Matteo was trying to fasten a silver christening medal on Luca, but the clasp would not close. He held the medal out to her. "Give me a hand. This is the blessing the Moretti family passes to the next generation."

The medal landed in her palm, light as snow. On its back was a pet name her mother had written only in her private notebooks. Lucia had quietly commissioned the medal after Isabella became pregnant. It should have belonged to the child who was never born.

Her fingers shook without her permission. "Where did you get this?"

Matteo's brows drew together. "Bianca found it in a box of old things. Don't take what you're feeling out on Luca."

Isabella looked up and saw that he had already decided what she was guilty of. Jealousy. Resentment. No room in her for a new family. She did not defend herself in front of them. The ceremonial cannon fired without warning. Luca stumbled backward in fright, his heel hanging over the edge of the high step, and Bianca's hand came half a beat too late. Isabella got there first and pulled him against her.

Luca clung to her sleeve. Isabella handed him to a guard, then raised the medal where everyone could see it. "The ownership of this medal is in dispute," she said, her voice carrying. "Until that has been verified, no one should wear it."

A ripple of whispering ran through the guests, and Matteo's face darkened. He was certain she had set out to ruin Luca's christening.

Back in the guest room, she took out the medical record she had sewn into her coat lining during her captivity. The date of the miscarriage matched the day the distress package was sent. Julian called to tell her the medal was the first item on the package inventory, yet it had never been entered into the De Luca family's chain-of-custody records.

Isabella sealed the medal in the evidence bag. At the church, she had not mentioned the child she had lost. She would never use that child as an outlet for her pain or a weapon against an enemy.

But she had confirmed one thing. Three years ago, someone had intercepted the plea for help she had nearly died to send.