The faded parchment trembled between Isabella's fingers, the name Camilia Russo etched like a ghost from another life. Her lips parted, but no words came. The truth was far too sharp.
But Alessandro wasn't done. One birth certificate was not enough. Not for a daughter lost — not for the lie they'd lived with for over two decades.
"There has to be more," he muttered, setting the paper down on the table carefully, reverently, as though it were a holy relic.
Together, the couple moved through the dimly lit house, now more desperate than determined. Every step forward stirred dust and memory alike, but neither of them paused. They pulled out drawers, sifted through boxes, tore open trunks long sealed with time.
"We're looking for anything — letters, pictures, maybe a diary…" Isabella whispered, brushing a cobweb from her brow. "Anything to tell us where she was taken. Who raised her."
"She would be twenty-seven now," Alessandro said absently, fingers dragging through piles of old tax slips and Russo inventory documents. "There must be some trace."
In the back corner of the attic, Isabella pried open a rusted suitcase. Inside: children's books, a frayed pink blanket, and a sealed envelope — thick with age.
She gasped. "Alessandro."
He turned quickly as she held it out. The envelope was addressed simply: To the child you stole.
It wasn't sealed.
Inside, a handwritten letter, ink smeared but still legible. It wasn't from the man they'd trusted all these years — it was from someone else. A woman. Perhaps a nanny. Perhaps someone who knew the truth but had been silenced.
Isabella read aloud, her voice cracking:
"They took you from your mother the night you were born. Told her you were a boy and that you'd died. You were perfect. And they said girls couldn't inherit legacies soaked in blood and power. I raised you for a while — not as Camilia, but with another name. I couldn't keep you. I'm sorry."
She stopped reading. Her voice couldn't carry further.
Tears stung her eyes, but her anger burned brighter.
"All these years, and we never knew. He lied to me," she whispered. "My own father."
Alessandro took the letter, his hands unsteady. "This changes everything. She's out there, Isa. And she's been raised away from everything we were."
"Everything we could've been."
Their search turned feverish after that. They began flipping through every item that could hold even a whisper of her — photographs, notes, bills. But nothing revealed the name she'd been raised with. Not even a clue about who had taken her in. Just scraps of guilt and secrecy.
Until Isabella found a photograph.
A little girl, maybe five or six. Holding a stuffed fox. Standing beside an elderly woman with a cross necklace.
"She's beautiful," Isabella said softly. "She has your eyes."
He stared. "No… yours."
But there was no name on the back. No address. Just a smudged corner and a creased edge. A piece of a puzzle still scattered.
Before they could analyze further, they heard footsteps again. Valerio and Dante, like before — but this time, their presence didn't matter. The secret was already unraveling. The photograph lay between them like a silent scream.
"We'll find her," Alessandro said, voice rough, resolve building like a rising storm. "We'll find Camilia."
Dante had barely said a word on the drive over. He was still reeling from what Valerio had hinted — something about the murdered man being too loyal, something about the house possibly hiding secrets. And now… silence. Except for the sound of Valerio's fingers tapping on the wheel, restless, impatient.
They parked in front of the dead man's house. The property was quiet, but lights flickered from the windows — the kind of glow that didn't come from casual searching. This was different.
Valerio stepped out first, scanning the perimeter, hand instinctively brushing against the grip of the weapon hidden beneath his coat. Dante followed, slower, unease pressing down on his chest.
"Why are we here again?" Dante asked, looking up at the chipped brick building.
Valerio didn't respond right away. He just opened the door.
The sight that met them made both men freeze.
Isabella Russo was on her knees in the middle of the room, a letter clutched in her trembling hand, her cheeks stained with tears. Alessandro — ever the cold, measured head of the Russo family — was sitting on a dusty trunk with his face buried in his hands. His shoulders shook.
Crying.
Alessandro Russo was crying.
Dante had never seen that in his life. Not when soldiers died. Not at funerals. Not when family business turned bloody and brutal. Not even when his grandfather's grave was desecrated by enemies.
Now, though…
"M-Ma?" Dante called, hesitant.
Isabella turned toward him, and the look in her eyes gutted him. They were swollen, red, but not from sadness alone. It was pain — a deeper, hollow kind — the kind that made it hard to breathe.
"Dante," she whispered, her voice cracking.
Valerio stepped beside him, glancing around the mess. "What the hell happened here?"
No one answered.
He walked forward slowly, his eyes scanning the papers scattered across the room, the suitcase, the envelope on the table. He didn't touch anything yet, not until Dante dropped beside his mother.
"Ma… talk to me," Dante said gently, brushing her hair behind her ear.
Isabella leaned forward and hugged her son so tightly it knocked the wind out of him.
"She's alive," she breathed into his shoulder. "My baby… my daughter…"
Dante's world tilted.
"Your what?" he asked, pulling back.
"She was never dead," Alessandro spoke this time, standing up, holding out the birth certificate with shaking hands.
"My father — your grandfather — he lied. Said I was too weak to raise a son, an heir to both the strong families. But it was never a son. It was a daughter. A girl. He took her from us."
Dante was shocked but he tightened his embrace.
Valerio finally moved to take the certificate, reading the name — Camilia Russo. He looked between the paper, Alessandro, and Isabella.
He could barely find the words.
"You mean to tell me… that Dante has a sister? That she's out there somewhere?"
"Raised under a different name," Isabella said. "Hidden. Raised by someone else. We don't know who. Just that she was taken from me. From us."
Dante was quiet. He sat on the floor beside the trunk and ran a hand through his hair, jaw locked.
Everything he thought he knew had shifted in a single moment.
"She's twenty-seven," Alessandro said, voice heavy. "We missed her entire life."
"We don't even know what she looks like now," Isabella added, her tone fragile. "Just one photograph. No names. No addresses. Just… just silence."
Dante looked up at Valerio, eyes sharp. "You knew something, didn't you?"
Valerio's jaw tensed. "I suspected the old man was hiding something. Didn't think it would be this."
Alessandro approached both young men, calmer now but still visibly shaken. "This changes everything. We need to find her. Before someone else does."
Valerio's brow creased. "You think someone else already knows?"
"I don't know," Alessandro said, but the worry in his voice betrayed the uncertainty. "But if this secret was worth hiding all these years… then it's worth killing over too."
Dante looked at the letter again. To the child you stole. His throat felt tight.
"I have a sister," he said again, as if trying to believe it himself. "And she's out there. Somewhere. Living with a different name. A different life."
"She might not even know," Isabella said softly. "She might think her whole life is true."
"Or," Valerio added, eyes darkening, "she might know exactly who she is… and not want anything to do with any of us."
The words hung between them like smoke — unavoidable and stinging.
Silence.
Then Alessandro spoke again, his voice low. "We find her. Whether she wants us or not… she deserves to know the truth."
Dante nodded, his fingers clenching. "She's blood."
"She's family," Isabella whispered.
"And we'll protect her," Valerio added quietly. "Whatever it takes."
Alessandro sat on the edge of the old couch, the birth certificate trembling slightly in his hands. Isabella stood by the window, arms folded tightly across her chest, staring at nothing. The silence between them was heavy — not uncomfortable, just full. Full of the years they'd lost. Of the life they'd never known.
"She would've been twenty-seven," Isabella finally whispered, her voice raw, as though the number itself had weight. "Just a few days ago, in fact… April third."
Alessandro's grip tightened on the paper. "I remember that day," he said hoarsely. "You were in pain. And then your father came in… said it was a stillbirth. Said it was a boy. Took care of it before we could even see…"
"I believed him," she choked out, turning to face him. "God, Alessandro, I trusted him."
He looked up at her, eyes rimmed with red. "We both did."
They were silent again. Then, softly, Alessandro added, "A daughter. Not a boy. All this time, I kept thinking I lost a son I never met. But a daughter…"
"She's out there," Isabella said, almost to herself. "Living a life built on lies. She's twenty-seven now. A grown woman. And she doesn't even know who she is."
Alessandro nodded slowly. "Then we'll find her, Isa. Whatever it takes. She deserves that much."
Dante stood in the silence of the dim room, the weight of everything pressing against his chest. When his grandfather was murdered by Vesper, a part of him always felt like something deeper had died with the old man — secrets he never got to uncover. He remembered the whispers, the offhand remarks, the way his grandfather always deflected questions about his mother's past. He used to think… maybe there had been a brother. Maybe someone who never made it.
But a sister? An older one?
The revelation hit different. Sharper. Colder.
She was out there, somewhere, robbed of the life she was meant to live. And now — now that he knew she existed — it was like something inside him had shifted. His protectiveness surged tenfold. Not just as a son, but as a brother. She had been stolen. Erased.
And if Vesper was involved in this… if that monster was circling anywhere near her…
Dante clenched his fists.
He wouldn't let her be a victim again. He didn't even know her name — but she was his blood.
And he would burn the world to keep her safe.