PART 2 — THE WOMAN WHO LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE ME
His eyes remained fixed on the pH๏τograph behind the bar.
Then he looked at me.
Then at the baby sleeping peacefully against my chest.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Finally, he asked, “What’s your name?”
“Elina Valdez.”
His jaw тιԍнтened.
“Your full name.”
I frowned.
“Elina Maria Valdez. Why?”
He slowly pulled out the chair opposite me.
“Sit down.”
I glanced toward the kitchen.
“I can’t. I’m working.”
He turned toward my manager.
“She’s finished for tonight.”
My manager nearly dropped the tray in his hands.
“Of course, Mr. Moretti.”
I stared at him.
“Wait. You can’t just—”
“Please,” the man interrupted.
His voice was quieter now.
“I need to ask you something. And I need you to answer honestly.”
I looked down at the baby.
He was holding my apron with one tiny fist, his cheek pressed against my chest.
Against all reason, I sat down.
The man extended his hand.
“Vincent Moretti.”
I knew that name.
Everyone in Chicago knew that name.
The Moretti family controlled businesses across the city. Their legitimate companies owned restaurants, H๏τels, construction firms, and shipping facilities.
But people whispered about what happened behind those businesses.
Vincent Moretti was not someone ordinary people wanted to encounter.
And somehow, I was sitting across from him with his son in my arms.
“What’s the baby’s name?” I asked.
“Leonardo. We call him Leo.”
“He’s beautiful.”
Vincent looked at his son.
“His mother would have loved hearing you say that.”
His voice cracked slightly on the final word.
I looked toward the pH๏τograph again.
“Is that her?”
He nodded.
“Isabella.”
I studied the woman’s face.
The resemblance was almost unbearable.
“How long has she been gone?”
“Eleven months.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gave a humorless smile.
“So am I.”
He leaned forward.
“Isabella died three weeks after Leo was born. Since then, my son has refused to settle with almost everyone.”
“Maybe he misses her.”
Vincent’s expression тιԍнтened.
“He was too young to remember her.”
“Babies remember familiar voices, smells, and the feeling of being held. He might recognize something about me.”
Vincent looked at me strangely.
“That’s exactly what I want to understand.”
He took his phone from his pocket and opened a pH๏τograph.
It showed Isabella holding Leo in a hospital bed.
I stared at it.
Then I felt something strange.
The necklace around Isabella’s neck.
A small silver crescent moon.
I instinctively touched the thin chain beneath my uniform.
My own necklace.
The same crescent moon.
Vincent noticed immediately.
“Where did you get that?”
I looked down.
“This? I’ve had it since I was a baby.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“My mother.”
“Your biological mother?”
The question irritated me.
“Yes. Why?”
Vincent went completely still.
Then he looked toward his bodyguard.
“Marco. Call Dr. Bennett.”
The bodyguard immediately stepped away.
I shifted uncomfortably.
“What’s going on?”
Vincent didn’t answer.
Instead, he asked, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Where were you born?”
“Chicago.”
His fingers тιԍнтened around his phone.
“What hospital?”
I hesitated.
“St. Catherine’s.”
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, I thought he might actually collapse.
“That’s impossible,” he whispered.
I pulled Leo closer.
“Mr. Moretti, you’re frightening me.”
He looked at me.
“Eleven months ago, Isabella died believing her family had been destroyed before she ever got the chance to know the truth.”
I swallowed.
“What truth?”
Vincent turned the pH๏τograph around.
On the back was a handwritten date.
And a name.
ELENA VALDEZ — DECEMBER 14.
My blood ran cold.
That was my mother’s name.
2. THE SECRET IN THE PH๏τOGRAPH
“Where did you get that name?”
My voice sounded unfamiliar even to me.
Vincent placed the pH๏τograph on the table.
“Isabella gave it to me shortly before she died.”
I stared at the handwriting.
My mother’s name.
My birthday.
The date was exactly twenty-six years earlier.
I shook my head.
“No. My mother wasn’t connected to your family.”
“How certain are you?”
“Because she raised me.”
Vincent nodded slowly.
“Did she ever tell you about another child?”
I frowned.
“What?”
“An older sister. A twin. Anyone?”
I felt my stomach тιԍнтen.
“No.”
He studied my face.
“Did she ever tell you why she left Chicago?”
I looked away.
My mother had died when I was seventeen.
She had been a quiet woman who rarely discussed her past.
I remembered asking her once why we never visited our relatives.
She had simply told me that some families were better left behind.
At the time, I hadn’t questioned her.
Now those words returned with a terrible weight.
“I don’t know anything about her family,” I whispered.
Vincent rubbed his forehead.
“Isabella was adopted.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“She was found outside a private clinic shortly after birth. The woman who raised her told her she had no surviving relatives.”
I stared at the pH๏τograph.
“Are you saying Isabella and I were sisters?”
Vincent didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he looked at Leo.
“I’m saying there is a possibility.”
The baby suddenly stirred.
His eyes opened.
He looked up at me and made a tiny sound.
I smiled instinctively.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
He reached up and touched my cheek.
Vincent watched the gesture.
His face crumpled for a fraction of a second before he regained control.
“Isabella used to do that,” he whispered.
“Do what?”
“Touch his cheek whenever he cried. She always told him that Mommy was here.”
My throat тιԍнтened.
I looked at the child.
“Maybe he just likes me.”
“Perhaps.”
But Vincent didn’t look convinced.
Twenty minutes later, an older man entered the restaurant.
He wore a dark medical coat and carried a leather case.
Vincent stood immediately.
“Doctor.”
“Vincent. You said this was urgent.”
Vincent pointed toward me.
“This is Elina Valdez.”
The doctor studied my face.
Then his expression changed.
“Oh, my God.”
I slowly stood.
“Do you know me?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he placed his case on the table and opened it.
Inside was an old medical pH๏τograph.
Two newborn babies lay side by side in a hospital bᴀssinet.
One had a small crescent-shaped birthmark near her left shoulder.
The other had the same mark.
My hand instinctively moved to my shoulder.
I had a birthmark there.
I’d had it my entire life.
The doctor looked at me.
“Miss Valdez, do you have a sister?”
I couldn’t speak.
Vincent answered for me.
“Apparently, she does.”
The doctor shook his head.
“Not apparently.”
He pulled out a second document.
“Twenty-six years ago, I worked at St. Catherine’s Hospital. There was a complicated delivery involving identical twin girls.”
My knees weakened.
“One baby was recorded as deceased shortly after birth,” he continued. “The surviving child was released to the mother.”
I stared at him.
“Which baby was recorded as deceased?”
The doctor looked down.
Then back at me.
“Isabella.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Vincent grabbed the edge of the table.
“No.”
The doctor continued carefully.
“Her original medical records were later amended. Someone changed the identification numbers. The surviving baby was registered under another name.”
I shook my head.
“That’s not possible.”
“I’m afraid the original records suggest otherwise.”
Vincent looked at the doctor.
“Who authorized the changes?”
The doctor hesitated.
Then he spoke a name.
“Eleanor Moretti.”
Vincent went completely still.
His mother.
3. THE WOMAN WHO STOLE TWO CHILDHOODS
For several seconds, Vincent didn’t say anything.
Then he slowly stood.
“Are you certain?”
The doctor nodded.
“I kept copies because the circumstances were unusual. The records were altered after a private intervention by someone representing the Moretti family.”
Vincent’s expression became frighteningly calm.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He opened another document.
“But there’s something else. The original birth certificate listed the twins’ biological parents.”
He slid the paper across the table.
I looked at the names.
My mother’s name appeared first.
Then the father’s name.
ANTONIO MORETTI.
I stopped breathing.
Vincent stared at the document.
“Antonio?”
The doctor nodded.
“Your grandfather.”
I looked between them.
“What does that mean?”
Vincent slowly raised his eyes.
“Elina, if this document is genuine…”
He couldn’t finish.
The doctor did it for him.
“Then you and Isabella were biological daughters of Antonio Moretti’s family.”
I stepped backward.
“No.”
My voice broke.
“No, that can’t be right.”
Vincent looked at me.
“My grandfather had a daughter who disappeared before I was old enough to remember her. We were told she had died.”
I clutched Leo.
“So Isabella was…”
“My aunt.”
He looked down at the baby.
“And that makes Leo your cousin.”
The word felt unreal.
My entire life had just been rearranged by a pH๏τograph.
I had grown up believing I was an only child.
Now I was learning that I had an identical twin sister.
A sister who had died eleven months ago.
A sister who had given birth to the little boy sleeping in my arms.
I looked at Vincent.
“Why did your family separate us?”
His expression darkened.
“I intend to find out.”
He turned toward Marco.
“Bring my mother here.”
Marco hesitated.
“Boss, Eleanor is at the estate.”
“Then go to the estate.”
“There’s something you should know.”
Vincent turned.
“Speak.”
“Mrs. Moretti left Chicago this afternoon. Her private jet departed two hours ago.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Destination?”
“Unknown.”
The doctor slowly closed his medical case.
“I believe there’s another document you should see.”
He removed a sealed envelope.
“Isabella gave this to me before she died. She instructed me to deliver it only if someone appeared who looked exactly like her.”
Vincent took the envelope.
His hands trembled as he opened it.
Inside was a letter.
The handwriting was unmistakably Isabella’s.
He began reading.
Then his expression changed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he handed me the letter.
I unfolded it.
The first line made my heart stop.
To my sister, if you are ever found…
I began reading.
I don’t know if you’re alive.
I don’t know whether Mother managed to keep you away from the family forever.
But if you’re reading this, please understand something.
I didn’t abandon you.
I spent my entire life believing I had no sister. I only discovered the truth after finding a hidden medical file in Eleanor’s private study.
She knew we were twins.
She knew you had survived.
And she deliberately kept us apart.
My eyes filled with tears.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
There is one more thing you must know.
If you ever meet Vincent, don’t trust everything he tells you about my death.
I looked up.
Vincent was staring at me.
“What does that mean?”
He took the letter.
Read the final paragraph.
And his face turned white.
Because Isabella had written one final sentence.
My death was not an accident. And the person who ordered it is still sitting at the head of the Moretti family.
4. THE BABY’S FIRST WORD
A tiny sound interrupted the silence.
Leo had awakened.
He lifted his head from my chest and looked directly at me.
Then his little fingers wrapped around my necklace.
I smiled through my tears.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
He made a soft noise.
Then, unexpectedly, he whispered something.
“Ma…”
I froze.
Vincent looked up.
The doctor stopped moving.
Leo touched my cheek again.
“Ma… ma…”
Vincent’s eyes filled with tears.
For eleven months, his son had refused to say a word that sounded remotely like that.
He had cried through countless nights.
Rejected every nanny.
Refused to sleep unless Vincent walked the halls carrying him.
And now, in the arms of a woman he had met less than an hour earlier, he was making the sound that had once belonged to his mother.
Vincent slowly approached.
“Elina…”
I looked at him.
He swallowed.
“I know this is too much to ask. But please, don’t disappear tonight.”
I glanced down at Leo.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do.”
“Nothing. Not yet.”
He paused.
“Just let us find out the truth.”
I nodded slowly.
But before I could answer, Marco rushed back into the restaurant.
His face was pale.
“Boss. We have a problem.”
Vincent turned.
“What?”
“Someone accessed Isabella’s old medical records.”
“Who?”
Marco looked at me.
Then at Vincent.
“Mrs. Moretti’s private secretary.”
Vincent’s jaw тιԍнтened.
“Where is he?”
“ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”
The word landed like a gunsH๏τ.
Marco continued.
“He was found inside the Moretti estate less than thirty minutes ago. And the security cameras recorded something.”
He held out his phone.
Vincent watched the footage.
A woman dressed in black entered Isabella’s former bedroom.
She approached the crib that had been preserved exactly as Isabella had left it.
Then she placed something beneath the mattress.
A small envelope.
Vincent paused the recording.
He zoomed in.
The woman turned toward the camera.
It was Eleanor Moretti.
My blood ran cold.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
The envelope she had placed inside the crib had my name written across it.
ELINA VALDEZ.
Vincent looked at me.
“Whatever my mother has been hiding for twenty-six years, she knew you would eventually be found.”
I looked down at Leo.
He was peacefully sleeping again.
Then I looked at the screen.
For the first time, I understood that the resemblance between Isabella and me wasn’t the beginning of this mystery.
It was the reason someone had spent twenty-six years making sure we never found each other.
And now that I had finally held my sister’s son, the people responsible were beginning to panic.
TO BE CONTINUED — PART 3.
