A Name No One Was Allowed to Say
Chapter 02 - A Name No One Was Allowed to Say
Luca didn't trust Sophie. He trusted even less the coincidence that a restaurant waitress had appeared wearing his wife's necklace on the same evening his baby's nanny vanished. But he also knew Gabriel had quieted for the first time all night when Sophie spoke.
He made a decision that surprised his men: nobody would take Sophie anywhere against her will. The conversation would continue in the manager's office, with Brenda present if Sophie wanted her there. Sophie asked for Brenda and called her mother before following him.
"I've got a complicated situation at work," she said into the phone. "I'm safe. I will call again before I leave."
She didn't say she was safe because she believed it. She said it because her mother had heart trouble and worried whenever Sophie was late.
In the office, Luca placed his phone on the table. "Start with Elena."
Sophie stared at her necklace. "My sister was twenty-nine when she disappeared. She used the name Elena Bell around us, though she said she'd changed her name for safety years ago. She came to our house one February night with bruises on her wrists. She asked my mother if she could hide there."
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know."
Luca stiffened.
"She left after three weeks. Before she went, she gave me the necklace and said if a man named Luca Romano ever came looking, I was supposed to ask him a question."
"What question?"
Sophie lifted her eyes. "What did you promise her beside the red bridge?"
Luca stopped breathing. He and Elena had married secretly at a small chapel outside the city. On the way back, they had parked beside an old red railroad bridge. He'd promised that their child would never inherit the violence surrounding the Romano name. Nobody knew about that conversation.
"I promised to change my life," he answered.
Sophie began to cry. "Then she said you might still be worth trusting."
He couldn't decide whether that was forgiveness or accusation.
The baby fussed. With Luca's permission, Sophie sat nearby and hummed a lullaby. Gabriel turned toward her voice. For the first time, Luca noticed the likeness between Sophie and Elena—similar hazel eyes, the same small cleft in the chin. But Elena had never mentioned a sister. That silence now frightened him.
Brenda brought water. Sophie drank with shaking hands, then explained that her mother had raised both girls after they were separated from their father. Elena had left home young, disappeared for years, and returned terrified. Sophie's mother had died three months after Elena departed. Sophie had since been supporting an elderly neighbor she called Mom, the person who helped raise her.
"Why didn't you contact me?" Luca asked.
"Elena said your calls were being watched. She said a man you trusted had access to your security and had already convinced you she betrayed you."
Luca thought of his younger brother, Rocco, who ran household operations while Luca searched for Elena.
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His phone buzzed again. Rocco: *Come home. Something is wrong in the nursery.*
Luca stared at the message, then at Sophie. For the first time, going home was the last thing he wanted to do.
