The words hung in the air, a declaration so preposterous and utterly alien to my reality that my first instinct was to laugh. It was a hysterical sound that died in my throat. "That's a lie," I said, shaking my head as if to dislodge the absurdity of the claim. "My parents were married for twenty-five years. If my father had been engaged to a Moretti, I think I would know."
Sofia watched my denial with the placid expression of a scholar watching a child argue that the earth is flat. Calm was oftentimes more disturbing than anger, though. A slim leather portfolio rested on the table beside her, which she opened and pulled out a photograph.
My hand shook a little as I took it. It was a picture of four people on what looked to be a sunny terrace overlooking the sea. I already recognized two of them, though. One was a young, handsome man with a weak chin and hopeful eyes—my father, Lorenzo—and the other beside him, hand on his arm, was a painfully young Isabella Moretti, the one in the portrait, with a bright smile on her face. But it was the other two figures that made my breath catch. Dante's father was a formidable man—even then, in youth—stretched arm about a young woman with dark, vibrant eyes and a cascade of black hair. Beautiful, fiery energy radiated from her, somehow captured within this frame. His other hand was linked with my father's. They were a couple. My mother, Elena, was perched in a corner, holding a tray of drinks and smiling fondly at the main group. Younger but without a doubt, she was there.
It was irrefutable photography. The kind you got a dispatch from an unknown early age blasting this place to bits. I sank back against the sofa with that picture clutched in my hand.
Sofia broke the silence. That was the summer the engagement was announced," she said, her voice narrating clinically the hidden tragedy of my family. She continued, "The woman your father is holding is Claudia Moretti. Dante's aunt, and his father's beloved younger sister. For decades, the Romanos and the Morettis had been rivals. Lorenzo's father and Dante's grandfather were bitter enemies. This marriage," she gestured to the photo, "would be the end of the war. A union of power, a merger of empires. It was the most anticipated social event of the decade."
She began to pace slowly, a storyteller weaving a grim fairy tale. "Claudia adored your father. She believed he was different from the generations of Romans before him. And Isabella... Isabella loved Claudia like a sister. She championed the union. She believed it would bring a lasting peace."
Sofia paused, her gaze turning hard. "The wedding was planned. The invitations sent. Two weeks before the ceremony, your father disappeared. No note, no explanation. He simply vanished. The humiliation to the Moretti family was absolute. It was an insult of the highest order, a public declaration that a Romano's word was worthless."
I stared at the photograph, breathing in my father's smile. A man who would be capable of inflicting such cruelty? It just didn't seem possible.
"Claudia was ruined," Sofia continued, with that old and cool ache in her voice. "She never got over it; she became a ghost in her own home. Isabella turned into an obsession of trying to rescue her while living through the political fallout of the destroyed alliance. Dante's father was madly sick with rage. The old war erupted and there was something personal now added in hot fuel."
Then she stopped in front of me and looked down; her eyes locked into mine. "Isabella was distraught over the death of Claudia, and her husband was out hunting vengeance. This was the moment she became careless. There was an accident. A car crash on a winding coastal road. Officially caused by brake failure. But you know the truth. Her betrayal at your father's hand threw her into such emotional turmoil that it cost her life. He has her blood on his hands."
My mind was a whirlpool of confusing and sickening but dawning realities. The story was monstrous, but it was a coherent one, explaining the deep hatred Dante wore, the meaning of "the generational debt." Yet one piece somehow felt wrong, out of place, a piece I clung to as a potential flaw in her terrible narrative.
"My mother," I whispered, looking from the photo back to Sofia. "You said she was a nobody. Where did my father meet her if he was moving in these circles? How did he just disappear with her?"
Sofia's face took on a strange look, mixing pity and contempt. "Oh, my dear," she said softly, and the condescension in her tone was like a slap. "You truly are his daughter. So naive."
She leaned down, placing her finger on the photo, tapping the image of my smiling mother in the background.
"He didn't meet your mother after he vanished," she said, dropping her voice to venomous, confidential levels. "Knew her intimately. For all of the year he was engaged to Claudia, Elena was at her side. Saw her daily. Dressed, counseled, and listened to every one of her dreams about her future with Lorenzo."
Sofia straightened up as the final, ruinous hit was thrown.
"Your mother, Elena, was Claudia Moretti's personal assistant—her paid companion, her best friend."