Chapter 2 - THE THREE MAFIA BROTHERS THOUGHT I WAS THEIR MISSING SISTER—BUT THE DNA TEST EXPOSED A SECRET EVEN THEIR DEAD MOTHER HAD TAKEN TO HER GRAVE
I did not hug them.
That seems worth clarifying.
People hear “lost family” and imagine tears, embraces, music.
I demanded my paycheck.
Mrs. Hess paid me.
Then I packed.
Roman stood outside my room.
“You shouldn't leave.”
“Watch me.”
“If Moretti knows you're here—”
“He doesn't.”
“You don't know that.”
“Neither do you.”
“Maeve.”
I zipped my bag.
“Yesterday I was your maid.”
“Today you're telling me my dead mother isn't dead, my mother isn't my mother, and three mafia brothers might be my brothers.”
“We're not mafia.”
I stared.
Roman sighed.
“Fine.”
“Complicated.”
“That's worse.”
Declan appeared.
“DNA test.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I said no.”
He looked ready to argue.
Roman said:
“Declan.”
One word.
He stopped.
Gabriel leaned against the wall.
“If you leave, where will you go?”
“My apartment.”
“You were evicted yesterday.”
I closed my eyes.
“I hate you.”
“Understandable.”
He held up my eviction notice.
I snatched it.
“Stop investigating me.”
“I am trying.”
“You're terrible at it.”
“Also true.”
Mrs. Hess appeared behind them.
“Maeve.”
I looked at her.
She held a tray.
Biscuits.
“Eat before making life-changing decisions.”
I almost cried.
Instead, I ate.
Then I stayed.
Not because Roman ordered it.
Because I had nowhere else to go.
Important distinction.
The DNA test happened two days later.
My choice.
Roman provided samples.
So did Declan and Gabriel.
I watched the nurse seal everything.
“No family labs,” I said.
Roman nodded.
“Independent hospital.”
“No Falcone doctors.”
“Agreed.”
“No bribing anyone to hurry.”
Gabriel looked disappointed.
“Fine.”
Results took four days.
Those four days were bizarre.
Declan stopped testing me.
Gabriel tried to stop investigating me.
Roman became almost painfully polite.
Nobody let me clean.
“I am still employed,” I told Roman.
“No.”
“What?”
“You quit.”
“I packed.”
“You demanded your final paycheck.”
“I was emotional.”
“So you're unquitting?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You can't refuse.”
“I own the house.”
“I'll work for Mrs. Hess.”
Mrs. Hess shouted from downstairs:
“Accepted!”
Roman closed his eyes.
I smiled.
That afternoon, Declan found me cleaning the library.
“You know you don't have to do that.”
“I like cleaning.”
“Why?”
“Things become better in visible ways.”
He considered that.
Then picked up a rag.
I stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Visible improvement.”
“You're holding it wrong.”
“It's a rag.”
“You're still holding it wrong.”
For the next hour, a man rumored to have broken six bones in a dockyard fight dusted bookshelves while I corrected him.
We talked.
Their mother, Sofia Falcone, had been murdered eighteen years earlier.
A bomb under her car.
Their father survived another seven years.
He became harder afterward.
Crueler.
He raised his sons to inherit war.
Their little sister Nora disappeared the same night Sofia died.
So did Sofia's younger sister Eleanor.
Everyone assumed Eleanor took Nora somewhere safe.
Then both vanished.
No ransom.
No bodies.
Eventually, the Falcones believed Moretti killed them.
“What was Nora like?” I asked.
Declan smiled.
“Mean.”
“Excellent.”
“She bit Gabriel.”
“He deserved it.”
“Probably.”
“She hated peas.”
“So do I.”
“She slept with a stuffed rabbit.”
My breath caught.
“What?”
Declan looked at me.
I had owned a stuffed rabbit until I was twelve.
Old.
One ear missing.
My mother said I had carried it since infancy.
“Nothing.”
He knew.
He didn't push.
That mattered.
The results arrived Friday.
We sat in Roman's office.
The doctor appeared by secure video.
“Ms. Carter is biologically related to the Falcone brothers.”
Nobody breathed.
“Specifically?”
Roman asked.
The doctor hesitated.
“This is unusual.”
“What?”
“Ms. Carter shares approximately twenty-five percent DNA with each of you.”
I frowned.
“Is that sibling level?”
“No.”
“Full siblings usually share around fifty percent.”
Roman went still.
The doctor continued.
“The pattern is most consistent with a niece relationship.”
Silence.
Declan said:
“That's impossible.”
Gabriel sat forward.
“Unless Eleanor wasn't just protecting Nora.”
Roman looked at me.
My heart stopped.
The doctor continued.
“Based on the samples, Ms. Carter is almost certainly the biological daughter of one of your full siblings.”
“But our only sibling was Nora,” Roman said.
The doctor nodded.
“Then Nora Falcone is likely Ms. Carter's biological mother.”
The room tilted.
“No.”
My voice sounded far away.
“My mother was Eleanor.”
Roman looked shattered.
Gabriel whispered:
“Eleanor raised you.”
Declan stood.
Walked away.
I couldn't move.
My mother.
Eleanor Carter.
The woman who braided my hair.
Taught me biscuits.
Worked night shifts.
Held me after nightmares.
Was not my biological mother.
I became furious.
“Where is Lily?”
Roman blinked.
“What?”
“My sister.”
I stood.
“If Eleanor wasn't my mother, what about Lily?”
Gabriel was already checking.
“Stop.”
He froze.
“I will ask her.”
I called Lily.
She answered from her college dorm.
“Hey.”
“Are you alone?”
“Maeve?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
I started crying.
That terrified her.
I almost never cried.
I told her enough.
Not everything.
Then asked:
“Would you take a DNA test?”
Silence.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know if we're biological sisters.”
Another silence.
Then:
“You're my sister either way.”
That broke me.
“I know.”
“Okay.”
She tested.
Results came quickly.
Lily and I shared no biological relationship.
But Lily matched another database entry.
A man named Daniel Carter.
Our father.
Or her father.
The man who had raised both of us before dying when I was eleven.
Lily was Daniel and Eleanor's biological daughter.
I was not.
Eleanor and Daniel had taken me in.
Raised me beside their own child.
Never treated me differently.
My entire childhood shifted without changing.
That was the strangest part.
Facts changed.
Love didn't.
Then Gabriel found Nora.
Not alive.
A death certificate.
Under another name.
Anna Reed.
She died twenty-three years earlier.
One year after disappearing.
Childbirth complications.
I stared at the date.
My birthday.
Nora Falcone had died giving birth to me.
Eleanor had taken her infant niece.
Changed both their names.
Married Daniel Carter.
Built a life.
Why?
The answer arrived in a safety deposit box.
Eleanor had left instructions with a small Pennsylvania law firm.
If Maeve Carter ever searched for Eleanor Moretti, release the box.
Inside:
Photographs.
Letters.
A key.
And a video recorded six years earlier.
My mother appeared on screen.
Eleanor.
Alive then.
Tired.
Beautiful.
“Maeve.”
I covered my mouth.
“If you're seeing this, then either I failed to come home…”
“…or you finally discovered I lied.”
She breathed.
“I am sorry.”
“You were born Maeve Falcone.”
“Nora chose the name.”
“Your mother was sixteen when Sofia died.”
“She was already pregnant.”
Roman's face changed.
“Nora was pregnant?”
Nobody had known.
Eleanor continued.
“The father was Luca Moretti.”
Declan stood so quickly his chair fell.
Victor Moretti's son.
Their enemy.
My biological father.
Nora Falcone and Luca Moretti had fallen in love in secret.
Two mafia families.
Old hatred.
Then Nora became pregnant.
Sofia discovered it.
She wanted the war ended.
She arranged to meet Victor Moretti.
Somebody didn't want peace.
Arthur Falcone.
Roman's paternal uncle.
He had built his power on conflict.
If Sofia and Victor made peace, Arthur lost money.
Routes.
Weapons.
Influence.
Arthur planted the bomb that killed Sofia.
Then blamed Moretti.
Eleanor escaped with pregnant Nora.
Luca tried to follow.
Arthur's men killed him.
Nora gave birth months later.
She died.
Eleanor took me.
Raised me.
The video continued.
“Arthur never stopped looking.”
“So Daniel and I disappeared.”
“We had Lily.”
“We were happy.”
“For years.”
“Then six years ago, I saw one of Arthur's men outside your school.”
“I knew he had found us.”
“So I staged my death.”
I stopped breathing.
“I left because if Arthur believed I was dead, he might stop searching.”
“Maeve, I wanted to take you and Lily.”
“Daniel was already gone.”
“But you were eighteen.”
“Lily fifteen.”
“Moving you again would have destroyed your lives.”
“I made the worst decision of mine.”
“I chose distance.”
“I thought it would keep you alive.”
Tears ran down my face.
Then:
“I am alive.”
The room erupted.
Roman leaned toward the screen.
Eleanor continued.
“If this video is less than ten years old, there is a chance I am still at the place Nora called heaven.”
A key appeared in her hand.
“Gabriel will understand.”
Gabriel stared.
“What?”
Roman looked at him.
“Where?”
Gabriel whispered:
“Heaven.”
“What does that mean?”
“Our mother owned a cabin.”
“Maine.”
“Lake Angel.”
Roman was already standing.
I stopped him.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“She is my mother.”
“Yes.”
“I go.”
“We all go.”
“No.”
“Maeve—”
“I spent six years thinking she was dead.”
My voice shook.
“You don't get to turn finding her into a Falcone operation.”
Roman stopped.
Then nodded.
“Okay.”
We went together.
No army.
No convoy.
One SUV.
Four people who didn't know what we were about to find.
The cabin sat beside a frozen lake.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
I couldn't breathe.
I walked to the door.
Knocked.
Footsteps.
The door opened.
My mother stood there.
Older.
Gray in her hair.
Alive.
She looked at me.
The mug fell from her hand.
“Maeve?”
I hit her.
Not hard.
Her shoulder.
Then again.
“You were alive.”
She cried.
“I know.”
“You were alive!”
“I know.”
“I buried you!”
“I know.”
Then I collapsed into her arms.
She held me.
Exactly the same.
My mother.
Not biologically.
Completely.
Behind me, Roman, Declan, and Gabriel stood silently.
Eleanor looked over my shoulder.
Her face changed.
“Oh, boys.”
Declan cried first.
Nobody mentioned it later.
We entered.
For one hour, there was no mafia.
No conspiracy.
No revenge.
Just family.
Then headlights appeared outside.
Eleanor went white.
“How many people knew we were coming?” I asked.
Roman stood.
“Four.”
Gabriel checked his phone.
“Five.”
We looked at him.
“The hospital had our DNA results.”
Outside, three black SUVs stopped.
Eleanor whispered:
“Arthur found us.”
Roman reached inside his coat.
I grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“If you start shooting, Lily becomes part of this forever.”
His jaw tightened.
“Then what?”
I looked at my mother.
At the brothers.
May you like
At the back door.
“Then we stop behaving like the people Arthur expects.”
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