Chapter 14 - The Hidden Ledger of Saint Jude's
The morning sun brought no relief to the tension suffocating the Moretti manor.
While Vincent spent the early hours coordinating with his shipping capos at the south docks, I couldn't shake the phrase Julian had used.
*The stray Vincent pulled off the pavement.*
It sounded like standard arrogance, yet something in the cadence of his voice suggested a deeper, uglier secret.
I walked down to the estate archives in the basement, where decades of old legal papers and registry records were stored in steel fireproof safes.
I called Marco down, meeting him outside the vault.
"Marco, you’ve served the Morettis since Vincent was a boy," I said, folding my arms.
"I need the original intake files from Saint Jude’s Orphanage from twenty-four years ago."
Marco looked uneasy, shifting his weight under his heavy coat.
"Mrs. Moretti, Boss instructed me to keep you focused on security for tonight's gala."
"I am the lady of this house, Marco," I said, my tone brooking no argument.
"And I am Vincent's wife. If I am walking into an ambush tonight, I will not do it blind."
Marco sighed, his loyalty torn, but he finally reached into his pocket and produced a small brass key.
He opened a locked steel cabinet in the corner, pulling out a faded leather binder stamped with the insignia of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
"Vincent didn't want you to carry this burden, Elena," Marco murmured softly.
"He spent three years trying to bury it so you could live in peace."
I opened the crumbling pages to the section dated October 14th, twenty-four years prior.
There, in neat Catholic calligraphy, was my own childhood intake record.
*Infant female, found wrapped in an embroidered silk blanket on the steps of Saint Jude's.*
Attached to the yellowed card was a photograph of the blanket's corner.
My hands began to shake violently.
Embroidered on the silk border was the exact crest from the bloody coin left in my nursery yesterday:
A two-headed viper coiled around an open tomb.
"Dear God..." I whispered, the room spinning around me.
"I wasn't abandoned by poor strangers who couldn't afford milk."
"You were Domenico Valenti's youngest daughter," Marco said, his voice thick with regret.
"Maria Moretti gave birth to you in secret three weeks before the warehouse fire. To save your life from Vincent's father, she smuggled you to Saint Jude's."
The ground beneath my feet felt as though it had completely fallen away into an endless void.
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Vincent hadn't just married a destitute girl from the streets out of charity or chance.
He had married the orphaned princess of the family his own father had butchered.
