Chapter 14 - The Orchard of Forgotten Children
The orchard lay three miles north of the estate.
My father had purchased the land before I was born.
As a child, I loved going there.
The old apple trees stretched across gentle hills.
A stone cottage stood near a narrow creek.
In the fall, the entire place smelled of ripe fruit and wet leaves.
Elena hated it.
She called it useless land.
She complained whenever my father spent time there.
He never explained why he refused to sell it.
Now I thought I understood.
It wasn't just an orchard.
It was where he had kept pieces of his past.
Bennett accompanied me with a small team.
We arrived shortly before sunset.
The cottage windows were dark.
The front door was locked.
No vehicles stood outside.
I walked toward the porch.
A wooden swing hung from the beam.
Its chains creaked in the wind.
My father had built it when I was eight.
I remembered him pushing me while singing that six-note melody.
Suddenly, the memory sharpened.
He hadn't been singing random notes.
He had been repeating a lullaby.
A song someone else had taught him.
I turned toward the old barn.
"There's a cellar beneath that building."
Bennett signaled her officers.
We approached carefully.
The barn smelled of hay and old wood.
Broken tools hung along the walls.
A faded tractor sat beneath a tarp.
At the far end was a staircase.
I remembered hiding there during childhood games.
My father always knew where to find me.
At the bottom, we discovered a narrow corridor.
Unlike the underground rooms at the main estate, this place had been maintained.
The floor was clean.
Fresh batteries sat beside a lantern.
Two blankets lay folded on a wooden bench.
Someone had been here recently.
Bennett called out.
"Police."
No answer.
We moved deeper.
At the end stood a door painted pale blue.
A small flower was carved into the frame.
My pulse accelerated.
I knocked.
Three times.
Waited.
Then twice.
Then once.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then a voice answered.
"Vittorio?"
My breath caught.
"No."
I leaned toward the door.
"My name is Dante."
Silence.
Then a soft gasp.
The door opened.
Isabella stood before me.
She was thinner than she'd appeared on the video call.
Her silver hair hung loosely around her shoulders.
One hand gripped the doorframe.
She stared at my face.
Then her eyes filled.
"Oh, my sweet boy."
I couldn't move.
She reached toward me.
Her fingers touched my cheek.
"You have his eyes."
I swallowed.
"Whose?"
"Vittorio's."
She began crying.
I caught her before her knees buckled.
Bennett helped me guide her toward the bench.
A paramedic examined her while she held my hand.
"Elena has been looking for me," she whispered.
"She won't reach you here."
Isabella shook her head.
"You don't understand what she's willing to do."
"I know what she did to my wife."
Her face crumpled.
"Grace."
"She's alive."
Isabella covered her mouth.
"And the baby?"
"He's alive too."
She began crying harder.
"Thank God."
I waited until her breathing steadied.
Then I asked the question I'd been carrying since the night before.
"Are you my mother?"
She looked at me for a very long time.
I felt as though the entire world had stopped moving.
Finally, she answered.
"Yes."
One word.
No elaborate explanation.
No dramatic speech.
Just the word that changed my life.
I looked away.
Every memory of Elena flashed through my mind.
Her hand on my forehead when I was sick.
Her voice calling me downstairs.
Her arms around me at my father's funeral.
Her cold expression outside Grace's prison.
The woman who had raised me was not the woman who gave birth to me.
I looked back at Isabella.
"How?"
She wiped her cheeks.
"I was married to Vittorio before Elena came into our lives."
She took a breath.
"We had Evelyn first."
I nodded.
"Then you became pregnant with me."
"Yes."
Her voice shook.
"Elena worked for your father's family."
I stared at her.
"She was his financial assistant."
Isabella continued.
"She learned everything about our money, our routines, our relationships."
"Then what happened?"
"Your father trusted her."
A painful expression crossed her face.
"Too much."
Isabella said Elena had gradually gained control over the household accounts and medical arrangements.
During Isabella's pregnancy, Elena convinced Vittorio that his wife needed specialized care.
A private clinic was arranged.
Isabella remembered going into labor.
Then nothing.
"When I woke up, they told me the baby had died."
She gripped my hand.
"They told Vittorio I had suffered a breakdown."
My throat tightened.
"And Evelyn?"
"She was taken away."
Tears streamed down Isabella's cheeks.
"Elena said there had been an accident."
I squeezed her hand.
"She survived."
Isabella froze.
"What?"
"Your daughter survived."
Her entire face changed.
"She's alive?"
I nodded.
"Her name is Evelyn Hart."
Isabella covered her mouth.
For several seconds, she couldn't speak.
Then she whispered.
"My little girl."
I held her as she cried.
Bennett stood quietly nearby.
When Isabella finally calmed, she continued.
"Elena told me Vittorio had married her."
"While you were alive?"
"She said our marriage had been dissolved."
I frowned.
"Was it?"
"I don't know what she filed."
Isabella looked down.
"She kept me isolated."
Her voice became distant.
"She said Vittorio believed I had hurt our children."
I felt sick.
"How did you get out?"
"Lydia helped me."
"Samuel's mother?"
She nodded.
"Lydia discovered the underground rooms."
"How?"
"Vittorio told her about my past."
I stared at her.
"He knew you were alive?"
Isabella shook her head.
"Not until shortly before he died."
I remembered his recording.
The suspicion.
The fear.
The unfinished investigation.
"He started looking," Isabella said.
"Then Elena realized he was getting close."
My hands tightened.
"What happened?"
Isabella looked toward the door.
"He came to see me once."
My heart stopped.
"Where?"
"In the room beneath the west wing."
Her voice broke.
"He apologized."
I looked at her.
"He said he had believed I was dead."
She began crying again.
"He promised he would bring me out."
I could barely breathe.
"Did he?"
"No."
"Why?"
Isabella looked into my eyes.
"Because the next morning, Elena told me he had died."
Silence filled the cellar.
Then she reached into the pocket of her cardigan.
She withdrew a small key.
"Your father gave me this."
I stared at it.
"What does it open?"
"A safe beneath the chapel."
I frowned.
"Our family chapel?"
She nodded.
"He told me it contained the original documents Elena could never replace."
"What documents?"
Isabella looked terrified.
"Proof that your father's marriage to Elena was never what she claimed."
My mind raced.
If Elena's marriage had been legally invalid, everything concerning her claim to the family estate could change.
But Isabella wasn't finished.
"There's also a letter."
"From whom?"
"Elena."
I stared at her.
"She wrote it herself."
Isabella nodded.
"Before Vittorio died."
"What does it say?"
She swallowed.
"It's the reason he was preparing to have her arrested."
I leaned closer.
May you like
Isabella's voice dropped.
"She confessed what she did to Evelyn."
