THE GREENHOUSE DOOR WAS UNLOCKED LONG BEFORE WE ARRIVED

A week passed. The estate was quiet, the heavy tension that had always hung in the air finally gone.

Vanessa’s arrest had made front-page news. The headlines called it a “society scandal,” detailing her extortion attempts but missing the mafia ties entirely, just as Luca had arranged. Her family’s firm had been quietly dismantled, their assets frozen.

My father was recovering beautifully. The private doctors had adjusted his medication, and he was already walking the gardens with Yuri, arguing playfully over the best soil for winter roses.

I had moved out of the servant’s quarters and into a bright, airy guest room down the hall from Leo. Life felt strangely perfect. Too perfect.

It was a Tuesday afternoon when I found myself sitting on the floor of Luca’s massive library, surrounded by old photo albums.

Luca was at his mahogany desk, reviewing the new corporate restructuring documents. He looked up and smiled at me.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked.

“Just a lot of pictures of you scowling as a teenager,” I teased, flipping a page.

But then, my fingers brushed against something stiff tucked between the back pages of the album. I pulled it out.

It was a single, folded piece of parchment. The edges were torn, jagged, as if it had been ripped out of a book in a hurry.

I unfolded it.

It was a page from a diary. Luca’s mother’s diary.

I frowned, looking at the date at the top: November 2nd.

“Luca,” I said slowly. “Did you read all of your mother’s diary?”

He looked up, putting his pen down. “I read the last entry. The one about Viktor saving me. The rest were just daily logs. Why?”

“Because there’s a page ripped out,” I said, holding up the parchment. “And I think I just found it.”

Luca walked over and knelt beside me. He took the page.

As he read, his expression shifted from curiosity to utter shock.

“November 2nd. I have made a terrible mistake. I sent Viktor away to protect him, but I didn’t tell him the whole truth about his wife, Clara. He thinks she died in the hospital fire. He thinks Emma was the only survivor. I couldn’t bear to tell him that Vanessa’s father took the other baby. The twin. If Viktor knew Emma had a sister, he would have stayed to fight, and they would have killed him.”

The room spun.

“A twin?” I whispered, my voice completely devoid of air. “I have a sister?”

Luca stared at the paper, reading the last lines aloud.

“I tracked the Bellini lawyer’s movements. He didn’t keep the child. He sold her to a family in Boston. A family named Sterling. God forgive me for keeping this from Viktor.”

I grabbed Luca’s arm, my nails digging into his sleeve. “My mother didn’t die of cancer ten years ago? She died in a fire? And I had a sister?”

“Emma, breathe,” Luca said, pulling me against his chest.

“How could my father not know?” I cried, tears welling instantly. “How could he not know my mother had twins?”

“Because they were born premature,” a quiet voice said from the doorway.

We both turned.

My father stood there, leaning heavily on his cane. He looked pale, staring at the torn parchment in Luca’s hand.

“She went into labor while I was working at the estate,” my father said, his voice trembling. “There was a fire at the clinic. By the time I arrived, they told me Clara didn’t make it. They handed me a single baby wrapped in a blanket. They told me you were the only one.”

He took a shaky step forward, tears spilling down his weathered cheeks.