The weighty gold pen hung in my hand like a weapon, pointed sadly at my own chest. I stared at the line where my new name-my stolen name-was meant to be written. My vision began to swim. Every instinct screamed no. It was a line I'd cross: the deepest surrender of the person I was; Alessia Romano, an art history student who dreamed of the Uffizi Gallery and who had memories of the real smile of her mother, not the oiled image possessed by a monster. If that signature were affixed, she would die here, in this cold, soulless office.
My gaze flickered up to Dante. His face was a mask of implacable will. His threat wasn't loud or theatrical; it was a simple statement of fact. I will find a way... and it will be far less pleasant. I had no doubt he was telling the truth. He could forge my name, blackmail me, torture me into signing-there were a million paths to my submission, each one darker than the last. Then, a strange, dangerous thought, sharp as a sliver of glass, pierced through my terror. He needs my signature. He needs this to be "legal." And in his cold explanation, he had made a mistake. He told me, as Isabella, I would unlock a fortune. He'd just, in his own twisted way, handed me a key. Right now, it was a key to my own cage, but a key nonetheless. To refuse was to be broken. To sign was to survive, to play the long game, to live to fight another day from inside the walls of his fortress.
It was the worst decision of my life till now.
I lowered the nib of the pen onto the thick, creamy paper with surprisingly steady hands. It was dark, dark black ink. I didn't write my name. I wrote hers. Isabella Elena Romano. The elegant script was a mockery, a forgery of the soul. I pulled the pen away as if it had burned me.
Mr. Sterling simply seized the document. He blotted the tear stain with a practiced motion, then affixed his seal with a heavy, final thump of his notary stamp. It's done then. Alessia Romano is officially dead.
It was Dante who was watching this whole sordid affair and whose expression was then inscrutable. When Sterling handed him the folder, he finally looked at me, a flicker of cold triumph in his eyes. He had won.
The journey home was different from others. There was silence pervading it, but the dimension of it had changed. I was no longer just a captive. I was an asset. A legal entity. A tool. My hands united in my lap, phantom feel of the pen still on my fingertips.
"My mother," Dante suddenly said, startling me with his voice. He was staring straight ahead. "She loved the opera. Verdi. La Traviata was her favorite." He turned his head and looked at me. "The season opens next month. We will be in attendance. You will need a gown."
Another command, another brick in the wall of the woman he was building around me. It wasn't a question or a suggestion. I didn't say anything, just nodded as my mind reeled. I was to be paraded around as his resurrected mother.
When the elevator doors opened back into the penthouse, I entered another world. A woman stood poised and elegant before us. Perhaps near the age of 40. She had sharp and intelligent features, dark hair tied back into a formal chignon, and an air of quiet confidence that left one daunted. She wore a tailored grey suit, and her eyes, as they met Dante's, held a familiar, professional respect.
"Sofia," was the greeting of a nod Dante threw her. "Nothing is out of order."
"Excellent," she replied crisply. Her gaze then turned to me, appraising me with an unnerving intensity. There was no pity in her eyes, only a sharp, analytical curiosity. "She has the resemblance, certainly."
"The resemblance is no longer a matter of opinion. It is a matter of law," Dante stated coldly. He pointed at me. "This is Sofia. Your tutor. She was my mother's most trusted aide and archivist. There is no one who knows more about the Moretti and Romano history than she does. Your lessons begin now."
Dante walked away, leaving me alone with this strange, severe woman. The image of Isabella seemed to loom over us, its painted eyes watching. I felt like a new recruit being handed over to a drill sergeant.
"Sofia said for us to begin," she commanded tonelessly. She ushered me toward the large living area, ordering me to park myself on the cold leather sofa while she stood.
"I will not bore you with the usual pleasantries," she began with her hands clasped behind her back. "Dante has tasked me with your education. To become Isabella, you must learn first the world that made her. And the world that destroyed her. We shall begin with history. The truth, not the one you might have been told."
I steeled myself, ready for a long, biased diatribe about my father's supposed crimes.
"And the first thing you must know," Sofia said, her voice dropping, "is that the alliance between our two families was supposed to be sealed one generation ago; it was not to be a business union but a blood one; it was to be sealed in marriage."
What? I stared at her, puzzled. "What are you talking about?"
"The town where your parents are when they marry is not business ties but blood ones; the two families are supposed to have tied in marriage."
Sofia's eyes narrowed as she delivered the next line with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, a line designed to cut away the very foundation of my family's history as I knew it.
"Years before he ever met your mother, your father, Lorenzo Romano, was going to marry. To Dante's aunt. A Moretti."