Chapter 2 - What Her Blood Knew
Dante opened his eyes thirty-six hours later.
The first person he saw was Salvatore.
“Am I dead?”
“No.”
“Disappointing.”
Salvatore almost smiled.
“Your wife might disagree.”
Dante tried moving.
Pain stopped him.
“What happened?”
“You lost enough blood to make three doctors reconsider their careers.”
“Marco?”
“Alive.”
“The others?”
“Alive.”
Dante closed his eyes.
Then remembered.
“Elena?”
Salvatore’s silence made him look again.
“What about her?”
“She saved your life.”
Dante frowned.
“How?”
“Her blood.”
That made no sense.
“My type—”
“Matched.”
Dante stared at him.
Salvatore pulled a chair closer.
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“The expanded panel found the Moretti marker.”
Dante’s expression changed.
“In Elena?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“That was my reaction.”
Dante’s voice became colder.
“Where is she?”
“Downstairs.”
“Bring her.”
“She donated enough blood to keep you alive, Dante.”
Salvatore stood.
“You can wait ten minutes.”
Dante looked toward the window.
“Salvatore.”
“Yes?”
“Why would a Rossi carry our marker?”
The old adviser paused.
“That is exactly what I intend to find out.”
---
Elena entered forty minutes later.
Dante looked pale beneath the hospital lights, but his eyes had recovered their usual sharpness.
She stopped beside the bed.
“You look terrible.”
His eyebrow moved.
“Apparently marriage has made you talkative.”
“Apparently almost dying has made you observant.”
He studied her.
“Thank you.”
Elena blinked.
Dante Moretti did not say those words often.
“For the blood,” he added.
“You needed it.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
Dante watched her.
Then he asked, “Did you know?”
“About the marker?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Your mother never mentioned the Morettis?”
Elena hesitated.
Dante noticed.
“What?”
“She hated your family.”
“That isn’t unusual.”
“She was afraid of your father.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“My father has been dead eight years.”
“My mother has been dead twelve.”
Silence filled the room.
“What was her name?”
“Sofia Rossi.”
Dante repeated it.
Nothing.
Then Salvatore entered carrying an old black ledger.
Dante frowned.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your father’s private archive.”
“That room is locked.”
“I had the key.”
“You told me nobody had the key.”
“I lied.”
Elena almost smiled.
Dante noticed.
“Apparently everyone enjoys doing that.”
Salvatore placed the ledger on the table.
“I remembered the name Sofia.”
He opened it.
Pages crackled.
Dates.
Payments.
Initials.
Medical expenses.
Then something slipped from between two pages.
A photograph.
Elena picked it up.
Her breath stopped.
A young woman stood outside a hospital beside another woman in an elegant dark coat.
Elena recognized the first immediately.
“My mother.”
Dante reached for the photograph.
His face changed.
“That’s my mother beside her.”
Salvatore whispered, “Isabella Moretti.”
On the back was a date.
November 3, 1996.
And four words.
St. Catherine Pediatric Unit.
Elena stared at it.
“I was six.”
Dante looked at Salvatore.
“What happened when she was six?”
Salvatore did not answer.
Dante’s voice dropped.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“I know your father ordered every record connected to November 1996 removed from the family archive.”
Elena’s fingers tightened around the photograph.
“Why?”
Salvatore turned another page.
A handwritten entry appeared.
S.R. child — transplant successful. Donor L.M. Records sealed by order of Vittorio Moretti.
Dante read it twice.
“Transplant?”
Elena looked confused.
“I was sick as a child.”
“What kind of sick?” Salvatore asked.
“I don’t remember much. My mother said I had a blood disorder.”
Dante pointed at the initials.
“Who is L.M.?”
Salvatore’s face lost color.
Dante saw it.
“Who?”
The old man whispered:
“Lucia Moretti.”
Dante stopped breathing for a second.
Elena looked between them.
“Who was Lucia?”
Dante answered this time.
“My sister.”
Elena stared at him.
“You have a sister?”
“Had.”
Dante looked at the ledger.
“She died when I was fourteen.”
Salvatore slowly sat down.
“Lucia donated bone marrow shortly before her death.”
Dr. Keller, summoned minutes later, examined Elena’s old medical information.
Then he gave them the explanation.
“A successful bone marrow transplant can replace the recipient’s blood-forming system with the donor’s. That could explain why Mrs. Moretti’s blood carries markers associated with Lucia.”
Dante looked at Elena.
“So she isn’t biologically Moretti.”
“No,” Keller said. “The blood findings alone do not establish that.”
Elena exhaled.
But Dante was staring at one line.
Donor L.M.
“My sister saved Elena.”
Salvatore nodded.
“And your father buried it.”
Dante’s eyes became dangerous.
“Why?”
Salvatore looked at the photograph again.
May you like
“I think Lucia’s death may not have happened the way Vittorio told you.”
---
