Chapter 7
Vittorio D’Angelo had been married before Helena.
Roman had never known.
Nothing surprised him anymore.
Helena sat in the library after Carlo was confined.
Michael stood near the fireplace.
Nora listened.
Roman waited.
“Evelyn Moreau,” Helena said.
“She married Vittorio when they were both twenty.”
“Children?”
“One.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Lucian?”
“No.”
“Salvatore?”
“No.”
Helena looked at him.
“A daughter.”
“Name.”
“Celeste.”
Another erased child.
“What happened?”
“Vittorio wanted sons.”
“Evelyn wanted out.”
“They separated.”
“Public?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“Celeste stayed with her mother.”
“Vittorio remarried me.”
Roman stared.
“So I have an older half-sister.”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael spoke:
“I do.”
Everyone looked.
“Celeste leads what remains of Ash Circle.”
Roman felt cold.
“Why?”
Michael answered:
“Because Lucian found her.”
“When?”
“Decades ago.”
“He gave her purpose.”
“Revenge against father.”
“Yes.”
“Then against me.”
“Yes.”
“Why Sophie?”
Michael looked at Nora.
“Celeste believes girls are always erased first in D’Angelo history.”
Roman understood the twisted symbolism.
Evelyn erased.
Celeste erased.
Helena manipulated.
Now Sophie.
Celeste wanted Sophie not dead.
Reclaimed.
Raised as proof the women’s line could take what men had denied.
Nora’s face hardened.
“My daughter is not a symbol.”
Michael nodded.
“That is what Daniel said.”
His dead son.
“What happened to Daniel?” Roman asked.
Michael looked away.
“He fell in love with Celeste’s granddaughter.”
Roman almost laughed.
Family complexity becoming disease.
“Name?”
“Isabella.”
“Then?”
“They wanted to leave Circle together.”
“Lucian called it betrayal.”
“Celeste?”
“She tried to protect Isabella.”
“Failed.”
“Daniel died.”
“Isabella disappeared.”
Roman stared.
“How old would she be?”
“Thirty.”
Nora went white.
Roman noticed.
“What?”
Nora sat down.
“My mother’s name was Isabella.”
Silence.
Michael looked at her sharply.
“Last name?”
“Bennett.”
“Before marriage?”
Nora hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
She had been raised by grandparents.
Her mother supposedly died when Nora was two.
No photographs except one.
Nora pulled her phone.
Showed an image.
Young woman holding toddler Nora.
Michael stopped breathing.
“That’s Isabella.”
The room changed.
Nora was Celeste’s granddaughter.
Daniel’s lover’s child?
Timeline.
Michael stared.
“No.”
“What?”
“Isabella had a baby after Daniel died.”
Nora.
Michael whispered:
“You.”
Nora stood.
“What are you saying?”
“If Isabella was your mother…”
He looked at Roman.
“Nora is Celeste’s great-granddaughter.”
Sophie connected both lines.
Roman D’Angelo’s daughter.
Celeste’s female bloodline.
Little Crown.
Not simply Roman’s heir.
A child merging the two branches Vittorio separated decades ago.
Helena whispered:
“That is why.”
Roman looked at her.
“The money?”
“The hiding?”
“No.”
Helena looked toward Sophie’s room.
“That is why Celeste wants her.”
Michael nodded.
“To claim both branches.”
Nora’s face hardened.
“She gets nothing.”
Roman agreed.
“No.”
Michael looked at them.
“You don’t understand.”
“Celeste doesn’t want Sophie as heir to a chair.”
“What then?”
“To end your branch.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“How?”
“Raise Sophie to refuse your name.”
Psychological again.
A future girl publicly rejecting D’Angelo.
For Celeste, ultimate revenge.
Roman almost smiled.
“She could simply ask Sophie when she’s older.”
Michael stared.
“What?”
Roman continued:
“If Sophie grows up and refuses my name, that is her choice.”
Helena looked shocked.
Nora looked at Roman differently.
Michael almost laughed.
“Celeste built forty years of revenge around you being exactly like Vittorio.”
May you like
Roman leaned back.
“Then she may be disappointed.”
