Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF BEING A MORETTI
Three days after the DNA results became public, Lily Bennett's life stopped being private.
Reporters gathered outside Rosie's Kitchen.
Strangers photographed her through the windows.
People she'd never met began calling the restaurant, asking whether she was really Vincent Moretti's daughter.
Some offered congratulations.
Others called her a fraud.
One woman accused her of inventing the story to escape her debts.
Another demanded to know how much money she'd received.
Lily hadn't received anything.
Her diner was still damaged.
Her apartment still had a leaking bathroom faucet.
And she still woke every morning expecting to find a bill slipped beneath the door.
But none of that mattered to the people telling stories about her.
According to the internet, she was suddenly a princess.
A criminal heiress.
A gold digger.
A miracle daughter.
And sometimes all four in the same article.
She hated it.
On Monday morning, she opened the diner at six.
At six fifteen, a reporter tried to enter the kitchen.
At six twenty, a stranger offered her ten thousand dollars for her necklace.
At six thirty, someone asked whether her father had killed the men who attacked her.
Lily closed the restaurant before seven.
Then sat in the darkened dining room and cried.
Mr. Jenkins found her behind the counter.
He knocked gently on the glass.
She opened the door.
"Kid?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know how to do this."
He pulled out a chair.
"Do what?"
"Be somebody people recognize."
Mr. Jenkins sat beside her.
"You've always been somebody."
She laughed bitterly.
"Not somebody important."
He looked offended.
"Lily Bennett, you have fed half the homeless people in this neighborhood when you could barely feed yourself. Don't let a few television cameras convince you that you only became important when a rich man found you."
She stared at him.
Then began crying again.
Mr. Jenkins patted her hand.
"I knew your mother Rosie. She would tell you the same thing."
Lily nodded.
"I miss her."
"I know."
He looked toward the kitchen.
"Now make an old man some coffee before I get sentimental."
She laughed.
A real laugh.
For a moment, things felt normal.
Then her phone rang.
Vincent.
"Good morning, sweetheart."
Lily smiled slightly.
"Morning."
"How are you?"
She looked toward the boarded window.
"Like my life got dropped down a staircase."
He was quiet.
"That bad?"
"Worse."
He sighed.
"I saw the reporters."
"They won't leave."
"I can have security keep them away from the entrance, and your attorney can help you make a privacy request."
Lily hesitated.
"I don't want more bodyguards."
"Understood."
"And I don't want people thinking I'm afraid to work."
"Understood."
She frowned.
"Are you always this agreeable?"
Vincent smiled.
"Only with people who scare me."
She laughed again.
Then became serious.
"Dad?"
He went very still whenever she used the word.
"Yes?"
"Why does Dominic keep talking to reporters?"
Vincent's expression changed.
"What did he say?"
"He told one of them the family was still reviewing my background."
Silence.
Then Vincent said, "He had no right."
Lily looked toward the street.
"Does he think I'm lying?"
Vincent answered carefully.
"I believe he knows exactly who you are."
"Then why won't he say it?"
"Because acknowledging you may threaten something he's trying to protect."
Lily swallowed.
"What?"
Vincent hesitated.
Then made a decision.
"Your mother's inheritance."
She went still.
"What inheritance?"
"Sofia came from a wealthy family. Before we married, she inherited a substantial interest in several waterfront properties and a private investment trust."
Lily frowned.
"Okay."
"She left instructions concerning what would happen to those assets if anything happened to her."
Lily's stomach tightened.
"And?"
"A portion was reserved for our daughter."
She stared at the phone.
"Me?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
Vincent looked toward the documents on his desk.
"The current value is substantial. But money isn't the only issue. The trust also controls voting interests in several property companies."
Lily sat down.
"How substantial?"
Vincent exhaled.
"Several hundred million dollars in assets are involved, though your eventual rights and the precise valuation require legal review."
For a long moment, she couldn't speak.
Several hundred million.
She had eighty-three dollars when the thugs attacked.
Now her father was telling her that her mother had left a fortune whose value she couldn't even imagine.
Lily stared at her stained apron.
"I don't want it."
Vincent closed his eyes.
"Lily—"
"I mean it."
"You don't have to decide anything now."
"My mother died. Rosie died. I spent years wondering whether anyone wanted me."
Her voice cracked.
"Money doesn't fix that."
"No."
"Then why is everybody acting like it's the most important part?"
Vincent swallowed.
"Because some people care more about control than family."
Lily wiped her cheeks.
"And Dominic?"
Vincent looked toward the window.
"I believe he's one of them."
That afternoon, Lily met with Amelia Grant.
Amelia explained that legal documents had identified Evelyn Moretti as a beneficiary of Sofia's trust.
Because Evelyn was presumed dead, her interest had remained unresolved under a series of administrative arrangements.
A formal review was scheduled as the beneficiary's twenty-fifth birthday approached.
Lily turned twenty-five in three weeks.
June fourteenth.
The date Vincent had spent twenty years marking in silence.
Now the birthday had become a deadline.
"If my identity is legally established," Lily asked, "what happens?"
Amelia folded her hands.
"The trust's existing terms and any court orders will determine your rights. But your survival changes the assumptions under which some of those assets have been managed."
"Who manages them now?"
Amelia looked at Vincent.
He answered.
"Dominic is involved in several of the companies."
Lily understood immediately.
"He doesn't want me alive because of the money."
Vincent shook his head.
"More than money. Control. Authority. The ability to approve transactions without answering to you."
She looked down.
For twenty years, someone might have benefited from her disappearance.
The thought made her sick.
That evening, she returned to Rosie's Kitchen.
The restaurant was closed.
The tables stood empty.
She walked into the tiny office behind the kitchen and opened Rosie's old filing cabinet.
Inside were receipts, tax papers, insurance records, and photographs.
At the bottom of the drawer was a small metal box.
It had belonged to Rosie.
Lily had never opened it because she couldn't find the key.
But now, beneath a faded recipe book, she discovered a tiny brass key taped inside the cover.
Her hands shook.
She opened the box.
Inside were several letters.
A photograph of a four-year-old girl.
And a yellowed envelope addressed in Rosie's handwriting.
For Lily, when she's finally ready to know where she came from.
Lily covered her mouth.
Rosie had known something.
Something she'd never had the chance to explain.
Lily opened the letter.
The first sentence made her heart stop.
My darling girl, I wasn't the first person who tried to save you.
May you like
Then she read the next line.
And the woman who brought you to me warned me never to trust a man named Dominic Moretti.
