Chapter 2: The Mark I Never Forgot
My hands were shaking so badly I had to grip the edge of the tub.
I knew that birthmark.
I had stared at it every single day for the first four years of my life — on the shoulder of the woman who used to sing me to sleep, the woman who disappeared when I was barely old enough to remember her face.
My mother.
"Lucy," I whispered.
My voice came out broken.
"What…
what is your name?
Your real name.
Please think."
She looked at me with those tired, clouded eyes.
"I told you.
I don't remember."
"Try." I grabbed her hand without thinking.
"Please.
Did you ever have a daughter?
A little girl?"
Something shifted in her expression.
A flicker.
Then it was gone.
"I don't know," she said quietly.
"Sometimes I dream about a child.
But I don't know if it's real."
My throat closed completely.
I reached into my shirt and pulled out the locket I had worn every day since my grandmother pressed it into my hands at her deathbed.
Inside was a faded photo — a young woman holding an infant, both of them smiling.
I held it in front of Lucy's face.
She stared at it.
Her hand slowly rose to her mouth.
And then Alejandro appeared in the doorway — and the look on his face told me he already knew.
He had known before he ever brought her home.
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May you like
What Mariana discovered next — and what Alejandro had been hiding for years — will leave you speechless.
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