None of it made any goddamn sense.
"Elena, I know this is a lot for you, but you wanted me to find out everything about your father…" Trent's face was full of sympathy and hurt for me, and I blinked away any possible tears, unwilling to break.
I didn't need him knowing how stupid I felt, how lost and confused this left me.
"Show me," I said through gritted teeth, the need to know now too high. Trent removed his hand, and I opened the folder.
The photos inside punched the air from my lungs. The first showed a tall man in an impeccable suit exiting a sleek black car. Trent had written notes under the photo for me. Grayson Cassaro. My half-brother. He had the same dark hair and jawline as the father I barely remembered. His smirk and confident posture screamed money and power. The caption noted he was at some charity gala.
The second photo, labeled Meredith Cassaro, caught a beautiful woman leaving what appeared to be a high-end boutique with a friend, shopping bags dangling from both arms. She wore oversized sunglasses and a dress that probably cost more than my monthly rent.
The family resemblance made my chest tighten. The woman, Meredith, had my hair exactly—the same shade of dark earthy brown that I liked to tie back in a high ponytail every day. We even had the same upturn at the corner of our smiles—something we'd clearly both inherited from our father. But where Meredith looked polished and pampered, her hair rollingover her shoulders in perfect waves, my own reflection showed the strain of two jobs and sleepless nights.
The third photo was of them together with a well-dressed man Trent had labeled as "Leo Donati" at some restaurant opening. They were laughing, champagne flutes raised in a toast.
I stared at the photos, at these strangers who were my blood.
But it was their eyes that held us apart. I'd inherited my mother's blue eyes, while they had deep green eyes. It appeared none of us had gotten the hazel mix of our father.
Something bitter and ugly coiled in my stomach. While I'd spent the past year watching my mother deteriorate, scraping together every penny for her treatments, my father's "real" children had been living in luxury off of his money.
Sure, his money had helped raise me and put a roof over my head, but when those checks had stopped coming, my mother had to go back to work full-time to cover the bills.
My mother had been smart with the money he'd sent us, putting it aside for college for me, getting a financial advisor to invest some of it. By the time the checks had stopped, my mother had savings and the house almost half paid off, but continuing to work full-time had been her choice since she'd wanted me to have a good life and get a good education.
A choice she was now paying heavily for.
I shoved the photos back into the folder. I couldn't look at them anymore—their perfect clothes, their carefree smiles, their obvious wealth. The wealth that should have been shared. The wealth that I needed right now.
"Grayson and Meredith Cassaro, now both with the last name Donati." Derek tapped the top of the folder with his finger. "His legitimate children. They inherited everything. The house in Ironstone, which they sold, the business holdings, everything."
Everything except us. The bastard and her mother.
"Grayson runs several businesses in Ironstone, his main one being Lion Freight Services, whom he co-owns and operates with Leonardo Donati, a powerful, rich man, who also happened to marry Meredith. Meredith works part-time at Donati Enterprises in the accounting department, though her role seems largely ceremonial. Both live exceptionally comfortable lives, as you can see."
"Yeah, I can see that," I muttered, trying to quell the not so pleasant emotions and feelings roiling within me. Sure, I'd missed out on whatever life they'd had with their father, something that hurt me. But now, they were living large with his money, while my mother was fighting for her life. "But what about his will? Were we mentioned on there?"
"Honestly, that's not something I can access without going through more channels and getting the right authority and permissions," Trent said honestly, his brows drawing together. "I know you're in a rough spot, Elena, but given you're the child of an affair, it's possible you weren't in the will. And if you were, it's also possible they did try to track you down in regards to it."
"The only way to know is if I talk to them." I stared at the closed manila folder housing the photos of family I'd not known existed.
"Just... be careful what you dig into. These people have resources." He leaned back. "And it's possible they don't know about you. Having a half-sibling rock up out of the blue, knowing that they have wealth…"
"It looks like someone trying to use them for money," I agreed.
"A blood test will prove your relation, but they may not agree to it. And if there is no mention of you in the will or your mother, then they'd have no reason to even want to do so."
I chewed my cheek as all this information settled over me. The deceit, the loss, the false hope.
"Look, Jessie asked me to help you as a favor, but I'm telling you as a friend—some doors are better left closed. The Donati name, it comes with some weight, it might not be something you want to get mixed up with."
"What kind of weight?" I pressed.
"I'm not sure yet, I only did the basics of looking into them, I was more focused on your father."
"And I'm out of money to spare," I admitted with a heavy sigh, the despair seeping into me. Hiring Trent had been my last attempt to help my mother, and he'd been willing to do it cheaply due to my friendship in school with his sister. But I couldn't expect any more from him. He'd already done more than my payment should have covered, and I knew that.
"How is your mother?" he asked softly, and I gave him a forced, thin-lipped smile.
