Through the rust-eaten iron fence, I spotted her almost instantly: a girl curled into the corner of a mud pit, nothing but skin and bone.
Her eyes were identical to mine.
Even the small red birthmark at the tail of her left eye was the exact same as mine.
Christmas had just passed, and the cold snap in Ashford still hadn't broken, but the girl wore nothing but a set of old thermals so filthy their original color was impossible to guess.
They didn't fit. Her wrists and ankles jutted out by inches.
On her feet, a pair of sandals with toes poking halfway out, grotesquely out of season.
My eyes burned. The orphanage director hurried over, choosing her words with visible care.
"Donna Montecarlo, this child, Maria, she comes from a bad background. She's somewhat autistic. Five years old and still can't speak. Are you sure you want to take her?"
I turned my head slowly. My voice was hollow with disbelief. "Maria?"
The director nodded and sighed. "The woman who dropped her off told us her mother was a bar girl who never turned anyone away. She gave birth to this child with no known father, then caught a disease and died. That's why the child was named Maria Nessuno. The woman also left specific instructions..."
She paused, her voice dropping. "She told us the girl's life was worthless. No need to feed her properly or keep her warm. No need to treat her if she got sick. And if she died, it would be her own fault."
"What was the woman's name?"
"That I'm not sure of, but the man who came with her, a Mr. Ferraro, called her something like 'Sera.' Mr. Ferraro personally oversaw all the paperwork."
I stood rooted to the spot. My skull hummed. My stomach seized.
Ferraro. He had stood in this building. He had looked at my daughter, his Donna's blood, the heir to everything he had married into, and he had signed the papers that buried her here. He had given the order to let her starve. Let her sicken. Let her die in a place with no name, on a road that led nowhere, so that his own illegitimate child could sit in the Montecarlo Estate and call me Mommy while she learned to spit in my face.
I couldn't hold it any longer. I staggered to the corner and retched violently, but my empty stomach produced nothing but bile.
My assistant patted my back, staring at my face, which had gone white as paper.
"Donna Montecarlo, are you alright?"