Chapter 3 - The Intake File That Wasn’t There
Sister Beatrice’s office smelled of instant coffee and old paper.
The desk was a scarred oak monstrosity from the Eisenhower administration, cluttered with stacks of state compliance forms, medical release waivers, and brightly colored drawings done in Crayola.
“Mr. Vitelli, please. I am so sorry. She has an active imagination. The children here—they create stories. They invent parents because the reality is too heavy to carry. It’s a defense mechanism, really—”
“Shut up, Sister,” I said.
It wasn't a shout.
It was conversational.
The kind of tone that made Matteo drop his eyes when we were auditing a ledger that didn't balance.
Sister Beatrice stopped mid-sentence. Her mouth stayed slightly open, her lips trembling.
“Get the intake file,” I said.
“Mr. Vitelli, client confidentiality—child welfare laws—records are sealed by the state—”
I reached into my inner jacket pocket, pulled out a thick leather folio, and tossed it onto her desk.
It landed with a heavy, satisfying thud.
Inside were three cashier’s checks drawn on a Swiss correspondent bank, each made out to St. Margaret’s Children’s Home, unsigned by me, completely blank in the payee line except for my signature at the bottom.
“The five million isn't a gift,” I said, leaning over the oak desk until my face was six inches from hers. “It’s a revolving credit line. Right now, it’s funding your roof, your heating, and your staff salaries. If you open that filing cabinet and hand me the original intake dossier for Sophia Vitelli—or whatever name she was dropped off with—that money becomes permanent. If you tell me no, I will have municipal inspectors condemn this building by sunset, throw every child into the county foster system within forty-eight hours, and spend the rest of my natural life making sure you never work inside the state of Illinois again.”
Sister Beatrice looked at the checks.
Then she looked at my eyes.
She saw the same slate-grey void her little girl had looked into three minutes earlier.
She didn't reach for the filing cabinet behind her.
She reached for the bottom drawer of her desk, unlocked a small metal lockbox with a brass key she wore around her neck, and pulled out a manila folder stamped with a red diagonal line: CLOSED / WARD OF THE STATE / NO CONTACT.
“She wasn't brought here by her mother,” Sister Beatrice whispered, sliding the folder across the blotter.
“Who brought her?”
“A man. Six years ago. March fourth.”
“Name?”
“He didn't give one. He left her on the front steps with a cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars and a signed relinquishment form bearing a notary stamp from Zurich.”
I opened the folder.
The first page was a polaroid.
It showed a toddler sitting on a hospital blanket wrapped in a blue quilted jacket I had bought in Milan during our second wedding anniversary.
Below it was a handwritten note on plain white paper.
Her name is Sophia. Her father is Marco Vitelli. If he ever finds her, she dies.
I stared at the handwriting for thirty seconds without breathing.
May you like
It wasn't Alina’s hand.
It was Matteo Rizzo’s.
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