The word brothers kept repeating in Sophia’s mind again and again. She looked at the three men, Alexander, Damian, and Lorenzo. searching their faces for anything she recognized, something she could believe.
“No,” she said quietly, her hand shaking as she held the knife. “That can’t be true. I would remember. I would know if I had brothers.”
Alexander’s expression softened, but there was sadness in his eyes. “You were very little when it happened,” he said gently. “We were older. You might remember us as the boys who played with you in the garden, who built blanket forts, who read you bedtime stories.”
For a moment, something small flickered in her memory, distant laughter, someone lifting her into the air, a voice reading stories in silly voices.
But the images were blurry, like memo
