I couldn’t take my eyes off the photograph.
Vittorio stood beside my mother, holding Rafael as a baby.
I was in my mother’s arms.
And someone else had been standing beside them.
Someone whose face had been deliberately cut away.
But the ring remained.
A black stone surrounded by a thin silver band.
Damiano knew it.
“You’re sure that ring belonged to your father?”
“Yes.”
“Could someone else have owned one like it?”
He shook his head.
“My father had it made for him. There was only one.”
I stared at the photograph.
“Then why would he cut himself out?”
Damiano didn’t answer.
“Maybe he didn’t,” Amelia said quietly.
We both looked at her.
She pointed at the photograph.
“Look at the edges.”
I examined it.
The cut wasn’t clean.
Someone had removed a section of the photograph.
