Mafia Don’s Lost Heiress Chapter 08
Carolina lay low for a few days.
I thought she would at least keep pretending a little longer.
But when I returned to Velvet Room to turn in my
resignation, she showed up again, her heels clicking across the floor.
Except for the dark circles beneath her eyes, she still
looked every inch the glamorous Mafia princess.
“Well, well.”
She folded her arms and blocked my path.
“You found your real daddy, and you’re still coming
back to a place like this? What, couldn’t bear to give up
all those tips from men?”
I stepped around her and kept walking.
She hurried after me, her voice growing sharper.
“Willow Valenti, who do you think you’re fooling with that innocent act?”
“You only came back for the Valenti family money.
Name your price. I’ll pay it, and you can take the
money, leave New York, and stay away from my father.”
I stopped and turned toward her.
“Carolina Reed.”
Her expression changed instantly.
No one had called her by her original surname in years.
I took a step closer.
“You spend my father’s money, live on the Valenti
estate, use the Valenti name, and introduce yourself as
the heiress at old family parties.”
“You bribed the club manager behind his back and had
the VIP lounge footage from that night deleted.”
“You’ve even been using his black card to bankroll
people who do your dirty work.”
“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”
The color drained from Carolina’s lips.
“You’re lying.”
I smiled.
“For Daddy’s sake, I’m letting you keep the last shred
of your dignity.”
“You’d better hold on to it.”
“When you spat, ‘You little bitch,‘ at me, did you ever
imagine I’d be the one to bring you down?”
She spun on her heel and fled.
But I knew she wouldn’t stop.
Sure enough, Laura sent me a link the next day.
Laura: [Willow, we have a problem. Someone sent
photos of you at Velvet Room to the tabloids, claiming
you were impersonating Don Valenti’s daughter to get
your hands on the family trust.]
I opened the link.
The headline was impossible to miss.
#PrivateClubHostessClaimsToBeValentiHeiress#
The attached photo showed me in my short dress,
forced to my knees inside the VIP lounge.
The comments were vicious.
Some people called me cheap. Others called Don
Valenti a senile old fool. More said that a woman like
me would do anything for money.
What hurt most were the words Don Valenti himself
had used that night.
There are no shortcuts into this family.
He had called me a fraud.
Before I could decide how to respond, he called.
“Willow, I know what’s happening online.”
“Don’t be afraid. I’ll take care of it.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“You don’t have to. You’ve already done enough for me.”
His voice remained steady.
“Not nearly enough.”
“I failed to recognize you right away that night. I left you kneeling there alone while those people humiliated you.”
“I won’t let you face this alone again.”
That evening, Don Valenti didn’t have his lawyers send
a formal letter or his public relations team put out a
polished but empty statement.
He delivered a press statement himself.
He didn’t speak from an imposing stage or surround
himself with rows of guards. He simply stood in front
of the wall covered with missing–person posters, holding a photograph of me at three years old,
He told them about the Brooklyn summer street fair.
He told them about the three days and nights after I disappeared.
He told them how my mother had made him promise,
before she died, that he would find me.
He told them about every impostor who had come
forward over the years and every fresh disappointment they had left behind.
Finally, he looked directly into the camera, his voice breaking.
“I spent twenty years looking for my daughter, and she spent twenty years looking for me.”
“I can’t bear to imagine what she endured.”
“She is not a fraud. She is not a hostess scandal. She is
not any of the filthy names people have called her.”
“She is Willow Emilia Valenti.”
“She is my biological daughter.”
“She is the Valenti family’s only blood heiress.”
Public opinion turned almost instantly.
Then Marco handed me a file.
“Miss Valenti, we found something.”
“Carolina did more than leak the story.”
“Three years ago, she read the description of your scar and the notes about the lullaby in the old
missing–person file.”
“Over the past few years, two young women tried to reach the Don with genuine leads. Carolina paid both of
them to go away before he ever heard them out.”
My fingers slowly tightened around the file.
It wasn’t that my father had failed to find me.
Someone had spent years intercepting every lead before it could reach him.