The next morning was crucial for Diego. He hurriedly got ready and headed towards Thiyagu's room. He knocked and later pounded on the door when there was no respond from the inside. 

"Thiyagu! Open the damn door, will you?" Diego yelled, just then his little brother opened the door with sleepy eyes and quilt wrapped around him. 

"Why are you yelling early in the morning?" he asked letting his brother in and soon jumped back on the bed. 

"Wake up, Thiyagu! Listen this is important" Diego said and turned his head to the open door, stride towards it and shut the door close. 

"Wake up, Thiyagu!" he slapped Thiyagu's shoulder.

"I'm going to meet Alfonso now. I need you to keep an eye on dad. Are you with me?" 

"Yes, listening" Thiyagu nodded with sleepy squinted eyes. 

"Good. See, I'm not sure how but dad seems to come close into my doubt radar—"

"That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about!" Thiyagu exclaimed. 

"What?" 

"El, called me the other day about twenty minutes before Luciana met in accident. She told me that Luciana had taken the car dad had arrange it for her. It seems dad needed her help in the office"

"Which office?"

"Didn't ask about that... Never mind, the thing is I doubt dad is the reason behind the accident. Why will he need Ella's help when both the companies have good resources?"

"Are you sure?"

"I almost 80% sure. Might need some prove to justify my doubts. But Dad is behaving differently ever since I came back probably you must have notice long before too"

"Yes, I did. The doubt has been there since Ara's topic evoked. There are so many coincident happened at the same time that it's too hard not to notice them. Last night when I spoke to him, he sounded different. 

He seemed strange. How did I got my doubt shifted to Lazaro..." Diego mumbled the last part, it went inaudible for Thiyagu. 

"Strange like how?"

"He spoke more of a concern towards the slipping of the property instead of grieving over Luciana's death" 

"But again, why will dad plan an accident for El?" Thiyagu asked. 

" after deliberating over last night's conversation, I think dad is after the Agosti's properties. Which means, if Luciana is the Ara Agosti dad had arranged, Ella is an immediate hurdle towards his goal, right?" Diego explained. 

"True! I too feel Luciana was brought in by him. Why is he even after Uncle D's properties? Don't we have enough?" 

Diego's mobile rang breaking their conversation midway. 

"I need to meet Alfonso. You watch out for dad. Next few days might be pivotal for us. Don't miss even a single detail"

"On it, brother. But first I need to shower" Thiyagu jumped out from the bed and ran to the bathroom. 

-----

Ella sat on the stool bar at the kitchen counter while she watched Chandra effortlessly cut and chopped the pineapple into cubes. Indulging in small talks with Chandra did not help her wavering mind that kept diverting back to the day Luciana died. Though she had calmed Diego who was in the same state of mind as her, she was still stuck there. 

It got worst when she had nothing else to concentrate. 

"Are you listening to me, Ella?" Chandra's voice broke her chain of thoughts. 

"Uhm... yeah... sorry... no, I wasn't" Ella gave a sheepish grin. 

"What's bothering your mind, sweetie?" Chandra dropped the knife on the chopping board and stood across Ella. 

She hesitated first but then letting out the killer thought to someone sounded better than suppressing it. Hence, she told what was playing around in her mind. 

"Oh, dear! It's not your mistake. Stop stressing yourself with this kind of thoughts. We can't stop for what is fated for the girl. It's ridiculous that you are blaming yourself. 

Didn't you try to stop her for once?" 

Ella nodded.

"You did. Then why are you feeling bad for? You had warned her about the danger, about bringing someone with her yet she refused to listen. Is that your mistake? No, it isn't.

I want you to get over it. I'm preparing something for Benny, you have it too. It will relax your mind" Chandra said and continued working on the pineapples. 

Ella agreed and waited in the kitchen accompanying Chandra. Her mind kept going back to that one topic which stood prominently than the many other thoughts which were swirling in her mind longer than Luciana's death. 

That one thought which never left her since the day she got the letter. The one thought that gave her sleepless night. The one thought that forced her to doubt her identity she held for the past twenty-five years. 

Ara Agosti. 

"I'm not Ara Agosti. I'm not.... Oh, shut up for god sake... stop it!!!" she kept chanting within, telling herself to stop thinking about it, yet it didn't work. Her staying in the Moretti House had worsen her condition. Ella felt suffocated in the huge house.

Upon witnessing Ella silently struggling to ease her throbbing headache as she vigorously massaged her head. Chandra sent her away to take some rest.

------

He found himself standing in his secret room, filled with photographs hung on each walls. The room had pictures of one person. And a person whom he considered dear to him.

Ruffina Krishnan Agosti

Bernardo moved closer to one of the biggest frame in the room, he stroked the picture of Ruffina before leaning himself on it.

"I'm fulfilling every promise I made to you, Ruffina. Yet I'm sorry. Despite my many attempts, every plan of mine get failed" he said, dejected.

"I need to get to Ara Agosti before my sons reach her. Her return will not do any good for you nor will she do justice for you, my love" Bernardo poured himself a glass of whisky and sat on the only chair kept in the room.  

"How can I chase this orphan away? She's been a pain—" he stopped his murmuring, something stroked his mind. He immediately sat straight, an evil smile crept across his face as he stared at Ruffina's portrait. 

"That's it, I'll know everything about the girl from her orphanage. How stupid you were, Bernardo? Should have thought this earlier but it's not late either" he stood on his feet and gulped in the remaining liquid down his throat. 

Just then, a loud noise of glass shattering echoed in the room. 

Chandra stood at the doorway of the secret chamber in the study room—shaken. She stood for long and without she realising, she had lumbered into the room towards Bernardo who froze on his feet at her sudden intervention. 

Tears filled her eyes as they scanned the tiny room covered with photographs of her best friend and soon they poured like an open dam. The teary, pouring eyes then stopped at the man who stood just inches away from her. Chandra was completely dumbstruck, she felt lost for a moment. However, she regained her mental strength and wiped off the tears that kept rolling non-stop. She took a few deep breaths and prepared herself to ask her husband questions that begin burning in her head.

"What are you doing with Ruffina's photos, Benny?" her voice was low—lethal. 

"Answer me!!" she shouted at her husband who stood mum staring at the ground. 

He uttered not a single word as she kept demanding for answer. Chandra was outraged at his stillness, she stomped in his direction and held him by his collar—vehemently demanded him to answer her. 

"I loved her, Chandra!" he exploded and pulled her hands away from his collar.

Chandra froze—thunderstruck, staring at her husband as she completely broke from within. 

"You— What?" she managed to say barely audible. 

"I loved her and I still do, Chandra. I still do. 

But that doesn't mean I don't love you. You are very dear to me, you are my wife but Ruffina will always be my first love" he heaved, shamefaced as he sees his strong wife crumple down because of him hiding such a big thing from her.

At the moment, he felt right to tell her what she deserved to know way before. Bernardo begin,

"I fell in love with Ruffina even before Demetrio loved her but I never had the confident to tell her that. Eight months passed but I still didn't find the courage to confess my love for her and by the time I mustered my courage, it shattered. Demetrio had announced his love to all of us and that she too had mutual feelings for him. 

Being the quiet me, I buried everything within and acted normal though it killed me every second seeing them together. However, I was happy that Ruffina was happy and that's when she introduced you to me. 

It's true that I liked you and fell in love you. I still do, Chandra you know that. Believe me I never cheated on you.

Everything went normal with each of us happily married to our loves. I never looked back at Ruffina after I met you but it changed four years after. 

Remember our last vacation at Lecco in Demetrio's country house? The barn got burned? 

One of the maids who worked there told me, it was Demetrio who burned the barn that day. I wanted to confront him but I had no prove. However, after many years I did, on her death anniversary" Bernardo paused as he waited for Chandra to react or say something but she remained quiet, listened to every word he said.

"He openly agreed but never told me why. That was when I decided I will take revenge of her death. For he had killed the woman I loved" he announced proudly. 

Chandra, after a long silence got up on her feet and lumbered to the door like a living dead. She felt betrayed, she was kept in dark all these while. Why didn't her husband tell about her sister's death was because of Demetrio? And revenge? Benny, took revenge for Ruffina's death? her brain begin processing the information, coming to a conclusion.

"So, to take revenge, you killed Demetrio?" she asked as she staggered her way out leaving him shocked in the secret room without an answer. Chandra was too lost in her thought that she did not realise Thiyagu was standing right next to the door. 

He had been silently listening to everything his father had told his mother yet he find the story to be least convincing. If Uncle D agreed to have killed Aunt Ruffina, why didn't he tell the reason?

"That's weird of Uncle D. Not just that, but the entire story is unbelievable" Thiyagu mumbled as he effortlessly escaped out of the room without being noticed by his father. 

------

"How did the meeting go?" Ella asked Diego after he settled on one of the couches in her room while Thiyagu took the bean bag.

He sighed and shook his head in a no. "Not good.

Luciana's accident was indeed planned but the cops are yet to find the truck driver. Paolo Bianchi was killed. The murderer was smart, he left no evidence to track him down except for the surveillance camera footage. There's no positive news from anywhere" he said weakly.

"Couldn't they find who the killer was?" Thiyagu asked.

"The man wore a mask and a hood. The face wasn't visible at all" he sighed again and stretched himself.

The search and the accidents had kept them on their feet that they had got barely enough rest, mentally especially for Diego. Though his body demanded rest, his mind refused to let him settle.

The realisation of him almost nearing the end of the search kept him awake and aware of everything happening around. He did not want to give another chance for a mistake to happen.

Diego kept pacing back and forth, restless all of a sudden as if trying to gather words to convey his message. Ella and Thiyagu watched him silently.

He cleared his throat. "I got the result for the DNA test done for Luciana and Ella with Uncle D's blood sample..." he paused and faced the wall. The intense feel of two pair of eyes staring at him made him anxious.

"What was the results like?" asked Thiyagu.

"The DNA test came out.....

Negative for both" he announced feeling disappointed that the search has still not come to an end.

"How is that even possible?" Thiyagu immediately tried to react to the situation as how he would if he did not planned anything.

"Not even one matched? If it's not Ella's at least Luciana's should have matched, isn't it? Dad himself had personally gave it for DNA test" he added.

Diego nodded, his brother's point added more reasons for him to be sure on his father's involvement in the matter.

Ella on the other hand, reacted otherwise.A smile slowly worked across her face that later turned into a grin. She felt relieve as if a huge burden had taken down from her shoulders.

"That means I'm actually not Ara Agosti!!!" she glowed as she jumped down from the bed. "The search continues and I can finally go home" she beamed—contented.

"Not yet, Ella" Diego chided.

"We still have the letter to be dated, remember?" the reminder of the letter got Thiyagu a little alert.

"What letter, Diego? When the DNA test had proved, I'm not Demetrio Agosti's daughter than why should I wait for the letter?

I'm not Ara Agosti. That's it! And I'm leaving. Today. Right now." she concluded.

As much as he was happy that her signature impulsiveness got disappeared, it irritated him more as she begin to react as such again. Impetuous!

"Will you even wait for sometime, Ella? There could have been some mistake in the lab. I have requested for a retest. Why are you being so impulsive?" Diego fumed.

"Because I'm done. I'm done, doubting myself everyday. Questioning my identity. Being trapped in this house for no reason. This Ara Agosti shit has taken my sleep, my peace away and I'm done listening to you, Diego!!

All I want now is to go back to my own house, my own space. And live as who I am. As ELLA FALCO!!!"

With the heating argument going on, Thiyagu knew better than to stay. He left the two to argue as he decided to check on his father again.

"This is what irk me, Ella. You don't listen or understand the situation rather react sooner than you should! What if the ink dating report comes otherwise?"

"What does it even matter, Diego? The blood. The DNA isn't matching!!

And yes, I'm impulsive. I don't care about it. Right now, my mental peace is way more important than anything. I'm leaving right away. If you need anything, find me at my apartment"

Ella did not even bother to pack her belongings, she headed straight to the door.

"You will not go anywhere!" he pulled her back to the middle of the room.

"I can't stay here anymore, Diego! Not anymore, not after knowing the DNA results is negative. I don't know about Luciana but I am not dieing to be Ara Agosti. And I will not wait for a retest" she jerked her hand off his grip and walked out.

Being constantly locked in doors and watched got her furious that when Diego demanded her to stay longer, agitated her. Why should she even stay longer? Is the police department's forensic that inefficient, they could do mistakes? she thought as she sat in the car on her way to her apartment.

A sudden wave of guilt washed over her at the thought of confronting the man again. Her exit out of the house wasn't a good one and she now finds her act childish. 

"Stupid, that's why he calls you impetuous" she smacked her head for acting foolish. Nevertheless, as she was out of the house already Ella, decided to just crash in her house tonight and return the next day with an apology. Her things are still there anyway.

In spite of that, she felt relieved. A huge burden had taken off her shoulders. The familiarity of her home greeted her with such warmth which she missed in the Moretti house.

However, a question kept bubbling in her mind throughout the night.

"Why did the letter felt so real? Could the DNA test go wrong?"

********

🙏