"Daddy, I hid a dead fly inside the cake for the ugly monster. She won't find it, right?"
"The fly's buried in the blueberry jam. She's too stupid to notice."
The words had barely left her mouth when I appeared in the doorway.
Father and daughter exchanged a quick glance.
Carina was the first to move, grabbing the blueberry cake and running toward me.
"Mommy, Carina picked out your favorite blueberry cake just for you! I'm sorry I threw away the hair clip you bought me. Daddy already scolded me. Can you forgive me, Mommy?"
The girl stood before me with her head lowered, but her eyes kept darting up to gauge my reaction. Calculating little glances, testing the waters.
It wasn't as though I'd never had my doubts. She looked nothing like me, and nothing like Dante either. And it wasn't just her appearance. Her preferences, her allergies. Every single one was the exact opposite of mine.
Now I knew who she took after.
Those eyes, barely able to contain their eagerness to watch me bite into that doctored cake. They were identical to Serafina Conti's, whose photo I'd been staring at on my phone ten minutes ago.