Secret Children

The plane touched down in Catania with a jolt. You clutched the small water bottle Jake, the film student, had given you. It was more precious than gold. Your mind raced, replaying the grainy video on your phone – the argument, the snap, the sickening thud. Your mother was dead, murdered, and her killer, your stepfather Paul, was likely searching for you. You had escaped Santa Maria, Texas, with nothing but the clothes on your back, your mother's passports, and the two dollars in your pocket. You were 17, underage, and completely alone in a foreign country.

Your only hope lay in finding the father your mother had always hidden from you, the one who might be connected to the names on her passports: Vittorio and Ida Sanzaro. Your internet search had led you to a potential address in Taormina, Sicily, listed as a B&B, though the information was old. It was a slim lead, but it was all you had.

You knew hitchhiking was dangerous, especially with no phone to call for help, but you had no other option. The beauty of the Sicilian landscape – the blooming citrus trees, the view of the Ionian Sea, the distant silhouette of Mount Etna – was a cruel contrast to the knot of fear and desperation in your stomach. You felt nothing but the primal urge to survive, to escape, to not end up like your mother.