Alpha Loren novel Chapter 109

When we had retrieved the hefty book, we headed back to Max's little house on the edge of Naples.

The book was incredibly thick and the pages as thin as Max's chance of success in life. The writing was minuscule making it hard to read the thousands of tiny names and dates of birth on each page. The first 500 hundred pages were hardly legible, although someone had carefully gone over the ink so that it hadn't faded. Hecate Chiaramonti was on the first page, her birth date 1076 BC. That's 3096 years ago making it by far the oldest book in existence.

For the first few hours of looking for the Megestanis family's names, Max sat beside me, kind of helping. He then went to make dinner while I continued to search and then after five more hours tried to persuade me to carry on in the morning. I was more determined than that though, I'd go all night if I had too.

It was 3 am and Max was passed out on the sofa. Still no sign of a single Megestanis, but I had found Postestas Loren's mate. Her name was written as Donatia Chiaramonti Loren and unlike every other name, it was in red ink. Her birth date, April 16th 44 AD, was also in red.

"Max , wake up," I said. "Bloody hell, Max! I said wake up!" I repeated after he didn't reply.

"Did you find her name?" He groaned still half asleep.

"No, but come and look at this," I said and I heard him slowly stand and slump over to the table I was sat at.

"Donatia Chiaramonti, mated name Loren, is written in red. That's Postestas Loren's mate, the one with the powers. Hecate is also in red and so is this boy from 345 BC called Mirus Marcellaro. He died in 359 BC when he would have been 14, which makes me think he had the powers too and something obviously happened to him when he started to get out of control. In those days people used to name their offspring with meaning too. Donatia could come from the Latin for gifted, Donatus, and Mirus could come from the Latin of extraordinary," I explained.

"So if your theory is correct, Milly's name will be somewhere in this book in red?' Max asked his voice still a little croaky from sleep.

"Yep, so now it should be easily distinguishable," I said flicking through pages looking for a sign of red.

It wasn't until another hour later that I spotted the next red name. A girl named Elizabeth from the 1700s. I put my slight disappointment that it wasn't Milly aside and continued to search for another thirty minutes.

"Max..." I said to my eldest cousin who had sloped back to the sofa. "I think I found her. Her full name is Millia right?"

He nodded as he leant over my shoulder and looking to where I was pointing.

"Millia Benedetta?" Max said reading the words on the page. "Her birthday, April 17th, 2007 AD, is right but why Benedetta and where is the rest of us?"

"That's not your Dad," I said pointing to the name that according to the book was Milly's father, Roberto Benedetta.  "When did Milo Megastanis die Max?..." I said after a moment of silence.

"February 1st, 2007," Max replied.

"Two and a half months before Milly was born..." I said slowly under my breath.

"Fucking hell," Max said. "Milo isn't her Dad..."

"Roberto Benedetta is," I finished.