Hector stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window with a stony face.
Overwhelmed by the excitement of finding his sister, he was so focused on getting her back to the Espina family to identify her that he didn’t think about whether she would want to recognize them.
“In case my sister doesn’t want to come back…”
At the thought of this possibility, Hector’s heart raced violently.
From what he found out, Albina and Umberto are very close as a couple, so if Umberto helped intercede, then….
Hector thought about this, his face looked uncomfortable, and he coughed slightly.
-Umberto, Albina listens to you more. How about you…?
-Mr. Espina, you don’t know Albina, don’t look at her as a soft and weak person, but she has a very strong nature. In our family, it is not her who listens to me, it is me who listens to her.
Umberto said it without any regard or shame, but with a hint of smugness.
Hector held his breath, then said:
-If you are so close to Albina, you must know her very well. What do you think? What do I have to do to make her recognize us and get her back to…? No, no, get her to accept the Espina family.
There was silence for a while, and when Hector’s anxiety reached its peak and he wanted to get into the microphone and get him out of there, Umberto finally spoke.
-Doesn’t your family already have a daughter? It would be awkward for Albina to go there and not have room for her.
Umberto made a point of looking into it after Albina mentioned something about Hector.
The Espina family is very good to Diana, their adopted daughter. After the loss of their daughter, the parents poured almost all their love and affection for her into Diana. The youngest son of the Espina family, Adrian, who is still in elementary school, is also very close to Diana and treats her as his own sister.
Except only to Hector, for when Albina was lost, Hector had long since begun to remember his little sister.
Although Diana had been raised in the Espina family for so many years, in Hector’s eyes, she could never replace her sister.
-The entire Espina family only has eyes for Diana, and people on the outside only recognize Diana as the princess of the Espina family. How do you expect Albina to handle herself?
Umberto’s words were very unkind and blunt.
-My Albina was raised in the hands of her adoptive parents, and now she is in the Santangel family and is spoiled by all of us, so why should she go to the Espina family to be humiliated? In that case, not to mention her, even I would stop her from going back to the Espina family.
Hector’s fingers gripped the phone tightly and a sudden sadness welled up in his heart.
They had missed Albina for many years and the feelings that had faded would take longer to repair.
-Umberto, it’s not what you think. Diana was adopted for a reason.
Umberto paused for a moment, because Hector was Albina’s blood brother and had a little more patience with him.
-You speak and I will listen to you.
Only then did Hector tell the story of what happened years before.
Albina was lost at her second birthday party, the first time the Espina family made Albina’s identity public and invited a large number of people.
Albina stayed with the babysitter.
But when Albina’s turn came, her parents went looking for their daughter, only to find the babysitter running in panic, saying the girl was missing.
The babysitter said she had just gone to the bathroom and Albina had disappeared.
It is unclear if she ran off on her own or if she was taken away.
There were many people at the banquet, and the parents feared that their daughter had actually been stolen by someone to take advantage of the opportunity, so they immediately closed the banquet venue. They sent all the family members to look for her, but they searched the whole family and did not find the girl.
The mother was immediately stunned, and the father immediately called the police, they used all the family’s contacts and resources to find their daughter.
But back then, the level of technology was limited and surveillance was not as widespread as it is today. Surveillance in the Espina family was not particularly developed and wherever she was caught on camera, Albina did not appear.
A few days later, the girl was still missing.
Hector understood then that his good and sweet sister was lost, that there were no more clues and that he would not find her again for a few years.
The absence of a bouncing figurine in the house was like taking half the joy out of the Espina family.
Her mother spent the day crying, blaming herself for not personally watching her daughter at the party. Her father was also depressed, but since he was the head of the family, he could only endure it and made the search continue in secret.
Her grandmother, who loved Albina the most, fell completely ill after the incident. She was already old and in poor health, and after Albina’s disappearance, her health deteriorated rapidly and she died before she survived three months.
Before she died, she could not stop thinking about her little granddaughter, holding her father and Hector’s hand and urging them again and again to make sure she was found.
The mother was heartbroken. As she was crossing the road, she was almost hit by a car, and it was Diana who saved her by jumping over and pushing her.
When the mother woke up in the hospital, the Espina family found Diana and wanted to thank her, but accidentally discovered that this girl was orphaned and adopted by a family, but the adoptive parents later had their own children and beat and scolded her.
The girl led a very miserable life, but still smiled at them, refusing to accept the thanks of the Espina family.
The way she behaved and her kindness made the mother think of her lost daughter and become saddened.
She wondered where her daughter would be now and if she would suffer mistreatment like this child.
In an effort to give her daughter a blessing, the Espina family intervened and reached an agreement with Diana’s adoptive parents to adopt her, allowing her to change her last name to Espina.
Perhaps due to the hardships she had suffered, Diana was a very precocious child who could read people’s thoughts at an early age, comforted her mother when she was sad and was also very good at talking and being a good girl, so she soon got her mother to accept her.
Hector finished and took a deep breath.
-Umberto, you can be sure that my parents haven’t forgotten Albina for a single day. Although this is a bit unpleasant to say, my parents really only have a parasitic effect on Diana, there is no one who can replace Albina in their hearts. As for Adrian….
Speaking of his brother, Hector frowned.
During all these years, his mother’s health was not good and, for fear of fanning his sadness, no one in the Espina family ever mentioned his sister.
Adrian was born after Albina’s disappearance and had no idea he had an older sister, so he and Diana were very close.
-But I can guarantee that if I knew Albina, I would love her.