Chapter 4 - The Nurse Who Ran
Dominic moved first.
"Victor!"
Two bodyguards rushed toward the courtyard entrance while Dominic sprinted after the fleeing woman.
She wasn't fast. She was old, and her shoes slipped on the damp stone. But terror gave her a desperate urgency.
She reached the side gate just as Victor blocked the exit.
"Please," she gasped. "I didn't hurt the child."
Dominic stopped several feet away.
"Then why are you running?"
The woman stared at him.
Her name was Margaret Shaw. He remembered it from Elena's medical records, from the statements he'd read until the words blurred together, from the nightmares that had followed him for years.
"You told me my daughter died," he said.
Margaret began to cry.
"I was ordered to tell you that."
"By whom?"
She looked at Victor, then at Dominic.
"Your father."
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"Anthony is dead."
"That doesn't make what he did disappear."
"Tell me everything."
Margaret shook her head violently.
"You don't understand. He controlled the hospital. He paid the doctors. He said Elena's baby was a threat to the family."
"A threat?"
"Elena had discovered that your father was using the family charity to move money through shell companies. She intended to expose him after the baby was born."
Dominic felt the courtyard tilt beneath him.
His father had built the Moretti empire on fear, loyalty, and secrets. Dominic had inherited the business and spent years convincing himself he could make it cleaner.
He had never imagined Anthony had stolen his own granddaughter to protect it.
"What happened to Elena?"
Margaret's lips trembled.
"She suffered complications after the delivery. She was alive when I last saw her."
Dominic stepped closer.
"Alive?"
"Yes."
"Then why did I receive a death certificate?"
Margaret covered her mouth.
"I don't know what happened after I left her room. Your father told me the next morning that she was gone. He threatened my family if I questioned him."
Dominic's voice dropped.
"Where is my daughter?"
Margaret looked toward the courtyard.
"Lily was brought here under a false name. I thought she'd be safe if nobody knew who she was."
"You let her grow up believing nobody wanted her."
"I thought it was better than letting your enemies find her!"
"She was rejected three times today."
Margaret flinched.
For a moment, Dominic saw the terrible truth in her face. She had convinced herself that hiding Lily was the same as protecting her.
It hadn't been.
"Why didn't you tell me when I came here?" he demanded.
"Because someone has been watching this place."
"Who?"
Margaret's gaze drifted toward Vivienne.
The older woman stood near Lily, looking perfectly composed.
"Your sister-in-law knows more than she's admitting," Margaret whispered.
Dominic turned.
Vivienne was holding Lily's hand.
The sight should have been harmless. Instead, something about Vivienne's expression made his instincts flare.
"Get away from the child," he ordered.
Vivienne released Lily immediately.
"Dominic, please. I'm trying to help."
"Then start telling the truth."
Vivienne's chin lifted.
"Anthony made me promise to keep the family together. I was young, frightened, and dependent on him. I didn't know where he sent Lily."
"You knew she was alive."
"Eventually."
"And you said nothing."
"I was protecting Elena's memory."
Dominic let out a humorless laugh.
"Don't use my wife's name to excuse your cowardice."
Lily watched them from her wheelchair, hugging Mr. Bear against her chest.
"Dominic?"
His anger vanished when he looked at her.
"I'm right here, princess."
"Are you mad because I have a secret family?"
He crouched beside her.
"No. I'm mad because grown-ups have kept secrets from you."
"Am I in trouble?"
The question nearly broke him.
"Never for something someone else did."
He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead.
Then Margaret spoke again.
"There's one more thing."
Dominic rose slowly.
"What?"
"The hospital kept a private recording from the night Elena delivered the baby. Your father ordered it destroyed, but I made a copy."
"Where is it?"
Margaret reached into her pocket and produced a small brass key.
"Inside the storage room beneath the old hospital chapel. Your father used it to keep documents he didn't want anyone finding."
Dominic took the key.
"Why tell me now?"
"Because I saw Lily with you. And I realized the people who wanted her hidden might come back."
A sound came from behind them.
A tiny metallic click.
Victor spun toward the courtyard.
One of the black SUVs had its rear door open.
A man in a maintenance uniform was leaning inside, placing something beneath the passenger seat.
"Stop!" Victor shouted.
The man bolted.
Two guards chased him through the gate, but a motorcycle roared to life outside.
Seconds later, the rider disappeared into traffic.
Victor returned carrying a small black device.
"A tracking beacon," he said.
Dominic stared at it.
Someone had known exactly where he would be.
Someone had been following his car.
And someone had placed a tracker on the vehicle he had used to bring Lily her presents.
Dominic looked at Margaret.
"Who else knows about the recording?"
She hesitated.
Then she whispered, "The person who gave me the key."
"Who?"
Margaret's face crumpled.
"Elena."
Dominic stopped breathing.
"That's impossible."
May you like
Margaret shook her head.
"I saw her alive six months after the funeral."
