Chapter 9 - THE CHILD NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO NAME
Lorenzo drove back to the secure residence without speaking.
Elena sat beside him, holding Sophia's carrier.
The baby was asleep.
The birth certificate lay on the seat between them.
Adrian had denied knowing about Isabella's pregnancy.
Daniel had claimed Isabella was carrying a child when he last saw her.
The document suggested that the child belonged to Adrian.
None of it made sense.
When they arrived, Adrian was waiting in the living room.
His face was drawn, his eyes red from exhaustion.
"I heard about the clinic," he said.
Lorenzo held up the birth certificate.
"Explain this."
Adrian looked at the paper.
For a moment, he seemed unable to breathe.
Then he sat down.
"I never knew."
"Is that your signature?"
Adrian examined the document.
"No."
"Is Gabriel your son?"
"I don't know."
Lorenzo's voice rose.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I expect you to understand that someone has been using my name for years."
Adrian explained that he had discovered unusual payments linked to Vivian's accounts shortly before Isabella's accident. When he confronted Vivian, she told him the money was being used to protect the family from a blackmail scheme.
He had believed her.
Then he discovered that the payments were connected to the clinic where Isabella had been treated.
He tried to investigate quietly.
Instead, Daniel contacted him and claimed that Isabella was alive.
Adrian had helped him search for her, hoping to bring her home.
"I should have told you," Adrian admitted. "But I was afraid you'd assume I was involved."
Lorenzo stared at him.
"You let me believe you were helping me find my daughter while you kept secrets about my wife."
"I was trying to protect you."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
Adrian lowered his head.
"I know."
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Lorenzo asked, "Who is Gabriel?"
Adrian shook his head.
"I don't know. But if that certificate is real, we need to find him."
***
Elena was in the nursery when she heard the argument.
She sat beside Sophia, gently stroking the baby's hand.
A strange feeling had been growing inside her since she saw the photograph of Isabella.
The woman seemed familiar in a way Elena couldn't explain.
Not like someone she had seen on television.
Like someone she had known.
She remembered fragments of her childhood: a woman with dark hair, a warm voice, a silver bracelet, and a lullaby.
Most of those memories were vague, buried beneath years of foster homes and changing addresses.
But the melody she had hummed to Sophia was the same one she remembered from those fragments.
She opened the envelope containing Isabella's photograph.
On the back, beneath the date, she noticed a small handwritten note.
For my brave girl, who deserves to know the truth.
Elena's hands began to shake.
She had been adopted briefly when she was five, then returned to foster care after her adoptive parents died in a house fire.
She had been told that her biological parents were unknown.
No one had ever explained why.
She had never seen a photograph of her mother.
Now she wondered whether the woman in the picture was the person she had spent her life trying to remember.
She took the photograph to Detective Hayes.
"Can you investigate my childhood records?"
Hayes looked at her carefully.
"Why?"
"Because I think Isabella may have known me before I found Sophia."
The detective agreed to look into it.
Several hours later, she returned with a file.
"Your original foster placement was arranged through a private agency that closed years ago," she said. "Some records were transferred to state archives."
"And?"
Hayes placed a document on the table.
"Your birth mother was listed as an unidentified patient at a Manhattan hospital. But the hospital kept a supplemental record."
Elena opened it.
The mother's name was partially obscured.
The visible letters formed a familiar surname.
Moretti.
Elena stared at the page.
"No."
Hayes spoke gently.
"We haven't confirmed anything yet."
Elena shook her head.
"I can't be part of this family."
"You don't have to decide that today."
Then Hayes turned the page.
A second document had been attached.
It was a medical report from the same clinic where Isabella had been treated.
The report described a newborn girl transferred to foster care under an emergency protection order.
The child's name was Elena Vance.
The date was twenty-four years earlier.
The signature at the bottom belonged to a doctor who had died three years ago.
And beside the signature was a note written in different handwriting:
Mother requested that the child be kept away from Lorenzo Moretti's family until the threat is neutralized.
Elena felt the room tilt.
She was not Sophia's biological mother.
She was not a distant cousin.
She might be the daughter of someone connected to the Moretti family.
But before she could ask another question, Victor rushed into the room.
"Boss, we have a location on Vivian."
Lorenzo appeared behind him.
"Where?"
"An abandoned property near the waterfront. We found Daniel's car outside."
"Isabella?"
Victor hesitated.
"We don't know."
Then his phone rang.
He answered, listened, and went completely still.
Lorenzo stepped forward.
"What is it?"
Victor lowered the phone.
"Someone just sent us a live video."
He turned the screen toward them.
Vivian sat in a dark room.
Her face was bruised, and her hands were tied to a chair.
A man stood behind her holding a gun.
Then another figure entered the frame.
A woman with dark hair.
A woman Lorenzo had buried six months ago.
Isabella looked directly into the camera.
"Lorenzo," she said, "if you want your daughter to live, bring Elena to me."
The video ended.
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And for the first time, Lorenzo wondered whether the woman he had spent six months mourning was the same woman who had put his child in a dumpster.
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