Chapter 7 - The Daughter No One MentionedDominic stared at the phone.
"That's impossible."
Carmine's voice was quiet.
"The record is authentic. Elena gave birth six months before she died."
Dominic's mind raced.
Elena had never told him she was pregnant. He had never seen a child. There had been no funeral, no announcement, no explanation.
Only a sealed medical file and a wife whose death he had never fully understood.
"Where is the child?"
"We're trying to find out."
Dominic ended the call and looked at Fay.
"My wife had a baby."
Fay's eyes filled with disbelief.
"Maybe someone took the child."
"Why would Elena hide her own daughter from me?"
"Maybe she was afraid."
Dominic looked toward the photograph.
For the first time, he wondered whether the woman he had loved had been living with a secret he never noticed.
The following day, Carmine located a former nurse named Patricia Wells who had worked at the private hospital where Elena delivered.
She agreed to meet them in a small café outside the city.
Patricia was in her sixties, with trembling hands and eyes that kept moving toward the window.
"I should have spoken years ago," she said.
"What happened to my daughter?" Dominic demanded.
Patricia swallowed.
"She was born healthy. Elena wanted to take her home. But someone arrived with legal documents and claimed the baby was being transferred for her protection."
"Who?"
Patricia looked at Carmine.
Then she whispered, "Your father."
Dominic felt as though the room had tilted.
His father had died years earlier.
"Why would he take my child?"
"He said the family was in danger. He claimed Elena was suffering from a medical condition and couldn't safely raise the baby."
"That was a lie."
"I know that now."
Patricia reached into her purse and removed an old envelope.
"Elena gave me this before she left the hospital. She told me to give it to you if anything happened to her."
Dominic opened it.
Inside was a letter written in Elena's handwriting.
Dominic, if you're reading this, someone has taken our daughter. I don't know whom to trust. Your father says he's protecting us, but I heard him speaking to Vincent. They believe our child is the key to controlling the company.
Dominic stopped reading.
Fay watched his face change.
The letter continued.
I have made arrangements for someone to protect her. Please don't search until you know whom to trust. The person closest to you may be the one who knows where she is.
At the bottom was a name.
Margaret Willis.
Fay's breath caught.
"My mother?"
Dominic looked up.
"Do you recognize that name?"
Fay shook her head, suddenly pale.
"My mother died when I was seventeen. She worked as a home health aide. She never mentioned your family."
But the letter contained an address.
It belonged to the small apartment building where Fay had grown up.
Carmine arranged for them to retrieve her mother's old belongings from storage.
Among boxes of photographs and medical records, Fay discovered a small wooden music box.
Inside was a photograph of a baby wrapped in a pale blue blanket.
On the back, in her mother's handwriting, were four words.
Protect her from Vincent.
Fay looked at Dominic.
The baby had the same distinctive birthmark as Elena.
Then she noticed the date.
The photograph had been taken on the day Fay herself was born.
For several seconds, she couldn't speak.
Dominic looked from the photograph to Fay.
"No," he whispered.
But the hospital records, the letter, and the date all pointed toward the same devastating possibility.
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Fay Willis might not have been a stranger who walked into his house.
She might have been the daughter he had spent years believing never existed.
