Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO STOLE MATTEO
Roman did not remember crossing the hallway.
One moment he was outside the consultation room.
The next, his fist was around the collar of a security officer.
“How does someone steal a three-pound baby from a locked neonatal unit?”
“Roman!”
Luca pulled him back.
“Cameras.”
They ran.
The security room revealed the answer.
At 10:48 a.m., the camera outside the NICU had frozen for seventy-six seconds.
Not gone black.
Frozen.
Someone sophisticated enough to understand the system had looped the footage.
Inside the NICU, a second camera showed a man in surgical scrubs wheeling an enclosed transport bassinet through a restricted exit.
His face was covered.
But one detail remained visible.
His right hand.
A burn scar crossed the wrist.
Luca enlarged the image.
“We know that scar.”
Roman turned.
“Who?”
“Dr. Aaron Bell.”
The missing lab employee.
Roman called Sabrina.
She answered immediately.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
Roman became perfectly still.
“You have my son?”
“No.”
“If you’re lying—”
“I’m not stupid enough to kidnap a newborn, Roman.”
“You were stupid enough to smile at my wife’s death.”
Silence.
Then Sabrina’s voice hardened.
“You think you understand what happened to Naomi?”
“I understand what you did to her.”
“You understand nothing.”
Roman heard music behind her.
A hotel lobby.
“Where is Bell?”
“I don’t know.”
“You hired him.”
“No. Malcolm did.”
“Where’s Malcolm?”
“Probably looking for the same thing you should be.”
“My son?”
“The ledger.”
Roman’s control snapped.
“I don’t care about a ledger!”
“You should. Naomi did.”
Roman stopped.
Sabrina continued.
“That’s why she died.”
The line went dead.
For two seconds Roman could not move.
Then Luca’s computer chimed.
The transport bassinet had an embedded medical tracker.
Someone had disabled it.
But not before it transmitted one final location.
Brooklyn.
An abandoned private maternity clinic closed eight years earlier.
Roman left Isabella under armed protection and drove there with Luca and four men.
The building appeared deserted.
Roman entered first.
He heard a baby crying upstairs.
Nothing on earth could have stopped him.
He found Matteo in a portable incubator inside an old examination room.
Alive.
Connected to oxygen.
And beside him stood Dr. Aaron Bell.
The doctor raised both hands.
“I didn’t hurt him.”
Roman crossed the room and slammed Bell against the wall.
“You took my son.”
“To save him.”
Roman nearly hit him.
Luca stopped his arm.
“Let him talk.”
Bell was shaking.
“They were going to take both babies.”
“Who?”
“Vane’s people.”
“Why?”
“Leverage.”
Roman stared.
“Against me?”
“Against Naomi.”
The room went silent.
Roman’s grip loosened.
“Naomi is dead.”
Bell’s eyes filled with confusion.
“What?”
Roman studied him.
“You didn’t know?”
Bell went pale.
“No.”
He sat down hard.
“Oh God.”
Roman stepped closer.
“Start talking.”
Bell explained that Naomi had contacted him weeks earlier.
She believed someone had compromised hospital systems.
She asked Bell to monitor unusual access to her medical records.
Three days before delivery, someone attempted to alter her emergency contact authorization.
Yesterday, another person tried to add a private transport company to the twins’ medical transfer permissions.
Bell recognized the company.
It was controlled by Malcolm Vane.
“So you stole my son first?” Roman demanded.
“I moved him before they could.”
“You could have told me.”
Bell laughed bitterly.
“Naomi specifically told me not to.”
Roman flinched.
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t trust you.”
That hurt more than Roman expected.
Bell looked directly at him.
“She said you were sleeping with the woman helping Vane.”
Roman had no answer.
Matteo made a tiny sound.
Roman turned.
His son.
So small.
So unaware of the war adults had built around him.
Roman approached the incubator.
“Can he travel?”
“He needs to return immediately.”
Roman called Claire.
Within minutes, a secure neonatal transport team was arranged.
As they waited, Bell handed Roman a flash drive.
“Naomi gave me this.”
Roman took it.
“What’s on it?”
“I don’t know. It’s encrypted.”
“Password?”
“She said you’d know.”
Roman almost laughed.
His wife had died knowing his worst secret while trusting him with hers.
He tried their anniversary.
Wrong.
Naomi’s birthday.
Wrong.
The twins’ names.
Wrong.
Then he remembered something.
Their first apartment.
Before money.
Before power.
Before Roman became someone who believed love could survive neglect.
Naomi used to leave notes inside his lunch.
Every one ended the same way.
Come home to me.
Roman typed:
COMEHOMETOME.
The drive unlocked.
Folders appeared.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Audio recordings.
And one video.
Naomi sat in their bedroom.
Pregnant.
Exhausted.
Alive.
Roman pressed play.
“If you’re watching this,” she began, “then I failed to stop them.”
Roman’s throat closed.
Naomi looked directly into the camera.
“Roman, Sabrina didn’t come into your life by accident.”
He glanced at Luca.
Naomi continued.
“She was sent to you.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“Malcolm Vane recruited her almost three years before you met.”
Then Naomi paused.
“And if you think the twins are what he wants from you, you’re wrong.”
She leaned toward the camera.
“He wants you to believe this is about money.”
“It isn’t.”
May you like
Roman stopped breathing.
“It’s about your father.”
