Chapter 3 - THE NURSE WHO BURIED THE TRUTH
At six the next morning, Dominic stood in the private archives beneath the Moretti mansion.
The room had no windows. Its walls were lined with metal cabinets containing decades of business contracts, police reports, property transfers, and documents his father had accumulated during a lifetime of running an empire built on fear.
Dominic had spent years believing that knowing the truth was a privilege reserved for the powerful.
Now he suspected the powerful had spent decades burying it.
Marco placed a thin folder on the desk.
"We found something."
Inside were copies of hospital records from September 1986. Most were routine. One page, however, had been removed from its original file and replaced with a carbon copy.
The document recorded the admission of an unidentified woman following a vehicle accident outside the Moretti estate.
A baby girl had been delivered prematurely.
The mother's name had been crossed out.
Beside the infant's name, someone had written Baby E.M.
Below it was a handwritten instruction:
TRANSFER THE CHILD BEFORE THE FATHER ARRIVES.
Dominic read it twice.
"Who signed this?"
Marco pointed to the bottom.
"Dr. Samuel Whitaker."
"Find him."
"We already did. He's dead."
"Then find someone who worked with him."
Marco hesitated.
"There was a nurse. Margaret Ellis. She retired in Pennsylvania. She's ninety-one."
Dominic closed the folder.
"Get the car."
By noon, they were driving through a quiet Pennsylvania town where the streets were lined with maples and modest brick houses. Margaret Ellis lived in a small home with white curtains and a garden filled with late-season roses.
She opened the door herself.
When Dominic introduced himself, the color drained from her face.
"I wondered when someone would come."
Dominic stepped inside.
"You remember my family?"
"I remember your mother."
Margaret led them into a sitting room and remained standing beside an old fireplace.
"Catherine was one of the kindest women I'd ever met. She came to the hospital that night wearing a wedding dress stained with blood. She wasn't the patient. She was trying to protect one."
"Who?"
"A woman named Elena Moretti."
Dominic froze.
"Elena?"
"Edward's wife. They had married secretly months before your father's wedding. Your father never approved. He considered Edward's marriage an insult to the family."
Dominic felt the room tilt.
"My father said Edward stole money and disappeared."
Margaret gave him a bitter smile.
"Your father said many things."
She explained that Edward had discovered his older brother, Vincent, was using legitimate businesses to conceal money stolen from their father's estate. Edward threatened to expose him. The argument became violent, and the brothers stopped speaking.
Then, on Catherine's wedding night, Edward returned to the estate with Elena.
She was pregnant.
"Edward wanted to take her away," Margaret said. "He believed Vincent would kill them if they stayed."
"Did he succeed?"
Margaret closed her eyes.
"I heard gunshots shortly after midnight."
Dominic's hands curled into fists.
"Who was shot?"
"I never saw the shooting. I was at the hospital. But before dawn, Vincent arrived with a newborn baby and told Dr. Whitaker the mother was dead."
"And the father?"
"He said Edward had been killed in an accident."
Dominic remembered the message inside the dress.
Ask your father who died on our wedding night.
"What happened to the baby?"
Margaret's expression softened.
"Your mother took her."
"Where?"
"She told me she had arranged a safe placement. A family outside Chicago. She made me promise never to reveal the child's identity."
"Why would my mother hide her own niece?"
"Because Vincent was searching for her."
Dominic stood abruptly.
"Was the child alive when Catherine took her?"
"Yes."
"Did she have a name?"
Margaret reached for a small wooden box on the mantel.
Inside was a faded hospital bracelet.
ELENA MORETTI — FEMALE — SEPTEMBER 19, 1986.
"That was the name entered before the records were changed," Margaret whispered. "Your aunt named her daughter after herself."
Dominic stared at the bracelet.
A daughter had survived the night her father supposedly died. His mother had protected her, and someone had erased her identity.
"Do you know where she is now?"
Margaret shook her head.
"Your mother sent me a letter years later. She said the girl was safe. She never gave me an address."
"Where is that letter?"
Margaret looked toward a locked drawer.
Before she could answer, the window shattered.
Marco pulled Dominic to the floor as a bullet struck the wall behind them.
A second shot tore through the curtains.
"Down!" Marco shouted.
Dominic heard Margaret cry out.
He crawled toward her and found her crouched beside the fireplace, trembling but unharmed.
Outside, an engine roared away.
Marco reached for his weapon.
"Stay here, boss."
"No. Get a description."
Within minutes, the street was swarming with police. Dominic stood in the wreckage of the sitting room, staring at the shattered window.
Someone had known where he was going.
Someone had known what Margaret was about to tell him.
His phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
A photograph appeared on the screen.
It showed Lily standing outside the hospital, one hand resting protectively on her pregnant stomach.
Beneath it was a message:
STOP LOOKING FOR THE GIRL WHO SURVIVED, OR THE NEXT BABY WON'T.
Dominic felt every trace of warmth leave his body.
He called the mansion.
No answer.
He tried Lily's room.
Nothing.
Then Marco came running back through the front door, his face grim.
"Boss, we've got a problem."
Dominic turned.
"What's happened?"
"Someone just called the estate. They said Vanessa Sterling is missing."
A second later, Dominic's phone rang again.
This time, it was his father.
And Vincent Moretti spoke the first words Dominic had never expected to hear.
May you like
"Son, if you want Lily alive, you must bring me your mother's wedding dress."
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