Chapter 5 - THE DEAD MAN AT THE HOSPITAL
My mother was awake when we arrived at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
She looked small beneath the white blanket, her gray hair spread across the pillow and her reading glasses resting on the bedside table.
“Mom!”
I hurried to her side.
She smiled weakly.
“Don't look so frightened. The doctor says I need to rest.”
“You collapsed.”
“Apparently, standing up too quickly is a crime now.”
I laughed through my tears.
Then she noticed Dominic.
Her smile vanished.
“Why is he here?”
I looked between them.
“You know each other?”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Oh, Elena.”
Those two words frightened me more than anything the doctor had said.
Dominic stood near the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Mrs. Ruiz.”
She turned her face away.
“Don't call me that.”
He accepted the rebuke.
“I understand.”
“No, you don't.”
My mother looked at me.
“How much have you told him?”
“That Lily is his daughter. That Anthony lied to both of us. That someone has been watching us.”
Her face went white.
Dominic stepped forward.
“Mrs. Ruiz, I need to know why someone photographed Anthony outside your building.”
My mother stared at him.
Then she whispered, “Because Anthony never died.”
I felt the room spin.
Dominic gripped the bedrail.
“Tell me everything.”
My mother took a slow breath.
“Six years ago, Anthony came to my apartment. Elena was pregnant, frightened, and alone. She had no idea how much danger she was in.”
“I wasn't in danger,” I protested.
“You were carrying a Moretti child,” my mother said. “In that family, that was enough.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“Did Anthony threaten her?”
“He told me Dominic would never accept the baby. He said your family would take the child away and raise her as an heir.”
Dominic looked horrified.
“I would never have done that.”
“I know that now,” my mother replied. “But Anthony convinced me that you were surrounded by people who would do anything to control you.”
She described the night he had arrived.
Anthony had offered to help me leave Chicago. He promised to arrange a safe apartment and financial support until I could stand on my own feet.
In exchange, he demanded one thing.
I had to disappear.
“He told me Dominic had chosen someone else,” I whispered.
My mother nodded.
“He showed me photographs of Dominic with a woman at a private dinner. He said they were engaged.”
Dominic shook his head.
“That dinner was a business event. The woman was a lawyer representing one of our partners.”
My mother looked at him.
“I didn't know that.”
Neither had I.
Anthony had used half-truths, forged messages, and staged encounters to separate us. He had understood that two frightened people could be manipulated more easily than two people who trusted each other.
“And after Elena left?” Dominic asked.
My mother looked toward the window.
“Anthony arranged for her to stay in Wisconsin under a different surname. He said it was temporary. When Lily was born, he sent money through an intermediary.”
I stared at her.
“You told me Dad's life insurance paid for everything.”
“I know.”
“You lied to me.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
The words came out so quietly that I almost didn't hear them.
My anger faltered.
My mother had been terrified. She had watched me struggle through pregnancy, work two jobs, and raise a child without support. She had believed that revealing the truth would put us in danger.
But the lies had cost us six years.
Dominic looked at the floor.
“Where is Anthony now?”
My mother hesitated.
“He came to see me three months ago.”
I felt cold all over.
“What?”
“He said he wanted to make things right. He claimed he had spent years protecting the family from a threat connected to your father's old business.”
“My father?” I asked.
My father had died when I was young. I barely remembered him.
My mother reached beneath the pillow and pulled out a small envelope.
“Your father was an accountant. Before he died, he discovered irregular payments involving a company connected to the Morettis. Anthony believed he had kept copies of the records.”
Dominic stared at her.
“My brother was looking for your father's records?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said the records could destroy the family.”
Dominic opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph of my father standing beside two men outside a warehouse.
One was Dominic's father.
The other was Anthony.
On the back, my father had written a date and a location.
Dominic read it aloud.
“December eighteenth. Six years ago.”
Today was December eighteenth.
A knock sounded at the hospital door.
A nurse entered, followed by a man in a dark overcoat.
He had Dominic's eyes.
The same dark hair.
The same unmistakable scar near his chin.
Anthony Moretti smiled as though he had merely been away on business.
“Hello, brother.”
Dominic stepped between him and the bed.
“You're supposed to be dead.”
Anthony glanced at me.
“Apparently, so is my reputation.”
Then he looked at Lily, who had been sitting quietly beside my mother.
His smile disappeared.
“That's her, isn't it?”
Dominic's voice became deadly calm.
“Don't look at my daughter.”
Anthony raised both hands.
“Relax. I came to talk.”
He placed a second photograph on the bedside table.
It showed my father holding a newborn baby.
May you like
On the back, in his handwriting, were five words.
The child belongs to the Morettis.
