Chapter 6 - THE SON VINCENT NEVER KNEW
Vincent arrived in Switzerland two days later.
I hadn't invited him.
He came anyway.
Amelia met him at the hotel entrance with the expression of a woman prepared to throw a very wealthy man back onto the street.
"You have five minutes," she told him.
Vincent looked exhausted.
His tie was crooked, his eyes bloodshot, and the confidence that usually surrounded him seemed to have cracked.
"I need to speak to Claire."
"Then you should have treated her like someone worth listening to before she had to cross an ocean to get away from you."
He accepted the rebuke without argument.
When I entered the hotel lounge, he stood immediately.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then his gaze dropped to my abdomen.
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine."
"Have you seen a doctor?"
"Yes."
"Is the baby—"
"Healthy. The doctor says everything looks normal."
His shoulders loosened slightly.
"Thank God."
I sat opposite him.
"Why are you here?"
"Because I found something."
He placed a folder on the table.
Inside were copies of hospital records, financial documents, and an old photograph of a woman holding a baby.
I recognized the woman immediately.
Vincent's mother.
"Her name was Catherine," he said. "Before she married my father, she had a child with another man. My father knew. He agreed to raise the baby as his own, but something happened before the arrangement was finalized."
"What happened?"
"The man who fathered the child died. My father decided the baby would threaten the family's reputation. He paid people to make the child disappear."
I felt cold.
"Did your mother agree?"
"No. According to the nurse, she spent years trying to find him."
"And your father stopped her?"
Vincent nodded.
"The accident that killed her happened two weeks after she hired a private investigator."
I stared at the documents.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I need your help finding him."
I laughed bitterly.
"You came all the way to Switzerland because you need my help?"
"No. I came because I owe you the truth."
For the first time, he looked directly at me without trying to control my response.
"I was wrong about Sophia. I was wrong about our marriage. And I was wrong to assume you'd always be there waiting for me."
I looked away.
"That doesn't undo anything."
"I know."
"Do you?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Then he pushed another document toward me.
"This is the original trust agreement. Your father was asked to manage the money because he was considered neutral. He discovered that my father had falsified the child's death certificate."
I read the signature at the bottom.
My father's.
"He could have exposed the whole thing," I whispered.
"He could have."
"Why didn't he?"
"I don't know. But the payments continued for years, even after my father died."
"To whom?"
Vincent pointed to a name.
Elena Brooks.
"She was the nurse who helped Catherine search for her son. Your father may have been helping her keep the child safe."
I thought of the man outside Amelia's building.
The silver ring.
The warning.
"Someone is following me," I said.
Vincent's expression changed instantly.
"Who?"
"I don't know. He was standing across the street from our apartment. When I looked at him, he showed me your family crest."
Vincent stood.
"You're coming with me."
"No."
"Claire—"
"No. You don't get to decide where I go anymore."
He stopped.
I could see the instinct to command fighting with the realization that it would only push me farther away.
Finally, he sat down again.
"Then tell me what you need."
The question caught me off guard.
"I need the truth. All of it. And I need you to stop treating our baby like something you own."
He nodded slowly.
"All right."
We spent the next two hours examining the records.
A name appeared repeatedly in the documents: Adrian Cole.
The child had been placed with a family under that name when he was three months old.
The adoption had been handled privately, without the usual public records.
But the family had later moved to Boston.
"Adrian Cole," Vincent murmured. "That name sounds familiar."
I searched online.
A photograph appeared.
A man in his early thirties stood outside a research institute, smiling beside a group of colleagues.
The caption identified him as Dr. Adrian Cole, a pediatric cardiac surgeon.
Vincent stared at the photograph.
"He looks like my mother."
He did.
The same eyes. The same shape of the mouth.
I called Margaret's number, but it went straight to voicemail.
Then Daniel sent a message.
We found Elena Brooks. She's alive. She's agreed to meet Vincent.
A second message followed.
But she insists Claire must be present.
Vincent looked at me.
"I won't ask you to come back to Chicago."
"Good."
"But I need you to know something before we meet her."
"What?"
He swallowed.
"I asked Sophia why she told me Noah was my responsibility."
"And?"
"She said she knew I'd never abandon a child again if I believed I'd already lost one."
I stared at him.
"She used your grief to control you."
"Yes."
"And you let her."
"Yes."
For once, he didn't defend himself.
I should have felt satisfied.
Instead, I felt exhausted.
Then my phone rang.
It was a Boston number.
A man's voice spoke.
"Is this Claire Bennett?"
"Yes."
"My name is Adrian Cole. Someone just contacted me claiming I'm the biological son of a dead woman named Catherine Moretti."
I glanced at Vincent.
Adrian continued.
"I don't know whether it's true. But the man who contacted me said something else."
"What?"
"He said my biological father is alive."
Vincent went rigid.
May you like
Adrian's voice dropped.
"And he says that man is my husband."
