Chapter 6 - THE CHILD THEY WANTED
Elena refused to bring Leo anywhere.
He was critically ill in a neonatal intensive care unit, and the idea of moving him to satisfy a mysterious message was monstrous. Isabella agreed immediately. Whoever had written the note either expected the child to be older by the time it was found or had never cared whether he survived the trip.
That second possibility frightened them both.
Rebecca contacted Dr. Price, who advised preserving the locket as evidence. The police arranged to inspect the storage unit. Gabriel objected to involving outsiders, then looked at Isabella's exhausted face and changed his mind.
“Do it by the book,” he said.
The unit contained no weapons and no money. There were cardboard boxes of shipping invoices, photographs, and a sealed packet of legal documents. One photograph showed Marco with a man Gabriel recognized immediately: his late father's former accountant, Daniel Voss.
The legal documents described a trust established years earlier by Gabriel's father. Its beneficiary was not Gabriel or Isabella. It was the first surviving child born to a direct descendant of both the Russo and Bellini families.
Leo.
The trust controlled a controlling interest in Northstar Children's Holdings, the company that had bought the old warehouse and invested in several private medical facilities. Its value was immense, but the terms were unusual. If the child died before a specified age, the assets reverted to a separate foundation controlled by trustees whose names had been concealed behind corporate entities.
Gabriel read the clause three times.
“Somebody wanted him dead for money,” Isabella whispered.
“Maybe,” Rebecca replied. “We need to verify the trust, the amendments, and who would actually benefit. These papers could be incomplete or forged.”
Dr. Price found a more immediate concern. The hospital's confidential patient records had been accessed repeatedly by an external consulting account associated with Northstar. Some access was legitimate, because Northstar supplied equipment and services. Other queries had no apparent clinical purpose.
A federal investigator named Agent Daniel Mercer joined the case. He had spent five years investigating money laundering in the city's health-care contracting industry. The names Keller and Northstar were already familiar to him.
Mercer warned Gabriel that the people behind the records might have influence inside the hospital and the syndicate alike.
“Your nephew isn't just a patient,” he said. “He's an inheritance dispute with a heartbeat.”
For the first time in years, Gabriel felt something worse than anger: helplessness.
At midnight, Isabella received a call from an unlisted number. She answered because the voice on the other end spoke her childhood nickname.
“Bella.”
She went completely still.
“Marco?”
A long silence followed. Then a man whispered, “Don't let Gabriel sign anything. The papers in the unit are only half the truth.”
“Where are you?”
“Listen to me. Leo was never supposed to be born in Chicago.”
A door slammed in the background. The caller gasped, and the line went dead.
Isabella looked at Gabriel, who had heard every word through the speakerphone.
May you like
The man he had sworn to kill was alive.
And someone was hunting him.
