Chapter 4 - The Second Baby
The drive back to the mansion was silent.
Sofia slept against Elena's chest, exhausted from crying.
Luca sat opposite them, staring at the photograph Marco had managed to recover from the facility's security system.
Two newborn babies.
Two hospital bracelets.
Two women.
And one date.
The day Elena had supposedly died.
“Tell me everything,” Luca said.
Elena looked down at Sofia.
“When she was born, the doctors told me she had a twin brother. They said he was healthy, but he needed special care because of complications during delivery.”
“Where is he?”
“I never saw him.”
Luca's expression darkened.
“What do you mean?”
“They took him to another room. Your mother said the hospital had made arrangements. She told me the baby would be transferred to a private facility.”
“And you believed her?”
“I was exhausted. I'd been in labor for hours. I trusted her.”
Elena's eyes filled.
“Then a nurse came to my room and told me something was wrong. She said the hospital had no record of the transfer.”
Luca leaned forward.
“What happened next?”
“Before I could ask questions, Vanessa arrived.”
He frowned.
“Vanessa?”
“She told me you were waiting downstairs. She said you wanted to take me and the children home.”
Luca shook his head.
“I never came.”
“I know that now.”
Elena continued.
“When I went looking for my son, two men entered the room. They injected something into my IV. I woke up in a private clinic three days later.”
“Who took you there?”
“Your mother.”
Luca looked toward Isabella, who had remained silent since the wedding.
“You knew?”
Isabella slowly nodded.
“I knew the babies had been separated.”
“Where is my son?”
“I don't know.”
Luca stood.
“You're going to stop saying that.”
Isabella flinched.
“I was told he had died.”
Elena looked at her.
“By whom?”
Isabella's lips trembled.
“Antonio.”
Luca froze.
“My father?”
“Your father wasn't dead when that photograph was taken.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Luca remembered his father's funeral. The closed coffin. The private burial. The sudden announcement that Antonio had died from a heart condition.
But the photograph showed him alive three days later.
“Where was he?”
Isabella reached into her coat and removed a folded letter.
“I found this in his study after his funeral.”
Luca opened it.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Isabella,
If anything happens to me, keep the boy away from Luca. The girl must remain with Elena. Neither child can be allowed to inherit what belongs to their father.
There was no signature.
Only a date.
And a second line written at the bottom.
The original will is hidden beneath the chapel.
Luca read it twice.
“What inheritance?”
Isabella shook her head.
“Your father controlled more than the family business. He owned a private trust, several overseas companies, and a property that no one in this family was supposed to know about.”
“Why would a baby inherit it?”
“Because your father changed his will shortly before he died.”
Luca looked at Elena.
“Did you know about this?”
She shook her head.
A sudden noise came from upstairs.
Sofia woke with a frightened cry.
“Mommy!”
Elena rushed to her.
The little girl was staring at the bedroom doorway.
A small white envelope had been pushed underneath it.
Luca picked it up.
Inside was a photograph of a little boy, perhaps two years old.
He had Luca's dark hair.
Elena's eyes.
And a tiny silver bracelet around his wrist.
On the back, someone had written:
HE CALLS SOMEONE ELSE DADDY.
Luca turned the photograph over again.
A second message appeared beneath the first.
COME ALONE TO THE CHAPEL AT MIDNIGHT.
Marco immediately checked the hallway.
“No one entered the house.”
Luca stared at the picture.
Then he noticed something.
The boy's bracelet carried a hospital identification number.
The same number as the missing twin's bracelet in the recovered photograph.
Elena began crying.
“He's alive.”
Luca slipped the photograph into his pocket.
“Yes.”
Then he looked at the clock.
Midnight was less than an hour away.
But before he could leave, Isabella grabbed his hand.
“Don't go to the chapel.”
“Why?”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“Because the last person who went looking for that boy was your father.”
And then she whispered:
May you like
“He came back from that chapel a different man.”
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