Chapter 7 - TWO SISTERS, ONE TERRIBLE SECRET
Luca returned to the estate with Adrian and Vanessa, but the house no longer felt like a sanctuary.
Sophie was safe under heavy guard. Emily was missing. Their father had apparently survived his own funeral. And Elena might still be alive somewhere, waiting for a chance to return.
Luca spread the hospital records across his desk.
“We need to know where the children were taken.”
Adrian examined the photograph.
“The older woman is Margaret Vitale. She worked with Elena before the hospital fire.”
“Your source said she was dead.”
“She was supposed to be.”
Vanessa sat opposite them, pale and exhausted.
“Margaret helped move children out of the hospital. She kept records of their new identities. If she's alive, she may know where Emily's daughter went.”
Luca studied Vanessa.
“You'll give Dominic every name, every account, and every address you know. If you lie again, I won't protect you from the consequences.”
She nodded.
For the first time, she seemed to understand that the life she had imagined with Luca was gone.
Dominic returned that afternoon with news.
A former hospital nurse had been located in Connecticut. She agreed to meet them in a small church, provided Luca came without armed men.
The nurse, Patricia Bell, was seventy-two and visibly frightened.
“I helped deliver Emily's baby,” she said. “The child was healthy. A girl.”
Emily's mother had been told the infant died, but Patricia had secretly kept a copy of the original birth record.
“Why?” Luca asked.
“Because Dr. Shaw told me to falsify the report. I knew it was wrong. I thought if I kept the original, one day someone might make it right.”
She handed him a sealed envelope.
Inside was a photograph of a baby wearing a yellow bracelet.
The same bracelet shown in Elena's old picture.
On the reverse was a name.
Grace.
“Where is she?” Luca asked.
Patricia shook her head.
“Elena arranged for her to be raised by a couple who couldn't have children. They lived in Maine. I don't know their names.”
Luca's phone rang.
A video message had arrived from an unknown number.
Emily appeared on the screen, seated in a dimly lit room. Her face was bruised, but she was alive.
A man stood behind her.
“Luca Moretti,” he said. “Your father wants the ledger. Bring it to the old estate outside Boston by midnight. Come alone, or the pregnant woman dies.”
Emily looked directly into the camera.
“Don't bring it,” she whispered.
The man struck her across the face.
Luca's expression turned murderous.
The video ended.
Adrian grabbed his arm.
“That's what they want. If you go alone, they control the ground.”
“If I don't go, Emily dies.”
“We can get her out.”
Luca looked at him.
“You've said that before.”
Adrian accepted the accusation without protest.
“I failed Elena. I won't fail Emily.”
They devised a plan. Dominic would track the video signal, while Adrian approached the estate from an abandoned road. Luca would enter through the front gate carrying a decoy ledger.
Before leaving, Luca visited Sophie.
She sat on her bed with Elena's photograph in her lap.
“Daddy, is Mommy coming home?”
He sat beside her.
“I don't know, sweetheart.”
“Can we look for her?”
He brushed a curl away from her face.
“That's what I'm going to do.”
Sophie hesitated.
“There's something I didn't tell you about the picture.”
Luca waited.
“The little girl beside Mommy had a necklace. It looked like mine.”
She pulled a tiny gold pendant from beneath her pajamas.
Luca had given it to her on her fifth birthday. It was shaped like a small star.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mommy gave it to me before she went away. She said if I ever met a girl with the same star, I should tell her we're family.”
Luca stared at the pendant.
The photograph showed another child wearing an identical necklace.
Grace.
Emily's daughter.
Sophie and Grace had been connected long before either of them understood why.
Luca kissed his daughter's forehead and left for Boston.
At midnight, he entered the old estate carrying the decoy ledger.
His father waited in the ballroom.
Emily sat beside him, her hands tied.
“You've come to bargain,” the old man said.
“I've come to end this.”
His father smiled.
“You always believed you could save everyone.”
Luca placed the ledger on the table.
“Release Emily.”
The old man opened the cover and began turning pages.
Then he stopped.
“This isn't the original.”
“No.”
His father's smile vanished.
Luca stepped closer.
“Tell me where Elena is.”
The old man raised his cane.
Behind Luca, a door opened.
A woman walked into the ballroom.
She was thinner than he remembered, her dark hair streaked with silver. A pale scar ran along her jaw.
But her eyes were unmistakable.
Elena.
Luca forgot how to breathe.
She looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“Lucky,” she whispered.
Then she turned toward Emily.
And said the words that destroyed every assumption Luca had made.
May you like
“I'm sorry I couldn't save your first daughter.”
---
