Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Lorenzo locked the study doors before anyone could enter.
Nora sat opposite him, one hand resting protectively on her belly. The hospital bracelet lay between them.
“Is this real?” she whispered.
“I intend to find out.”
“You think I'm your sister?”
“I think somebody went to considerable trouble to make sure I never asked that question.”
He called his family's longtime physician, Dr. Samuel Hayes. The doctor had treated Giovanni for decades and had delivered Lorenzo as well.
When Lorenzo mentioned the bracelet, the old physician went silent.
“Where did you find it?”
“In my house.”
“That is impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I destroyed every record from that night.”
Lorenzo stood.
“You destroyed hospital records concerning my dead sister?”
“I was ordered to.”
“By whom?”
Dr. Hayes took a long breath.
“Your father.”
Lorenzo's face hardened.
“Come to the mansion. Now.”
An hour later, the physician arrived carrying a worn leather folder.
He refused to look at Nora.
“Twenty-six years ago, your mother delivered a baby girl,” he began. “The child was premature but healthy. Your father was overseas on business. Giovanni was here.”
“What happened?”
“Your mother died from complications several days later. Giovanni insisted the baby had died, too.”
Lorenzo gripped the edge of his desk.
“You told me my sister died on the night she was born.”
“That is what the family was told.”
“And the child?”
Dr. Hayes looked at Nora.
“I was ordered to give her to Isabella Bennett, who worked as a nurse. She had recently lost her own infant.”
Nora's eyes widened.
“My mother never told me she had another child.”
“Because you were the child she took home.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Lorenzo stared at Nora.
She shook her head, tears gathering in her eyes.
“No. My mother told me my father died before I was born.”
“Did she ever show you his photograph?” Lorenzo asked.
“No.”
“Did she ever tell you his name?”
Nora swallowed.
“She said he was a good man who made a terrible mistake.”
Lorenzo looked away.
For twenty-six years, he had believed he was an only child. Now the woman working in his home might be the sister he had mourned without knowing he had lost her.
But something didn't fit.
If Nora was his sister, why had Giovanni touched her pregnant belly and whispered, “My baby”?
And why had Vanessa been so frightened?
Before anyone could answer, the study door opened.
Vanessa entered without permission.
“You need to stop this investigation.”
Lorenzo turned slowly.
“You knew.”
“I knew there was a child. I never knew where she went.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Vanessa's eyes flashed.
“Your father made me promise to protect this family.”
“By lying to me?”
“By keeping you alive!”
She threw a photograph onto the desk.
It showed Giovanni standing beside Isabella Bennett outside a hospital. In the background, a second man watched them from a black car.
Lorenzo recognized him immediately.
His uncle, Matteo Romano.
Matteo had died in a suspicious car explosion eighteen years earlier.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written six words.
The baby survived. Matteo knows where.
Lorenzo reached for his phone.
Then the mansion's lights went out.
A gunshot exploded somewhere upstairs.
Nora screamed.
Marcus burst into the study, his weapon drawn.
“Boss! Someone's in Giovanni's room!”
Lorenzo ran toward the corridor.
When he reached his father's bedroom, the window stood open, the curtains blowing in the night air.
Giovanni's wheelchair was empty.
On the floor lay his blanket, a broken oxygen tube, and a single bloodstained glove.
Someone had taken the old man.
And on the wall, written in red paint, were the words:
STOP LOOKING FOR THE GIRL, OR THE NEXT BODY WILL BE HERS.
---
<WritingBlock id="69421" variant="document"># CHAPTER 4: THE BLOODSTAINED PROMISE
Lorenzo had buried enemies who threatened his family.
He had never imagined someone would dare to kidnap his father from inside his own mansion.
“Lock down every exit,” he ordered Marcus. “Nobody leaves. Nobody enters without my permission.”
Within minutes, armed guards surrounded the estate.
Lorenzo stood in Giovanni's empty bedroom, staring at the bloodstained glove.
“Whose blood?” Nora asked from the doorway.
He turned sharply.
“You shouldn't be here.”
“Your father helped my mother. If someone took him because of me, I deserve to know.”
Lorenzo wanted to send her somewhere safe. Instead, he noticed how tightly she was gripping the silver pendant.
“Marcus is tracing the security footage,” he said. “Until we know who did this, you stay beside me.”
A few minutes later, Marcus returned with a tablet.
“The cameras went offline for eleven minutes. Someone used an internal security code.”
“Whose code?”
“Vanessa's.”
Lorenzo's expression darkened.
He found his fiancée in the ballroom, surrounded by two guards.
“You used your access to disable my cameras.”
Vanessa rose slowly.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From whom?”
“From your father.”
Lorenzo grabbed the back of a chair.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“Giovanni knew about the baby. He knew Isabella had hidden something. He was going to tell you everything.”
“What baby?”
She looked at Nora.
“The child Isabella carried before she became your father's nurse.”
Nora stepped forward.
“My mother was never pregnant after she had me.”
“That's what she told you.”
Vanessa opened her handbag and removed a folded medical report.
“Your mother gave birth to twins.”
Nora's face drained of color.
“Twins?”
“One girl went home with Isabella. The other was placed in a private medical facility under a false name.”
Lorenzo took the report.
It bore Giovanni's signature.
But before he could examine it, a phone rang inside Vanessa's handbag.
She went rigid.
Lorenzo held out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
She hesitated.
He took the phone and answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“If you want the old man alive, bring the silver pendant to Pier Nineteen at midnight.”
Lorenzo's grip tightened.
“Who is this?”
“You have six hours. Come alone.”
The call ended.
Marcus immediately began tracing it.
Lorenzo turned to Nora.
“You're not going anywhere near that pier.”
Nora shook her head.
“My mother left me that pendant for a reason. If it can save Giovanni, I'll take it to him.”
“It's a trap.”
“Then let it be a trap for someone who knows how to survive one.”
For a moment, Lorenzo saw something familiar in her expression: the stubborn courage he remembered from his mother.
He finally nodded.
“But you follow my instructions. Every single one.”
At midnight, Lorenzo approached Pier Nineteen with the pendant in his pocket.
Nora remained hidden in an armored vehicle several blocks away, monitored by Marcus.
The dock was deserted.
A single lamp illuminated an abandoned warehouse.
Inside, Lorenzo found a wheelchair facing the wall.
It was Giovanni's.
A recorder sat on the seat.
Lorenzo pressed PLAY.
His father's weak voice emerged through the speaker.
“Lorenzo... forgive me.”
Then came another voice.
Matteo Romano.
A man everyone believed had died eighteen years earlier.
“You should have kept the child buried, Giovanni.”
Lorenzo stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“Because now,” Matteo whispered, “I'm going to take both of them.”
A gun cocked behind Lorenzo's head.
May you like
And a familiar voice said, “Drop your weapon, nephew.”
---
