Chapter 8 - THE MOTHER IN THE SHADOWS
Alessandro reached the library first.
He forced the door open and found Meline standing beside the desk, clutching the photograph. Vivienne was gone.
Two security guards lay unconscious in the corridor. Neither had been shot, but both had been struck hard enough to require medical attention.
Alessandro took Meline by the shoulders.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Did she touch you?"
"No. She showed me this."
He took the photograph.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he called his security chief.
"Lock down the estate. Find Vivienne. No one leaves without being searched, and no one enters without my approval."
Meline caught his sleeve.
"Don't hurt her."
His gaze met hers.
"She may be responsible for everything that happened to your family."
"And if you become the same kind of person she is, what will that prove?"
The question stopped him.
He lowered the phone.
"You're right. We'll bring her in alive."
They searched the estate through the night.
Vivienne's car was found abandoned near the northern gate. Her driver had disappeared, along with a security guard who had worked for the family for fifteen years.
At dawn, Alessandro received a message from an unknown number.
It contained an address and a time.
Come alone if you want to know what happened to Laura Pierce.
Meline read it over his shoulder.
"I'm going with you."
"No."
"Then you're not going."
He turned toward her.
"This is not a negotiation."
"You're right. It's my mother."
For a long moment, neither moved.
Then Giovanni entered the room, leaning on his walking stick.
"Take her," he said. "But take enough protection to bring her home."
The address led them to an abandoned medical building on the outskirts of Chicago. Its windows were boarded, its sign had been removed, and weeds grew through cracks in the pavement.
Alessandro's team surrounded the building before they entered.
Inside, the air smelled of dust and disinfectant.
They found a chair in the center of the room.
On it sat a woman with silver beginning to thread through her dark hair.
She looked older than Meline remembered from the few photographs her grandfather had kept. Her face was thinner, and a pale scar ran along her jaw.
But the eyes were unmistakable.
Meline stopped breathing.
"Mom?"
The woman looked up.
For a moment, she did not move.
Then she rose so quickly that the chair fell backward.
"Meline?"
The sound of her name broke something inside both of them.
Meline crossed the room and threw her arms around her mother. Laura held her as though she were afraid someone would take her away again.
"I thought you were dead," Meline whispered.
"I know."
"Grandpa told me you died."
"He was trying to protect you."
"From what?"
Laura closed her eyes.
"From the people who took me."
She explained that after the baby disappeared from the clinic, Vivienne had arranged for Laura to be accused of kidnapping. The charges never became public, but Laura was threatened, followed, and eventually forced into hiding.
Samuel had helped her disappear.
For years, she sent letters to Meline through an intermediary, but the letters never arrived. She believed her daughter was safer without contact.
"Then why did you stay away?" Meline asked.
"Because every time I tried to come back, someone found me."
Laura looked toward Alessandro.
"I didn't know whether I could trust the Morettis. I still don't."
Alessandro accepted the accusation without protest.
"You have every reason to be cautious."
Before Laura could say more, the lights went out.
A crash sounded at the far end of the building.
Alessandro pulled Meline and Laura behind a concrete pillar as his security team shouted warnings. Gunfire cracked through the corridor. One of the guards returned fire, and someone ran toward the emergency exit.
The confrontation lasted less than a minute.
When the lights returned, the building was silent.
A wounded man lay beside the exit. He was the missing security guard from the estate.
Alessandro knelt beside him.
"Who sent you?"
The man spat blood onto the floor.
"You think Vivienne is the only one who knows what happened?"
"Who else?"
The guard laughed weakly.
"The woman who raised you."
Alessandro went still.
"My mother is dead."
"That's what you were told."
The man slipped into unconsciousness before he could say more.
Meline looked at Laura.
"What does he mean?"
Laura's face had gone pale.
"Your mother—Alessandro's mother—didn't die in that accident."
Alessandro stared at her.
"Explain."
Laura swallowed.
"Isabella's death was real. But your mother survived the crash. She was taken to a private clinic under another name. I saw her there."
"Who took her?"
"I don't know. But she was conscious when I left."
Alessandro stepped back as if the floor had shifted beneath him.
For twenty years, he had mourned a mother whose death had been confirmed by family records, a funeral, and a sealed grave.
Now every certainty had collapsed.
His phone vibrated.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR MOTHER AGAIN, COME TO THE OLD CHAPEL AT MIDNIGHT. BRING THE GIRL.
Meline read it.
Then she looked at Alessandro.
"Someone knows we're here."
He called his security chief.
But before the call connected, Laura grabbed Meline's hand.
"There's something else you need to know."
Her voice shook.
"Your grandfather didn't just hide you from the Morettis. He hid you from your father."
Meline stared at her.
"My father?"
Laura nodded.
"Isabella wasn't the only one who loved you before you were born."
May you like
She looked at Alessandro.
"And the man who fathered Isabella's child was the person your family spent twenty years trying to destroy."
