Chapter 4 - The DNA In The Drawer
The silence that followed Elena’s question was suffocating.
Whose baby is this?
Elena stared down at little Samuel, her eyes wide with a terror I recognized all too well. She looked at the infant as if he were suddenly a stranger.
“That’s impossible,” Elena whispered, shaking her head frantically. “David is Samuel’s father. He was in the delivery room. He signed the birth certificate!”
I stood frozen against Alessandro’s chest, my mind racing through eleven years of lies.
The doctor’s appointments where David always went in alone first. The test results he always read to me before throwing the paperwork away. The gentle, condescending way he would hold my hand and say, “It’s okay, Claire. We’ll fix whatever is wrong with you.”
He had known.
He had known he was the one who couldn’t have children, and he had let me drug my body and break my heart for over a decade.
“If David is sterile,” Alessandro said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated against my shoulder, “then he couldn’t have fathered Samuel.”
Alessandro gently let go of me and walked toward his sister. He didn’t look angry anymore. He looked like a predator analyzing a puzzle.
“Elena,” Alessandro said softly, kneeling beside her chair. “Did you use a sperm donor? A clinic? Did David arrange something without telling you?”
“No!” Elena cried, clutching the baby closer to her chest. “We conceived naturally! I swear to you, Alessandro, I haven’t been with anyone else! David is the only man I’ve slept with in two years!”
I felt a cold knot tighten in my stomach.
If Elena was telling the truth... and David was sterile...
I looked at the little blue sweater resting on the table. The sweater my mother had knitted for the baby I had lost.
My baby.
A horrifying thought struck me. A thought so impossible, so terrifying, that my breath hitched in my throat.
“Elena,” I whispered, stepping toward her. “When you were pregnant... did you ever go to a clinic in the city? The Westside Fertility Center?”
Elena looked up at me, tears streaming down her flawless face.
“Yes,” she sobbed. “David insisted we go there for all my ultrasounds. He said they had the best doctors.”
My legs almost gave out again.
Westside Fertility Center was where I had my embryo transfer four years ago. It was where I got pregnant. And it was where, sixteen weeks later, the doctor had told me there was no heartbeat.
David had handled all the paperwork.
David had handled the disposal of the remains.
I looked at Samuel. Really looked at him.
He had dark hair, like Elena. But his eyes... they were a striking, pale hazel. The exact same color as mine.
“Oh my god,” I breathed, covering my mouth.
Alessandro stood up, his dark eyes snapping to me. “Claire? What is it?”
“Four years ago,” I stammered, my entire body shaking. “When we did IVF... we had three viable embryos. We implanted one. I lost it.”
I pointed a trembling finger at David’s coat, resting on the floor.
“David told me the clinic destroyed the other two embryos because we couldn’t afford the storage fees,” I cried. “But what if he lied? What if he kept them on ice?”
Elena’s face drained of all color. “Claire, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying David didn’t get you pregnant naturally, Elena!” I shouted, the horror of the truth finally breaking me. “He couldn’t! But he wanted a child, and he wanted my real estate company!”
I looked at the baby, my heart shattering into a million pieces.
“He used my embryo,” I whispered. “He had my biological child implanted into you.”
The dining room fell into absolute, ringing silence.
Elena stared at me, then down at Samuel. She shook her head violently. “No. No, that’s insane. He wouldn’t... the doctors wouldn’t do that without your consent!”
“He forged my signature on a four-million-dollar loan!” I yelled, pointing at the burnt ashes on the tray. “You think he couldn’t forge a medical consent form?!”
Alessandro’s face turned into a mask of pure, lethal rage.
He didn’t say a word. He just turned and walked swiftly toward the side door where his guards had dragged my husband.
“Alessandro, wait!” Elena screamed, standing up.
But the Mafia boss didn’t stop. He threw the door open and disappeared down the hallway toward the basement.
I stood in the center of the room, paralyzed.
If it was true... if Samuel was my biological son...
I looked at Elena. She was staring at me with a mixture of terror and heartbreak. She had carried this child for nine months. She had birthed him. She had named him.
But he was mine.
“I didn’t know,” Elena whispered, her voice breaking completely. “Claire, I swear on my life, I thought he was mine.”
Before I could answer, a loud, muffled crash echoed from the basement, followed by a scream of pure agony.
David.
I flinched.
Ten minutes later, the door opened.
Alessandro walked back into the dining room. He was adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. His knuckles were bruised, and a single drop of blood stained his white collar.
He walked directly to the table, opened his accountant’s briefcase, and pulled out a blank sheet of paper and a pen.
He slid them across the table toward Elena.
“Sign it,” Alessandro commanded, his voice cold and absolute.
Elena looked at the blank paper. “What is it?”
“It’s a surrender of custody,” Alessandro said.
My breath caught in my throat.
Elena stumbled backward, clutching Samuel tightly. “No! You can’t do this! He’s my baby!”
“He is not your baby,” Alessandro said, his voice dropping to a terrifying growl. “David just confessed. He paid a corrupt doctor at Westside twenty thousand dollars to implant Claire’s last embryo into you during a routine exam you thought was a fertility check.”
Elena sobbed, burying her face in the baby’s blanket. “He’s my son! I carried him!”
“You carried stolen property,” Alessandro said ruthlessly.
He looked at me. For the first time, I saw pity in the eyes of the most dangerous man in Chicago.
“He’s yours, Claire,” Alessandro said softly. “Samuel is your biological son.”
I broke down. I fell to my knees on the hardwood floor, burying my face in my hands. Eleven years of grief, of feeling broken, of believing I was a failure as a woman... all of it washed away in a flood of overwhelming, terrifying joy.
I was a mother.
My baby hadn’t died. He was in this room.
I looked up at Elena. She was sobbing hysterically, refusing to look at the paper on the table.
“I won’t sign it,” Elena cried, backing away toward the door. “You can’t make me! I’ll go to the police! I’ll tell them David assaulted me! I’ll tell them—”
“You’ll tell them nothing,” Alessandro interrupted, his patience snapping. “You are a Valenti. You do not raise a child born of theft and betrayal. You will sign the paper, and you will hand that boy to his mother.”
Elena looked at her brother, realizing he was absolutely serious. Alessandro would destroy anyone who crossed his code of honor, even his own sister.
Slowly, Elena walked to the table. Her hand shook violently as she picked up the pen.
She signed her name.
Then, she turned to me.
She looked at me with eyes so full of hatred and sorrow it made me flinch.
Without a word, she gently lowered Samuel into my arms.
He was warm. He smelled like baby powder and milk. He opened his beautiful hazel eyes and looked up at me, letting out a soft, sleepy coo.
My son.
I pulled him against my chest, crying so hard I couldn’t see straight. I wrapped the little blue sweater around him, the white star resting perfectly against his tiny hand.
Elena turned and ran out of the room, the heavy doors slamming behind her.
Alessandro walked over to me. He looked down at Samuel, a small, genuine smile touching his lips.
“You’re going to be a wonderful mother, Claire,” he said quietly.
I looked up at him. “Thank you. Thank you for giving him back to me.”
Alessandro nodded. He turned to his security chief. “Get the car ready. We’re taking Claire and the baby to the safe house.”
“Wait,” I said, panic flaring. “I need to go home. I need to get my things. I have a crib in the spare room... I need to get ready for him.”
Alessandro hesitated. “Claire, it’s not safe. David still has allies. We don’t know who helped him set up the LLC.”
“Just an hour,” I begged, holding Samuel close. “Please. It’s my house. I just want to pack my life and leave.”
Alessandro studied my face for a long moment. Then, he nodded.
“One hour. I’m coming with you.”
An hour later, Alessandro’s black SUV pulled up to my little brick house on Willow Creek Road.
The street was quiet. The roses I had planted by the steps were blooming under the streetlights.
I walked up the path, carrying Samuel in his car seat, with Alessandro right behind me.
I unlocked the front door and pushed it open.
I flipped the light switch in the hallway.
And froze.
The house was completely empty.
My furniture was gone. The pictures were off the walls. Even the rugs had been rolled up and taken.
“What the hell is this?” Alessandro demanded, stepping past me into the empty living room.
I walked into the kitchen, my heart pounding.
Sitting on the bare kitchen counter was a single, folded piece of paper.
I picked it up. It was a note, written in David’s handwriting.
Claire. If you’re reading this, it means you found out the truth. But you’re too late.
May you like
I scanned the rest of the page, my blood running cold.
You think Morgan Holdings was my only secret? Check the basement, Claire. Check the floorboards under the washing machine. You might have the baby, but tomorrow morning, the FBI is coming to this house. And they aren’t looking for me.
