Chapter 2 - THE BOTTOM DRAWER
The restaurant felt like it had dropped fifty degrees.
I stared at Nicholas’s phone, my heart hammering a frantic, sickening rhythm against my ribs.
“What baby?” Nicholas demanded, his voice low and dangerous as he spoke into the phone. “Marco, put that woman on speaker.”
There was a rustling sound, then the older woman’s voice echoed clearly in the quiet VIP booth.
“I don't know,” she sobbed. “Patricia just kept saying it. ‘You have to tell me where she put the shoes, Carol. Or Andrew and Sarah are finished.’ She said it over and over in the back of my cab.”
The shoes.
My mother’s greatest secret. The tiny white leather baby shoes she kept hidden in the bottom drawer, wrapped in tissue paper like a holy relic.
I had always assumed they belonged to a sibling I never knew. A miscarriage. A tragedy my mother couldn't bear to speak of.
But why would Andrew’s mother care? Why would she use them to force an ailing, stroke-recovering seventy-three-year-old woman into a care facility against her will?
Nicholas hung up the phone. He looked at me, his dark eyes intense and calculating.
“Sarah,” he said, his voice softer than I expected. “We are going to your house. Right now.”
“I have to go to the facility,” I panicked, grabbing my purse. “I have to get my mother.”
Nicholas caught my arm gently. “Marco is securing the facility. Nobody is getting in or out without my authorization. But if Andrew and his mother are looking for whatever is in that drawer, we have to get there before they do.”
He was right.
I nodded, wiping my face.
Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a sleek, black SUV. Nicholas sat beside me, emanating a quiet, lethal authority. Two of his men sat up front, driving through the Chicago night with alarming speed.
My hands were shaking in my lap.
Nicholas noticed.
He didn't say anything, but he reached over and gently pulled my trembling hands apart. He took the small pink jewelry box that Marco had retrieved from the facility—the one holding my mother’s wedding ring—and placed it into my palms.
“Hold onto that,” Nicholas said softly. “It’s proof she didn't want to leave.”
I clutched the box to my chest, letting out a shaky breath. “Why are you doing this?” I whispered. “I’m just a receptionist.”
Nicholas looked out the tinted window at the passing city lights.
“Because three years ago, a man tried to put my mother in a home to steal her estate,” Nicholas said, his voice devoid of emotion. “He used the same tactics. Fear. Isolation. Forged signatures.”
He turned back to me.
“I didn't get there in time to stop him from terrifying her. But I’m here now. And Andrew Collins is going to learn that there are consequences for frightening women.”
The SUV pulled onto my quiet suburban street.
The house was dark, but a silver sedan was parked haphazardly in the driveway.
“That’s Patricia’s car,” I whispered, panic surging in my throat.
“Wait here,” Nicholas ordered.
He stepped out of the SUV, followed closely by his two massive guards. They didn't knock. One of the men simply kicked the front door open, the wood splintering loudly into the quiet night.
I couldn't wait in the car. I scrambled out and ran up the steps behind them.
The living room was a disaster. Books were thrown off the shelves. The sofa cushions were slashed.
They were tearing my mother’s house apart.
“Mom’s room is down the hall,” I choked out, running past Nicholas.
I burst into my mother’s small bedroom.
Patricia Collins was on her knees, her expensive pearl necklace swinging as she frantically emptied the bottom drawer of my mother’s heavy oak dresser. Clothes, old photographs, and linens were strewn across the carpet.
And standing near the closet, holding a crowbar, was Andrew.
Andrew spun around as I entered. His eyes were wide, manic.
“Sarah?” he gasped.
Then he saw Nicholas step into the doorway behind me.
The crowbar slipped from Andrew’s hands, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
“Mr. Moretti,” Patricia said, scrambling to her feet, trying to smooth her skirt. “There’s been a misunderstanding. We were just packing some of Carol’s things for the facility.”
“Packing?” Nicholas echoed, his voice dangerously soft. “With a crowbar?”
He nodded to his men.
The two guards stepped forward, grabbing Andrew by the arms and pinning him against the wall.
“Hey! You can't do this!” Andrew shouted, struggling uselessly against the giants.
Nicholas ignored him. He looked at the bottom drawer. It was completely empty.
“Where are they?” I demanded, stepping toward Patricia. “Where are the baby shoes?”
Patricia’s face tightened. She looked at Andrew, then back at me.
“I don't know what you’re talking about, Sarah dear,” she lied smoothly.
“Check her purse,” Nicholas ordered.
One of the guards snatched Patricia’s leather handbag from the bed and dumped it upside down.
Lipstick, keys, a wallet, and a small, faded wooden cigar box spilled out.
I recognized the box immediately. It was the one my mother kept hidden beneath her winter sweaters.
I dropped to my knees and opened it.
Inside, wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, were the tiny white leather baby shoes.
But as I pulled them out, I realized why Andrew had looked so pale the first time he saw them.
The shoes weren't empty.
Tucked tightly inside the left shoe was a folded piece of paper. It looked incredibly old.
I pulled it out with trembling fingers.
It was a birth certificate.
But it wasn't mine.
The date of birth was thirty-four years ago. Three years before I was born.
Mother: Carol Bennett.
Father: Richard Bennett.
Child: Thomas Richard Bennett.
I had a brother.
I stared at the paper, the world tilting sharply on its axis.
“I have a brother?” I whispered, looking up at Andrew.
Andrew’s face was the color of ash. He wouldn't meet my eyes.
But Patricia let out a bitter, ugly laugh.
“Oh, you have a brother, alright,” Patricia spat, dropping her sweet mother-in-law act entirely. “And he’s the reason you and Andrew are never getting married.”
Nicholas stepped forward, his dark eyes locking onto Patricia.
“Explain,” Nicholas commanded.
Patricia sneered, looking at the birth certificate in my hand.
“Thirty-four years ago, your mother had a son, Sarah,” Patricia said, her voice dripping with venom. “But Richard Bennett didn't want him. So they gave him up for adoption. A closed adoption.”
My heart stopped. My mother had given away a child?
“My husband and I adopted him,” Patricia continued, her eyes filling with a crazed, possessive fire. “We raised him. We gave him everything. We named him Andrew.”
The silence in the room was absolute.
I looked at the man I had been engaged to for two years. The man who had kissed me. The man who had slept in my bed.
“You’re my brother?” I whispered, a wave of profound nausea washing over me.
Andrew finally looked up. He was crying.
“I didn't know, Sarah,” Andrew choked out. “I swear to God, I didn't know until six months ago.”
Six months ago.
The exact time he started trying to pull me away from my mother. The exact time he started planning to send her away.
“You found out,” Nicholas said, piecing it together with chilling clarity. “You found out you were engaged to your biological sister. And instead of telling her the truth, you tried to silence her mother to hide the secret.”
“It would have destroyed everything!” Andrew yelled, straining against the guards. “My career! My reputation! If people found out—”
“You locked my mother in a facility to protect your reputation?!” I screamed, the shock finally giving way to blinding, primal fury.
I lunged forward, but Nicholas caught me around the waist, pulling me firmly against his chest.
“He’s not worth it, Sarah,” Nicholas said softly into my hair.
He looked at Patricia.
“You helped him,” Nicholas stated.
“He’s my son!” Patricia cried. “He made a mistake! But if Carol told Sarah the truth, it would ruin his life!”
Nicholas let out a dark, terrifying laugh.
“His life is already ruined,” Nicholas said.
He looked at his guards.
“Take them to the warehouse,” Nicholas ordered. “And make sure they understand what happens to people who touch my fiancé’s family.”
My heart stopped.
I looked up at Nicholas. His fiancé?
But before I could speak, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a call from the care facility.
I answered it with shaking hands.
“Hello?”
“Sarah Bennett?” a frantic voice asked on the other end. “This is the head nurse at Oakwood Care. You need to get here immediately.”
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“What’s wrong? Is my mother okay?”
“Sarah,” the nurse said, her voice trembling. “Your mother isn't here. She’s gone.”
