Chapter 7 - The Lie in the Blood
The yellowed medical record slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the Persian rug like a dead leaf.
Medically impossible.
I stared at the paper on the floor, the words scrambling in my mind. “No,” I whispered, stepping backward until my back hit the wall. “No, that’s a mistake. Andrew was her father. He raised her. He told me her mother abandoned them when she was two.”
Luca stood completely still, his dark eyes filled with a heavy, sorrowful empathy. He didn't speak. He just let the silence confirm what the paper had already declared.
“Who is she, Luca?” I asked, my voice cracking, desperation clawing at my throat. “If Andrew wasn't her father, then who is she? Where did she come from?”
Luca looked down at the lockbox. He reached inside and pulled out a second document. This one was a financial transfer record, heavily redacted, but bearing the unmistakable crest of the Moretti family’s offshore accounts.
“My father, Enzo, didn't just run gambling rings, Nora,” Luca said quietly, his voice thick with shame. “He ran an illegal adoption ring for the city’s elite. He facilitated the trafficking of infants from desperate situations to wealthy families who couldn't have children.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. My knees gave out, and I slid down the wall, hitting the floor hard. “You’re telling me... my husband bought a child on the black market?”
“No,” Luca said quickly, stepping forward and kneeling in front of me. “Andrew wasn't wealthy enough to buy from my father’s ring. He was an accountant. He was auditing the offshore accounts when he found out what Enzo was doing.”
Luca held up the transfer record.
“Andrew found a discrepancy,” Luca explained. “Eleven years ago, a baby girl was brought into the ring. But the wealthy family who paid for her backed out at the last minute because the baby had a minor heart murmur. Enzo ordered the child to be... disposed of. He didn't want the liability.”
I covered my mouth with both hands, a sob tearing through my chest.
Disposed of.
“Andrew couldn't let it happen,” Luca continued, his voice breaking slightly. “He falsified the records. He made it look like the child died in transit. And then he smuggled her out of the safehouse himself. He forged a birth certificate naming himself as the father to protect her from my family.”
I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my face.
Andrew hadn't just been an accountant who got in too deep. He had been a hero. He had risked the wrath of the most ruthless mafia boss in the city to save a tiny, innocent baby from being murdered.
And that baby was Lucy.
“He saved her,” I wept, burying my face in my hands. “He gave his life to save her.”
Luca reached out, gently wrapping his large, warm hands over mine, pulling them away from my face. He looked at me with an intensity that anchored me in the storm.
“He saved her physically, Nora,” Luca said softly. “But you saved her soul. You gave her a mother. You gave her a real home.”
I looked at him, my heart aching with a profound, complicated love for the dead man I had married. Andrew had lied to me, yes. But he had lied to protect the most beautiful part of my life.
“Vanessa knows,” I said suddenly, panic flaring again. “If she read this file before Andrew died... she knows Lucy isn't his. She knows Lucy was stolen from Enzo’s ring.”
Luca’s jaw tightened. “That’s why she tried to auction Lucy off at the dinner tonight. Vanessa wasn't just being cruel. She was trying to finish the transaction Enzo started eleven years ago. She found a wealthy donor willing to pay for a private guardianship, and she was going to pocket the money.”
The sheer, unadulterated evil of it made me sick to my stomach. Vanessa hadn't just been trying to humiliate me; she had been trying to traffic my daughter right in front of my face.
Luca stood up, his demeanor shifting instantly from a comforting presence to a warlord preparing for battle. He picked up his phone and hit a speed dial.
“Marco,” Luca barked into the receiver. “Shut down the city. I want every airport, train station, and highway toll monitored. Vanessa is trying to leave with the Falcone money. Find her. And bring her to me alive.”
He hung up the phone and looked at me.
“I have to go,” Luca said. “I have to end this tonight before she can speak to anyone else.”
I stood up, wiping my tears. “What about the ledger?” I pointed to the lockbox.
Luca walked over to the fireplace. He picked up the heavy stack of documents containing the names of corrupt officials and his father’s sins. He tossed them directly into the dying embers.
He grabbed an iron poker and stoked the fire until the flames roared to life, consuming the paper in seconds.
“My father’s legacy burns tonight,” Luca said, watching the ashes float up the chimney. “I am building something new. And it starts with protecting you.”
He turned and walked toward the door.
But just as his hand touched the doorknob, a loud, frantic pounding echoed from the main entrance of the west wing.
Luca instantly drew his gun, pushing me behind him. “Get in the bedroom with Lucy. Lock the door.”
I didn't argue. I ran to the bedroom, closing the heavy oak door and turning the deadbolt. I stood with my back against it, my heart pounding, listening to the muffled voices in the sitting room.
I heard the front door open.
I heard a woman’s voice, panicked and crying. Not Vanessa.
“Please, Mr. Moretti! You have to help me!” the woman sobbed.
I frowned. The voice sounded familiar. It was Sarah, one of the kitchen maids I had worked with for two years.
I carefully unlocked the door and cracked it open just enough to see into the sitting room.
Sarah was on her knees in front of Luca, her uniform torn, her face bruised. She looked terrified.
“What happened to you?” Luca demanded, keeping his gun lowered but his guard up.
“It’s Vanessa,” Sarah cried, clinging to Luca’s pant leg. “She didn't run to the airport, sir. She came back to the estate.”
Luca frowned deeply. “That’s impossible. The gates are locked down. My men are everywhere.”
“She didn't come through the gates,” Sarah wept. “She came through the old servant tunnels beneath the wine cellar. The ones Enzo used to use.”
My blood ran completely cold. The servant tunnels connected the main house directly to the basement of the west wing.
Luca realized it at the exact same moment I did.
His eyes widened in sheer panic. He spun around, looking directly at the bedroom door where I was standing.
“Nora, get Lucy!” Luca roared, sprinting toward me.
I slammed the bedroom door shut, spinning around to grab my daughter from the bed.
But the bed was empty.
The heavy, velvet curtains covering the open window were fluttering in the cold night breeze.
May you like
I screamed, running to the window, looking out into the dark gardens.
Lying in the grass below the window was Lucy’s stuffed rabbit, stained with a single drop of fresh blood.
