Chapter 5 - LUCA’S LAST VIDEO
Luca looked different on the laptop screen.
Not like Luke Martin.
Luke wore old jeans and slept with one arm across his face.
Luca Marchetti wore a dark suit and had a gun on the table beside him.
Same smile.
Same eyes.
Same tiny scar beneath his lower lip.
My children’s father.
I sat beside Damian in a secure office while one of his investigators opened the first recording.
Date:
Six weeks after the triplets’ birth.
Luca appeared on screen.
“If you’re watching this, something happened.”
My hands started shaking.
Damian noticed.
He said nothing.
Luca continued.
“My mother lied to me.”
He looked exhausted.
“She told me Elena died during surgery.”
I closed my eyes.
“I believed her because she showed me a death certificate.”
Damian cursed under his breath.
Luca looked toward something off-camera.
“Today I found Elena alive.”
My eyes opened.
“What?”
The recording continued.
“Not in person.”
He held up a photograph.
Me.
Leaving a grocery store.
Thin.
Sad.
Alive.
“I found surveillance records paid through Family Trust.”
My throat tightened.
“Mother has been watching her.”
Luca’s voice cracked.
“And the babies?”
He looked down.
“I don’t know.”
Second video.
Two months later.
Luca had discovered Rachel Dunn.
He knew she worked at St. Vincent.
Knew she received payments.
“She won’t talk.”
He looked into the camera.
“I think the children survived.”
I started sobbing.
Damian reached toward me.
Stopped.
I took his hand myself.
Not romantically.
I just needed something solid.
Third video.
Luca was angrier.
“The triplets are in Wisconsin.”
Damian sat straighter.
“I found the property.”
Luca smiled for the first time.
“They’re alive.”
My heart shattered.
Then his smile disappeared.
“But if I take them now, Mother runs.”
He had decided to build evidence first.
Not just recover the babies.
Expose the trust fraud.
Hospital conspiracy.
Rachel.
Everyone.
“He wanted to bring them back to you,” Damian whispered.
The fourth video proved it.
Luca held a photograph of me pregnant.
“I’m going to tell Elena everything.”
He laughed sadly.
“She’ll probably kill me for the fake name before she forgives anything else.”
I laughed through tears.
Accurate.
“But she deserves the truth.”
His voice softened.
“She deserves our children.”
Our children.
Not heirs.
Not Marchetti blood.
Children.
The final video was recorded three days before Luca’s car exploded.
“I found the original neonatal transfer.”
He held up papers.
“Mother used Dr. Harlan.”
The doctor who signed my hospital records.
“Rachel physically moved the babies.”
Then Luca’s expression changed.
“But there’s someone else.”
Damian leaned closer.
“Who?”
Luca looked into the camera.
“If anything happens to me, don’t assume Mother acted alone.”
My breath stopped.
“The trust amendment required two authorizations.”
Luca held up a document.
“One was Mother.”
Pause.
“The other was Damian.”
The room went silent.
I pulled my hand from Damian’s.
He froze.
“No.”
The video continued.
“Damian’s signature is on the transfer.”
I stood.
“Elena.”
I backed away.
“You signed it.”
“No.”
“Your name—”
“I never knew.”
“Your signature.”
“Forged.”
“You expect me to believe—”
“Yes.”
His voice thundered.
Then immediately softened because the triplets were sleeping nearby.
“I expect you to question me.”
He stood.
“But I did not sign away Luca’s children.”
“How do I know?”
“You don’t.”
That answer stopped me.
He looked wrecked.
“You don’t know me.”
“No.”
“And my family has already lied to you enough.”
He called his investigator.
“Bring the document.”
Twenty minutes later, forensic review began.
Damian voluntarily turned over old signature samples.
Bank records.
Notary access.
Everything.
He did not ask me to trust him.
That mattered.
By evening, preliminary analysis showed the signature was likely copied from another trust document.
Digital overlay.
Forgery.
But whose computer created it?
The metadata pointed toward Marchetti Holdings legal department.
Specifically one workstation.
Anthony Marchetti.
Damian’s uncle.
Lucia’s older brother.
The man who had managed family legal affairs for twenty-five years.
Damian stared at the name.
“He was at Luca’s funeral.”
Of course.
He had also been one of the trustees who gained increased control after Luca died.
Lucia controlled the children’s voting shares.
Anthony controlled distributions.
Together?
They could move hundreds of millions.
“Where is he?” I asked.
Damian called security.
Anthony’s house was empty.
His office too.
Private plane still parked.
Phone off.
Then the investigator found something else.
Anthony had visited St. Vincent the night I delivered.
Security archive.
2:13 a.m.
He entered through the executive entrance.
Left at 5:48.
My triplets were born at 3:07.
I woke after surgery near noon.
By then, my children were gone.
“So both of them were there,” I whispered.
Lucia and Anthony.
Damian nodded grimly.
“And Luca?”
“Not in Chicago.”
He had been in Montreal handling business.
By the time he returned, both of us had been told the other was dead.
Then Damian’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Anthony.
“You found Luca’s videos.”
Damian’s face hardened.
“Where are you?”
“You always were predictable.”
“Uncle.”
“Bring Elena.”
My skin turned cold.
Damian’s eyes found mine.
Anthony continued.
“She has something I need.”
“What?”
“The necklace.”
I frowned.
“What necklace?”
Anthony laughed.
“Elena’s mother knew more than any of you.”
The call ended.
I stopped breathing.
My mother?
My hand moved automatically toward my neck.
I wore one piece of jewelry every day.
A small silver locket my mother gave me before she died.
I had worn it through my pregnancy.
Through the hospital.
Through fourteen months of grief.
Damian stared at it.
“Elena.”
I touched the clasp.
“What?”
“Take it off.”
My fingers shook.
Inside the locket was an old photograph of Mom and me.
Nothing else.
At least, that was what I thought.
Damian’s investigator examined the hinge.
Found a false backing.
Inside was a microSD card.
I stared.
“My mother had this?”
“What did she do before she got sick?” Damian asked.
“She worked hospital billing.”
“Which hospital?”
My blood turned cold.
“St. Vincent.”
The same hospital.
My mother had not given me the locket as a sentimental gift.
She had hidden evidence on her dying daughter.
Evidence somebody had spent fourteen months trying to recover.
And suddenly I remembered something I had buried beneath grief.
Three days before Mom died, she grabbed my wrist from her hospice bed.
“If anyone tells you something happened to your babies,” she whispered, “don’t believe the first person who says it.”
May you like
I had thought medication made her confused.
She had been warning me.
