Chapter 3 - ROSE’S ENVELOPEAleandro did not send armed men to retrieve Rose’s envelope.
He went himself.
That surprised Elena.
Everything she had heard about Aleandro Moretti suggested he delegated danger. Men like him were supposed to sit behind desks while others handled the dirty work.
But at eight the following morning, Aleandro climbed behind the wheel of a black SUV with Marco beside him and Elena in the back seat.
Dominic wanted to send an escort.
Aleandro refused.
“If someone inside Greystone is feeding information to whoever is watching Sophie,” he said, “the fewer people who know where we’re going, the better.”
Elena had left Sophie with Teresa and two guards Aleandro personally trusted.
She hated leaving her daughter.
Yet taking Sophie to a bank someone might be watching seemed worse.
The safe-deposit box was inside a small private bank in Westchester.
Rose had rented it under a trust.
Elena possessed the key.
The banker led them to a private room and placed a narrow steel box on the table.
Elena inserted the key.
Her hand trembled.
Aleandro noticed.
“You can stop.”
She looked up, surprised.
“You’ve been ordering me around since yesterday.”
“I’m not ordering you now.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever is inside that box was left to you.”
Elena studied him for several seconds.
Then she lifted the lid.
Inside lay a sealed yellow envelope.
A flash drive.
A silver locket.
And a folded hospital blanket.
Aleandro recognized the blanket immediately.
St. Catherine’s pediatric wing.
He reached toward it, then stopped.
Elena opened the envelope.
The first page contained Rose Donnelly’s handwriting.
Elena, if you are reading this, someone has seen Sophie’s mark. That means I was right. You are no longer safe.
Elena read aloud while Aleandro stood motionless.
Five years ago, I was on duty when Isabella Moretti was admitted after a motor-vehicle accident. She suffered severe trauma, but contrary to what her family was eventually told, she was not clinically dead when I first saw her.
Aleandro’s face drained.
Marco whispered, “What?”
Elena continued.
Her injuries were serious but survivable. Dr. Samuel Vale arrived before the trauma team completed treatment. He insisted on reviewing Isabella’s bloodwork personally. Less than an hour later, something changed.
Aleandro grabbed the back of a chair.
“Read.”
I saw Vale remove two laboratory reports from the chart. I also heard him arguing with another physician about an inherited genetic marker. I did not understand its significance. Shortly afterward, I was ordered out of the unit.
Aleandro could barely hear his own breathing.
Elena turned the page.
When I returned, Isabella was gone. I was told she had suffered catastrophic complications and could not be saved. However, portions of her chart had been altered.
Marco looked at his brother.
“This is insane.”
Aleandro said nothing.
Elena read the next line.
Then stopped.
“What?”
She stared at the page.
“Elena.”
Her eyes lifted.
“Rose says she saw Isabella again.”
Aleandro’s hand slammed against the table.
“When?”
“Three days later.”
The banker outside the room startled at the sound.
Elena continued.
I saw the child being transferred through a restricted underground corridor used for high-security patients. She was sedated, but alive. Samuel Vale was with her.
Aleandro’s knees nearly failed.
He sat down.
For five years he had visited a grave.
For five years he had stood beneath rain, snow, summer heat.
For five years he had apologized to a child he believed he failed to protect.
“What did I bury?” he whispered.
Elena’s eyes filled with tears.
The letter answered him.
I do not know whose remains were released to the Moretti family. The casket was closed because of the alleged extent of Isabella’s injuries.
Marco turned away and pressed both hands against his head.
Aleandro remembered the funeral director advising him not to look.
He remembered refusing.
He had opened the casket anyway.
He had seen a heavily bandaged child.
Only part of the face visible.
He had kissed her forehead.
Had grief made him see what he expected to see?
His stomach twisted.
Elena continued.
I tried to report what I had seen. Two days later, someone entered my apartment. Nothing was stolen. A photograph of my grandson was placed on my pillow. I understood the warning. I stayed silent. I have hated myself every day since.
Aleandro’s jaw tightened.
Rose had carried that guilt for years.
Three years later, I met Elena Bennett and her baby daughter Sophie. The mark beneath Sophie’s ear was identical to Isabella Moretti’s. I remembered Vale describing it as associated with a rare mitochondrial trait under investigation. I secretly arranged for a genetic sample from Sophie to be tested against material I had preserved from Isabella’s chart.
Elena lowered the letter.
“You knew she tested Sophie?”
“No.”
Aleandro stared.
“Keep reading.”
Her voice shook.
The initial result indicated a biological relationship.
Nobody spoke.
Elena’s face became white.
“What relationship?”
She flipped the page.
The next sheet was a laboratory report.
Aleandro stepped beside her.
There were numbers.
Markers.
Probability ranges.
Then one line.
Relationship consistent with second-degree maternal kinship.
Marco frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Elena whispered, “Grandmother. Aunt. Half-sibling.”
Aleandro read it again.
Second-degree maternal kinship.
Sophie was related to Isabella.
Through Sophie’s mother.
He slowly turned toward Elena.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“Who was your mother?”
“Her name was Laura Bennett.”
“Birth mother?”
Elena hesitated.
Aleandro caught it.
“I was adopted.”
The words changed everything.
“When?”
“I was a baby.”
“Records?”
“Sealed.”
“Where were you born?”
“I don’t know.”
Aleandro stared at her.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
He began calculating.
Isabella would have been twelve now.
No.
Elena couldn’t be her sister through his late wife.
Unless—
He looked back at the report.
“Maternal kinship relative to the DNA sample from Isabella.”
Marco understood.
“It doesn’t mean Elena is related.”
“No.”
Aleandro looked toward Sophie’s absence as though he could see through miles of walls.
“It could be Sophie’s biological father.”
Elena went rigid.
“No.”
“You said Sophie’s father had nothing to do with this.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Who is he?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s dead.”
Aleandro stopped.
Elena’s eyes filled.
“He died before Sophie was born.”
“Name.”
She said nothing.
“Elena.”
“Daniel.”
“Daniel what?”
Her voice became barely audible.
“Vale.”
Marco stared at her.
Aleandro felt the room tilt.
“Samuel Vale’s son?”
Elena nodded.
“I didn’t know who Samuel Vale was when I met Daniel. He used his mother’s last name. Daniel Mercer.”
Aleandro remembered Samuel had been estranged from his adult son.
Almost nobody in the Moretti circle had ever met him.
“Elena, how did Daniel die?”
“Car accident.”
“When?”
“Four months before Sophie was born.”
Aleandro and Marco exchanged a look.
Another car accident.
“Where?”
“Connecticut.”
“Was Samuel at the funeral?”
“There wasn’t one. Daniel’s body was supposedly cremated before I even knew he’d died. Samuel contacted me afterward and told me Daniel had wanted no ceremony.”
Elena suddenly stopped.
She understood.
“Oh, God.”
Aleandro took the flash drive from the box.
“What’s on this?”
They inserted it into a laptop.
There was a single video.
Rose Donnelly appeared on-screen.
She looked thin, pale, and frightened.
“If you’re watching this,” she said, “I am probably dead.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Rose continued.
“Samuel Vale did not act alone. Someone in the Moretti family gave him access to Isabella.”
Aleandro’s eyes narrowed.
“And if Sophie Bennett’s mark has been recognized,” Rose said, “then Samuel has found the child he has been searching for.”
The video flickered.
Rose leaned closer.
“There is something else you need to understand. Daniel Vale did not die in that accident.”
Elena gasped.
“He survived.”
The screen went black for several seconds.
Then Rose returned.
“And I believe Isabella did too.”
Aleandro stared at the frozen image.
Hope should have come first.
Instead, terror did.
Because if Isabella had survived that night—
someone had kept his daughter from him for five years.
Someone had made him bury another child.
And whoever had done it was now hunting Sophie.
Aleandro closed the laptop.
“We’re going home.”
Marco stared at him.
“To Greystone?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Aleandro’s voice became frighteningly calm.
“Because someone inside my house knows where Samuel Vale is.”
“How do you know?”
Aleandro reached into the box and lifted the silver locket.
Inside were two tiny photographs.
One showed Rose.
The other showed a younger woman.
Aleandro recognized her instantly.
His aunt.
Bianca Moretti.
May you like
And beneath the photograph, in Rose’s handwriting, were five words:
She knows what they did.
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