Chapter 2 - The Brother Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
I stopped breathing.
“Elena.”
The voice came again.
Older.
Rougher.
But unmistakable.
My brother, Antonio Rossi, had disappeared when I was twenty-three.
Police found his car near the harbor.
Blood on the driver’s seat.
His wallet under a pier.
No body.
After eighteen months, my mother accepted what detectives had told us.
Antonio was dead.
Now he was standing outside my basement clinic.
Matteo watched me.
“You know him?”
“My brother.”
“You said that like it’s bad.”
“He died twelve years ago.”
Matteo’s expression sharpened.
The knock came again.
“Elena, I know you’re in there.”
Matteo quietly drew his gun.
I glared at him.
“Put that away.”
“Your dead brother is knocking on the door while men are hunting a baby.”
“That doesn’t mean you shoot him.”
“It doesn’t mean I don’t.”
I carried Gabriel into the back room and placed him gently in a portable bassinet I kept for patients.
His crying had weakened to restless little sounds.
“Stay here.”
I turned.
Matteo blocked the doorway.
“No.”
“This is my clinic.”
“And that child is my responsibility.”
“Then stop acting like a man with a gun is your only solution.”
His jaw flexed.
I walked past him.
At the entrance, I kept the chain latched and opened the door two inches.
A face appeared in the gap.
Older than memory.
Deep lines around the eyes.
Dark beard threaded with gray.
A scar running from his temple toward his jaw.
But it was Antonio.
My knees nearly failed.
“Elena.”
I slammed the door.
He caught it before it closed.
“Wait.”
“You’re dead.”
“I know.”
“You’re dead.”
“I know what they told you.”
“You let us bury an empty coffin.”
His eyes filled with something that looked like shame.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You had twelve years.”
“Not tonight.”
I tried closing the door again.
“Mom knew,” he said.
I stopped.
“What?”
“She knew I was alive.”
The betrayal landed harder than any explanation could have.
Behind me, Matteo spoke.
“Ask him about Lucia.”
Antonio’s eyes shifted.
He saw Matteo.
Everything in his face changed.
“You.”
Matteo raised the gun.
“You know my sister?”
Antonio pushed the door wider.
The chain held.
“I tried to save her.”
Matteo crossed the room.
“Wrong answer.”
“Matteo.”
I stepped between them.
Antonio looked at me.
“We have maybe five minutes before they locate this place.”
“Who?”
“The people who killed Lucia.”
“Who are they?”
Antonio looked toward Matteo.
“His family.”
Matteo’s face became terrifyingly still.
“Be precise.”
“Vittorio DeLuca.”
Matteo lowered the gun half an inch.
“My uncle?”
Antonio nodded.
“He ordered Lucia followed six months ago.”
“Why?”
“Because of Gabriel.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“What does the baby have to do with Vittorio?”
Antonio looked at the bassinet in the back room.
“Everything.”
I unlocked the chain.
Antonio entered.
The moment the door closed, I hit him across the face.
The sound cracked through the clinic.
He accepted it.
Didn’t defend himself.
“That,” I said, shaking, “was for twelve years.”
He touched his cheek.
“I deserved worse.”
“You destroyed Mom.”
“No.”
My throat tightened.
“She waited by the window every Christmas.”
“I know.”
“She kept your room.”
“I know.”
“She died thinking—”
“She knew.”
I stopped.
Antonio swallowed.
“She knew everything.”
He removed his coat.
Underneath was a shoulder holster.
Matteo noticed.
“Who do you work for?”
Antonio looked at him.
“For the last sixteen years? The FBI.”
Silence.
I laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because my mind rejected the words.
“My brother disappeared because he was federal?”
“I was undercover.”
“In the DeLuca organization?”
Antonio nodded.
Matteo’s eyes turned cold.
“I know you.”
Antonio didn’t answer.
“I’ve seen your face before.”
“You saw a different name.”
Matteo stared.
“Anthony Ross.”
Antonio nodded.
Matteo cursed.
“You were one of my father’s drivers.”
“Eight years.”
“And then you vanished.”
“My cover collapsed.”
I gripped the examination table.
“You worked for them before disappearing?”
“Yes.”
“Mom knew?”
“Eventually.”
I pointed to the photograph.
“Explain that.”
Antonio picked it up.
His expression softened.
“Lucia met Mom through me.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because Lucia wanted out.”
Matteo looked at him sharply.
“She never told me.”
“She didn’t trust you.”
Pain flashed across Matteo’s face.
Antonio continued.
“She believed the DeLuca organization was changing after your father died. She was wrong.”
Matteo’s voice hardened.
“What does this have to do with Gabriel?”
Antonio looked at him.
“Who do you think Gabriel’s father is?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t.”
“Lucia never told you?”
“No.”
Antonio glanced at me.
Then back at Matteo.
“Daniel Mercer.”
Matteo went still.
The name meant nothing to me.
But it meant everything to him.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Who is Daniel Mercer?” I asked.
Matteo stared at the floor.
“The assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting my uncle.”
I closed my eyes.
Now I understood enough to be afraid.
Antonio spoke quietly.
“Lucia and Mercer met two years ago.”
Matteo’s laugh was bitter.
“My sister had a child with the prosecutor trying to put Vittorio in prison.”
“Yes.”
“And Vittorio found out.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Mercer?”
Antonio’s silence told us.
Matteo stepped forward.
“Where?”
“Missing since yesterday.”
Matteo’s nostrils flared.
Gabriel started crying.
The sound broke the tension.
I moved instinctively toward him.
Antonio followed.
I lifted Gabriel.
His little mouth searched again.
“He needs to eat,” I said.
“I brought something.”
Antonio removed a small cooler from his bag.
Inside were sealed bags of donated breast milk.
I stared.
“How did you know?”
“Mom planned for contingencies.”
“Mom died two years ago.”
“She left instructions.”
I looked at him.
“What kind of instructions?”
Antonio took out an envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Elena.
My mother’s handwriting.
My fingers trembled.
“When did she give you this?”
“A week before she died.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“And she never told me.”
“She was protecting you.”
“Everyone keeps protecting me by lying.”
Antonio flinched.
Good.
I wanted him to.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
My mother had written:
Elena,
If Antonio ever gives you this letter, then everything I prayed would stay buried has returned.
Do not blame your brother.
Do not trust Vittorio DeLuca.
And whatever happens, protect Lucia’s child.
There is something I never told you about our family.
Something Antonio still does not know.
My eyes moved lower.
But the final paragraph had been torn away.
I looked up.
“Where is the rest?”
Antonio’s face changed.
“What?”
“The page is torn.”
He took it.
“That wasn’t torn before.”
Matteo stepped toward us.
“Who had the envelope?”
“Me.”
“Only you?”
Antonio hesitated.
“Antonio.”
“My supervisor had it in evidence storage for eighteen months.”
“What supervisor?”
Before he could answer, Matteo grabbed my wrist.
“Quiet.”
A faint vibration buzzed from somewhere.
Antonio reached inside his coat.
His phone.
The screen lit his face.
He stared at the message.
“What?” I asked.
His expression hardened.
“They found the car I used.”
“How far away?”
“Two blocks.”
Matteo lifted Gabriel from me with surprising gentleness.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“This baby needs food. You need stitches. My brother apparently came back from the dead. I am not walking onto the street without knowing where we’re going.”
Antonio moved to a cabinet.
“There’s another exit?”
“Storage room. Utility tunnel to the alley behind the laundromat.”
He looked at me.
“Mom told me.”
Of course she had.
Apparently my mother had shared my entire life with everyone except me.
I prepared Gabriel’s milk.
Matteo held the bottle.
“You know how?”
“No.”
I guided his hand.
“Support his head.”
Matteo obeyed.
Gabriel latched onto the bottle.
The transformation in Matteo’s face was immediate.
His shoulders lowered.
His breathing slowed.
For one small moment, he wasn’t a criminal figure, a businessman, or a man people feared.
He was simply someone terrified of failing a child.
“You care about him,” I said.
“He’s Lucia’s.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Matteo looked down.
“She died making me promise.”
“Promise what?”
“That Gabriel would never grow up like we did.”
Antonio checked the utility corridor.
“We need to move.”
I grabbed medical supplies.
Matteo looked at me.
“You’re coming?”
I stared at him.
“A dead woman knew my mother. My dead brother is alive. Someone tore part of a letter meant for me, and armed men are outside my clinic.”
I zipped my bag.
“Yes, I’m coming.”
We entered the storage room.
Antonio pulled aside a shelving unit.
Behind it was an old steel door.
I had lived above this basement for years.
I had never known it existed.
Antonio inserted a key.
“Mom had this installed.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t.”
The lock clicked.
“She inherited it.”
He opened the door.
Cold air rushed in from the dark passage.
Then a phone began ringing behind us.
Not Antonio’s.
Not mine.
Not Matteo’s.
We turned.
The sound was coming from inside Gabriel’s blanket.
Matteo slowly unfolded the fabric.
A tiny black phone had been stitched into the lining.
The screen glowed with an incoming call.
One name appeared.
May you like
VITTORIO.
And Matteo’s uncle was calling the baby.
