Chapter 2 - The Name in the File
Lorenzo read the line three times.
It did not change.
MATERNAL DONOR: ISABEL MARLOWE.
He looked up.
Elena was still holding Matteo.
“What is your mother’s name?”
Elena’s body went cold.
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
“Elena,” Teresa whispered.
Lorenzo held up the document.
“What is your mother’s name?”
Elena stared at the page.
Then at Teresa.
“My mother died six years ago.”
“What was her name?”
“Isabel.”
The room fell silent.
Lorenzo looked at Matteo.
Then back at Elena.
Dr. Vale moved toward the door.
Lorenzo saw him.
“Stay.”
The word stopped him.
Elena’s pulse hammered.
“What does that paper say?”
Lorenzo didn’t answer.
She shifted Matteo higher against her shoulder.
“Mr. Rossi.”
He handed her the page.
Elena read.
At first, the words seemed unrelated.
Hospital codes.
Dates.
Blood type.
A lactation donation identification number.
Then her mother’s name.
ISABEL MARLOWE.
She stopped.
“That’s impossible.”
Lorenzo watched her closely.
“Is it?”
“My mother never knew your wife.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did she work at Saint Catherine’s?”
Elena looked at him.
“She was a nurse.”
Teresa closed her eyes.
Elena saw it.
“You knew.”
Teresa shook her head.
“Not everything.”
“You knew my mother?”
“I met her once.”
Elena stepped backward.
Matteo stirred against her.
She immediately softened her movement.
“What is happening?”
Dr. Vale cleared his throat.
“That document is being misunderstood.”
Lorenzo faced him.
“Then explain it.”
“It concerns Sofia’s treatment after delivery.”
“Why is Elena’s mother listed?”
“Isabel Marlowe participated in the hospital’s donor program.”
Elena frowned.
“My mother donated blood.”
“Not blood.”
Elena looked down at the paper.
Lactation.
Her stomach tightened.
“My mother had no infant then.”
Dr. Vale said nothing.
That silence became an answer.
Elena whispered, “What did she donate?”
Teresa began crying.
Lorenzo turned to her.
“Tell us.”
Teresa looked at Elena.
“Your mother was part of a maternal support program years earlier. She continued donating frozen milk after…”
She stopped.
Elena’s throat closed.
“After what?”
Teresa covered her mouth.
“My sister,” Elena said.
Nobody spoke.
Elena had been eight when her baby sister, Lucy, died.
Three weeks old.
A heart defect.
Elena remembered her mother sitting alone at night with unopened diapers stacked in the hallway.
She remembered bottles in the freezer.
She remembered Isabel leaving the house carrying coolers.
She had never asked where they went.
Elena looked at the record.
“She donated after Lucy died.”
Teresa nodded.
“Saint Catherine’s stored and distributed the milk through their neonatal program.”
Lorenzo looked at Matteo.
“But that was more than twenty years ago.”
“Yes.”
“So this cannot be what Matteo just drank.”
“No,” Dr. Vale said.
“Then why is Isabel’s name in my son’s file?”
Dr. Vale removed his glasses.
He looked tired suddenly.
“There was a study.”
Lorenzo’s voice sharpened.
“What study?”
“A nutritional compatibility study using family histories and donor data.”
“Why?”
The doctor hesitated.
Sofia’s secret moved through the room before anyone explained it.
Elena could feel it.
“You need to tell him,” Teresa said.
Dr. Vale looked at Lorenzo.
“Sofia developed severe complications after delivery.”
“I know.”
“No. You know what you were told.”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
Dr. Vale continued.
“She had a rare autoimmune condition. It had been undiagnosed before pregnancy.”
Lorenzo took one step toward him.
“You told me infection.”
“That was part of it.”
“You told me nothing could have predicted it.”
“We didn’t know the full extent.”
“And you do now?”
Dr. Vale looked toward Matteo.
“Sofia knew there was a chance Matteo could inherit a related metabolic sensitivity.”
Elena tightened her hold on the baby.
Lorenzo’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“You knew my son might become unable to tolerate standard formula.”
“I knew it was possible.”
“And you watched him starve.”
“I was trying to identify the safest treatment.”
“Four days.”
“It is not as simple as—”
Lorenzo hit the wall beside him with his palm.
Elena jumped.
Matteo whimpered.
Lorenzo immediately stopped.
The fury vanished from his face.
He turned toward his son.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology was so instinctive that everyone heard it.
Elena rocked Matteo gently.
“He’s okay.”
Lorenzo lowered his voice.
“What does Isabel Marlowe have to do with this?”
Dr. Vale sat down.
“Years ago, Saint Catherine’s research division kept samples from screened donors. Isabel Marlowe’s profile showed unusual compatibility with Sofia’s.”
Elena stared at him.
“Compatibility for what?”
“Feeding tolerance markers.”
“That sounds like nonsense.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Then make it simple.”
Dr. Vale looked at her.
“Your mother’s donor profile was one of the closest matches to Sofia’s physiology.”
Lorenzo understood first.
“That is why Sofia wrote Elena’s mother’s name.”
“Yes.”
Elena shook her head.
“But Sofia could not have known me.”
“She did.”
Elena froze.
“What?”
Teresa stepped forward.
“Mrs. Rossi found your mother before Matteo was born.”
Elena’s knees weakened.
“Why?”
“She wanted to thank her.”
“For milk donated twenty years earlier?”
“For more than that.”
Teresa looked at Lorenzo.
“I should have told you.”
His expression darkened.
“Yes.”
“But Sofia asked me not to.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid.”
“Of me?”
Teresa’s silence was unbearable.
Lorenzo whispered, “My wife was afraid of me?”
“No.”
Teresa shook her head quickly.
“She was afraid of what you would do if you learned someone had threatened Matteo before he was born.”
The air changed.
Lorenzo’s face became motionless.
Elena felt fear before she understood why.
“Who threatened him?” Lorenzo asked.
Teresa looked toward Dr. Vale.
He stood.
“I didn’t know that part.”
“Who?”
Teresa’s hands shook.
“Sofia found irregularities in her medical records.”
“What irregularities?”
“Someone was accessing them.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
“She didn’t know. She believed someone was tracking the pregnancy.”
Elena asked, “Why?”
Nobody answered.
Lorenzo did.
“Because Matteo was my heir.”
The sentence was cold.
Matter-of-fact.
In the Rossi world, children inherited more than money.
They inherited enemies.
“Sofia thought someone might try to harm him medically,” Teresa said.
“So she created a backup plan.”
Dr. Vale looked at her.
“What backup plan?”
“She had records copied. Compatibility testing. Donor lists. Everything.”
Lorenzo looked at the page in his hand.
“And Isabel?”
“Mrs. Rossi met her twice.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“My mother never told me.”
“Your mother promised secrecy.”
“Why?”
Teresa glanced toward Matteo.
“Because Sofia believed the fewer people who knew, the safer the child would be.”
Elena shook her head.
“This still doesn’t explain why I’m here.”
Lorenzo looked at her sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“I applied through an agency.”
Teresa went pale.
Elena noticed.
“You hired me.”
Teresa said nothing.
Elena stared at her.
“You hired me.”
“I approved your application.”
“Because of my mother?”
Teresa’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Elena stepped back.
“So none of this was an accident.”
“No.”
“Did Lorenzo know?”
Teresa looked at him.
“No.”
He laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“So everyone knew something except me.”
“Not everyone,” Teresa whispered.
“My dead wife. My housekeeper. My doctor.”
“I did not know about Elena,” Dr. Vale said.
Lorenzo ignored him.
“You brought her into my house because Sofia left instructions.”
Teresa nodded.
“What instructions?”
The older woman reached into the envelope.
There was another sheet.
She unfolded it.
Sofia’s handwriting covered both sides.
Lorenzo stared at the first line.
He did not read it aloud.
Elena watched his face.
“What does it say?”
He handed it to her.
The opening sentence made Elena forget to breathe.
If Matteo ever refuses food for more than twenty-four hours, find Isabel Marlowe or her daughter Elena.
Elena read it again.
Her own name.
Written by a dead woman she had never met.
Below it was another instruction.
Do not tell Lorenzo until Elena is inside the house.
Elena looked up.
“Why?”
Lorenzo read the next line over her shoulder.
His face hardened.
Because if Lorenzo knows too early, he will try to protect her.
Elena whispered, “Protect me from what?”
Teresa looked toward the open nursery door.
Her face changed.
She rushed forward and shut it.
Lorenzo reached beneath his jacket.
The pistol appeared again.
“What did you hear?”
“Footsteps.”
Dr. Vale frowned.
“The security staff?”
Teresa shook her head.
“They were sent downstairs.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Lorenzo crossed to the door.
“Elena. Lock the bathroom.”
“What?”
“Take Matteo.”
“Lorenzo—”
“Now.”
For the first time, she heard fear in his voice.
Not anger.
Fear.
She moved.
Before she reached the bathroom, something slid beneath the nursery door.
A white envelope.
Lorenzo stared down at it.
Nobody spoke.
His name was typed on the front.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Elena saw the image from across the room.
Her mother.
Isabel Marlowe.
Standing beside Sofia Rossi.
Between them was another man.
Dr. Vale stepped backward.
May you like
Lorenzo slowly raised his eyes.
Because the man in the photograph was standing in the nursery with them.
