Chapter 7 - Cassian's Impossible Medical Records
Cassian stared at my mother.
Vittorio's smile disappeared.
"What did she say?"
Mom's eyes drifted shut.
I stepped forward.
"Give her to me."
Vittorio raised the gun.
Cassian moved between us.
"If you shoot anyone, shoot me."
"Cassian—"
"Elena, stay back."
Vittorio laughed softly.
"Still playing protector?"
Ezra circled toward him.
Vittorio noticed.
"Don't."
The gun shifted.
That was his mistake.
Cassian lunged.
The shot struck the ceiling.
Ezra hit Vittorio from the side.
I pulled Mom's wheelchair away.
Seconds later Vittorio was on the floor.
Cassian could have killed him.
He didn't.
"Alive," I said.
Cassian looked at me.
Then stepped back.
Police weren't an easy option when half the evidence involved crimes the Raldi organization couldn't explain.
But Vittorio had made one error.
Kidnapping my mother was clean.
Simple.
Provable.
Cassian called an attorney and a federal contact he apparently trusted more than local police.
Then I examined Mom.
Sedated but stable.
When she woke, she didn't remember calling Cassian "son."
Her dementia had swallowed the moment.
But I hadn't.
Neither had Cassian.
We searched the files.
My mother had worked as a laboratory technician before I was born.
At Bellwether.
She had processed Cassian's original fertility sample.
"That's the connection," I said.
But Cassian wasn't satisfied.
"Why call me son?"
"Confusion."
"Maybe."
Then we found Maryanne's employee records.
One photograph showed her holding an infant.
The date was thirty-two years earlier.
Cassian's birth year.
On the back, someone had written:
C.R. — transferred safely.
Cassian sat down.
"No."
Ezra found another file.
Cassian's birth certificate.
Mother: Isabella Raldi.
Father: Antonio Raldi.
Normal.
Then a second certificate.
Same date.
Same hospital.
Infant male.
Mother's name redacted.
The child had no given name.
Cassian looked at Ezra.
"You knew?"
"No."
For once, I believed him.
The succession protocol began to make sense.
If there were two male heirs, Vittorio needed control of which bloodline continued.
Cassian's infertility had removed one.
But my pregnancy threatened that arrangement.
"That's why the baby matters," I said.
Cassian looked at my stomach.
Not because it was scandalous.
Because it changed inheritance.
Power.
Succession.
Everything.
I opened Cassian's medical file again.
One page contained a genetic profile.
It wasn't his.
Blood type AB positive.
The same false sample used in my paternity test.
Someone had been using another man's DNA as Cassian's for years.
The second heir.
"Find the man whose blood this is," I said.
Ezra searched the archive.
One match appeared.
ADRIAN BELL.
The doctor from Bellwether.
Cassian's face emptied.
Dr. Adrian Bell wasn't merely protecting Vittorio's secrets.
Genetically, he was closely related to Cassian.
Possibly a brother.
Possibly the other heir.
And his DNA was exactly what someone had substituted into our paternity test.
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A photograph arrived.
Dr. Bell stood beside my father on the night before Dad died.
Below it:
ASK CASSIAN WHO ORDERED DANIEL MARSH'S TRUCK STOPPED.
I turned the phone toward my husband.
May you like
Cassian went pale.
Because this time, he knew the answer.
