Chapter 9 - The Baby Was Never the Real Target
I recognized her.
Not personally.
From my father's photographs.
Her name was Celeste Cain.
Ezra's mother.
She had supposedly died twelve years earlier.
Ezra returned through the side door and stopped dead.
"Mom?"
Celeste looked at him without affection.
"Still cleaning up Raldi mistakes?"
Ezra's face broke in a way I'd never seen.
Cassian raised his gun.
"Did you shoot Adrian?"
"No."
"Who did?"
"Someone who doesn't want him talking."
Adrian was alive but fading.
I kept pressure on the wound while Cassian called emergency services anonymously.
Celeste crouched opposite me.
"You look like Daniel."
"Don't say my father's name."
"He was brave."
"You helped kill him."
"No. I tried to save him."
I wanted to hate every word.
But she knew details only Dad's ally could know.
Celeste had helped Daniel copy the genetic archive.
She'd also forged my signature on the mansion log.
"Why?"
"To make it appear you had left."
"You drugged me?"
"No."
"Who did?"
"Vittorio's nurse."
"And what happened during the missing hours?"
Celeste looked at Cassian.
"Ask him whether he wants the answer."
"I do," Cassian said.
She shook her head.
"No. You want innocence."
Cassian lowered the gun slightly.
"What does that mean?"
"It means neither of you chose what happened."
My stomach turned.
Celeste explained that Vittorio's original plan wasn't pregnancy.
It was collection.
He intended to obtain viable genetic material from Cassian because he suspected the infertility diagnosis was false.
Then use it to control a future heir.
But something went wrong.
I had arrived.
A nurse.
Young.
Healthy.
Already inside the mansion.
"They changed the plan," Celeste said.
My hand instinctively covered my stomach.
"No."
"I interrupted them before they completed it."
"Then how am I pregnant?"
Celeste's eyes softened.
"That's what they didn't understand either."
Cassian stared at her.
"Meaning?"
"Whatever they attempted failed."
My missing hours remained missing.
But Celeste claimed that after she intervened, Cassian and I had been left alone.
Both sedated.
Hours later, she returned.
We were awake.
Disoriented.
Together.
My cheeks burned.
"You mean—"
"I mean I left."
Cassian looked at me.
Neither of us spoke.
The possibility was almost absurd.
The pregnancy might have been conceived naturally during confused fragments neither of us remembered clearly.
That didn't make the violation around us less horrifying.
But it changed one thing.
Our child might truly be ours.
"Why falsify the DNA test?" I asked.
"Because Vittorio panicked."
"Why?"
Celeste looked toward my stomach.
"Your baby isn't the target, Elena."
"What is?"
"You."
I laughed bitterly.
"I'm a nurse with an overdrawn bank account."
"You're Daniel Marsh's daughter."
"So?"
"And Maryanne Marsh's daughter."
My laughter died.
Celeste produced an old Bellwether ownership document.
Forty-nine percent belonged to a trust.
Beneficiary:
MARYANNE MARSH.
Upon her death, ownership transferred to me.
The genetic archive wasn't simply evidence.
Legally, part of the facility holding it belonged to my family.
Dad's supposed debt was constructed to force me into financial desperation.
My marriage to Cassian put me inside the Raldi household.
Vittorio expected to control both sides.
But he hadn't expected us to start investigating.
Sirens approached.
Celeste stood.
Ezra blocked her.
"You're not disappearing again."
She touched his cheek.
For one second, she looked like his mother.
Then she whispered something.
Ezra went white.
"What did you say?"
Celeste stepped back.
"Ask Vittorio who your father is."
Ezra stared.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
Cassian asked, "What?"
Ezra lowered the phone.
"Vittorio escaped custody."
A second message arrived.
A photograph.
My mother was no longer in her clinic bed.
Someone had taken her again.
May you like
And this time, a handwritten card had been left on her pillow.
BRING ELENA TO THE PLACE WHERE DANIEL DIED.
