Chapter 3 - The Eyes Adrien Recognized
Adrien stepped between the nurse and Elena.
“Where is he?”
The woman raised both hands.
“I didn’t say he was alive.”
“You said he sent you.”
“Twenty-nine years ago.”
Her name badge read DR. MIRIAM VALE.
Adrien looked at Marcus.
“Vale?”
Marcus had gone pale.
“My sister.”
Miriam entered.
She looked sixty.
Tired eyes.
Silver threaded through dark hair.
She carried no weapon.
Only an old medical file.
Elena held Mateo closer.
Miriam noticed.
“I won’t come near your baby.”
“Good,” Elena said.
Miriam nodded respectfully.
“I was a resident here when Lucian brought a pregnant woman through the emergency entrance.”
Adrien showed her the birth record.
“Who was she?”
Miriam looked at him for a long moment.
“Your mother.”
Adrien said nothing.
Marcus closed his eyes.
Elena stared at Adrien.
His face had become unreadable.
“My mother was Sofia Moretti.”
“Sofia raised you.”
The distinction struck like a blade.
Adrien’s voice dropped.
“Who gave birth to me?”
Miriam opened the file.
“Isabella Reyes.”
Elena inhaled sharply.
Cruz and Reyes.
Both old Philadelphia families.
Both names common enough to mean nothing.
Yet Miriam was looking at Elena now.
“You know that name?”
Elena shook her head too quickly.
Adrien saw it.
“Elena.”
“My grandmother’s maiden name was Reyes.”
Silence.
Miriam sat.
“Then we have less time than I thought.”
She explained.
Isabella Reyes had been twenty-three.
Pregnant.
Terrified.
Her family had become entangled with men using Moretti freight routes for trafficking and extortion.
Lucian discovered it.
He helped Isabella escape.
Then he fell in love with her.
When she became pregnant, Lucian tried to leave the Moretti organization entirely.
Adrien’s father, Vittorio, opposed him.
Not because Lucian had betrayed the family.
Because Lucian had discovered who was corrupting it.
“Who?” Adrien asked.
Miriam looked at Marcus.
Marcus shook his head.
“I never knew.”
“Your father knew,” Miriam said.
“And?”
“He buried it.”
“Why?”
“Because exposing the person responsible would have destroyed the family.”
Adrien laughed once without humor.
“Instead, he destroyed Lucian.”
“No,” Miriam said. “Someone else did.”
Elena looked at Mateo.
“Why does any of this matter now?”
Miriam’s eyes settled on the baby.
“Because whoever restarted MRL is finishing Lucian’s final operation.”
“What operation?”
“Twenty-seven B.”
Miriam opened another document.
Two infants were listed.
Not one.
Adrien stared.
“Twins?”
Miriam nodded.
“Isabella delivered twins at Mercy General.”
Adrien felt the floor disappear beneath him.
“One was a boy.”
Miriam looked at him.
“You.”
“And the other?”
“A girl.”
Elena stopped breathing.
Miriam turned the paper.
The second child’s name had been handwritten.
Camila Reyes.
Elena whispered, “My mother.”
Nobody moved.
Adrien looked at Elena.
Then Mateo.
Then back at the record.
“No.”
Miriam’s expression was grim.
“Elena, your mother Camila and Adrien were twins.”
Elena recoiled.
“That would make Adrien my uncle.”
“No,” Miriam said quickly. “The records were altered. Camila was not Isabella’s biological child.”
Adrien slammed his palm against the table.
“Stop giving us pieces.”
Mateo startled.
Adrien immediately lowered his voice.
“Tell us everything.”
Miriam nodded.
“Camila was another infant brought into the hospital the same night. Her mother died during delivery. Isabella agreed to help hide her because the people searching for Lucian were also searching for that baby.”
“Why?”
“Her father.”
“Who was he?”
Miriam hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Adrien studied her.
“You’re lying.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“Miriam.”
She looked at her brother.
“I promised.”
“To whom?”
“Lucian.”
Adrien froze.
“You said you didn’t know whether he was alive.”
“I don’t.”
“But you spoke to him after that night.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Miriam’s eyes filled.
“Seven years ago.”
The year Vittorio Moretti died.
Adrien stared.
“What did he say?”
“He told me that if Vittorio died unexpectedly, I was to watch for MRL 27B.”
“And now?”
“It returned.”
“Why Elena?”
Miriam looked at the sleeping baby.
“I think whoever restarted it wanted Elena brought here.”
Elena’s skin went cold.
“The packages weren’t tracking me.”
“No.”
“They were steering me.”
“Possibly.”
Adrien shook his head.
“She chose this hospital because she went into labor nearby.”
Elena slowly looked at him.
“No.”
“What?”
“I changed hospitals.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
Adrien stared.
“My original hospital was St. Catherine’s.”
“Why did you come here?”
Elena remembered.
A voicemail.
Her obstetrician’s office.
A plumbing emergency had supposedly closed part of the maternity wing.
Patients near delivery were being redirected.
Mercy General was recommended.
Adrien was already calling.
Within minutes, his answer came.
St. Catherine’s maternity wing had no plumbing emergency.
Elena closed her eyes.
“They brought me here.”
Miriam nodded.
“And someone made sure that carton was waiting.”
Adrien walked to the door.
“Hospital security locks the floor.”
Marcus caught his arm.
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“No. You’re reacting exactly as whoever planned this expected.”
Adrien looked at him.
Marcus continued.
“They wanted Elena here. They wanted you here. They wanted that record opened after Mateo was born.”
“Why after?”
Miriam answered.
“Because of his eyes.”
Adrien looked at her.
“You keep saying that.”
“Lucian had the same eyes. So did Isabella.”
“So?”
Miriam’s voice became quiet.
“So did the baby whose mother died that night.”
Elena looked at Mateo.
The amber ring.
The blue-gray iris.
A trait passed down.
Not through Adrien alone.
Potentially through Elena too.
“Who was that baby?” Elena whispered.
Miriam reached into the file.
The relevant page was gone.
Someone had removed it.
Miriam stared at the empty plastic sleeve.
“That was here this morning.”
Adrien’s phone vibrated.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
A photograph appeared.
It showed the missing document.
Beneath it was a message.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO ELENA REALLY IS, COME TO SUBLEVEL B ALONE.
A second message followed.
BRING THE CHILD’S HOSPITAL BRACELET.
Adrien looked toward the door.
Elena saw his expression.
“No.”
“I’m not going.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“For half a second.”
“That’s half a second too long.”
He handed her the phone.
Elena read the message again.
Then she looked at Mateo’s wrist.
A tiny hospital bracelet circled it.
She touched the plastic band.
Something beneath the printed label caught her fingernail.
A second layer.
Elena carefully peeled the corner back.
Adrien leaned closer.
Under Mateo’s official hospital number was another code.
MRL 27B.
May you like
And beneath it, written in tiny red letters:
THE SECOND HEIR HAS ARRIVED.
