Chapter 6 - The Daughter Who Carried The Truth
The door opened slowly.
Everyone in the NICU turned.
Sebastian moved first.
Not toward the door.
Toward me.
Like he was trying to protect me from whatever was waiting outside.
The person standing there didn't move.
She just stared.
A young woman.
Maybe seventeen years old.
Dark hair falling over her shoulders.
Tired eyes.
A face that looked familiar even though I had never seen her before.
Because I had seen that face in a photograph.
On the old hospital file.
On the screen recording.
On the bracelet hidden beneath Sebastian's watch.
My breath caught.
Sebastian stopped breathing.
"Lucia."
The girl's expression changed.
Not relief.
Not happiness.
Pain.
Like hearing her name from him hurt more than she expected.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Sebastian took one step forward.
She immediately stepped back.
That single movement destroyed something inside him.
Because it showed him the truth.
She wasn't afraid of him.
She was afraid of what he represented.
Seventeen years of lies.
Seventeen years of believing she had no one.
"Don't."
Her voice was quiet.
Sebastian froze.
"Lucia..."
"Don't come closer."
The room went silent.
I watched the most powerful man in the city obey a teenage girl without hesitation.
No anger.
No frustration.
Only fear.
Fear that if he moved too quickly, she would disappear again.
"I thought you were dead."
Lucia looked down.
"I know."
"I searched for you."
"I know."
"Then why didn't you come to me?"
Her eyes filled with tears.
And for the first time, she looked less like a mystery.
She looked like a child who had been forced to grow up too fast.
"Because I was told you were the reason my mother died."
Sebastian looked like the words physically hurt him.
"Who told you that?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
We all knew.
"Matteo."
The name fell into the room.
Heavy.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
The person who had helped him search.
The person he trusted.
The person who stood beside him while he mourned.
The person who had been lying the entire time.
Lucia looked at him.
"But Matteo wasn't the only one."
Sebastian opened his eyes.
"What?"
She walked slowly inside.
She was holding something.
An old envelope.
"I found this before I ran."
She handed it to him.
He looked at it.
Then at her.
"Where did you get this?"
"From the place where they kept my records."
His expression changed.
"They?"
Lucia nodded.
"There were people before Matteo."
My stomach tightened.
"Who?"
Lucia looked at me.
Then back at Sebastian.
"I don't know all their names."
She swallowed.
"But I know one."
Sebastian waited.
"Dr. Adrian Vale."
The room became completely still.
The same doctor whose name appeared in the transfer records.
The same man Maria said was supposed to be dead.
Sebastian opened the envelope.
Inside was a small stack of papers.
The first page was enough.
His hands tightened.
I looked over his shoulder.
It was a medical report.
Lucia's birth record.
But there was something different.
A note written at the bottom.
"Patient transferred under private authorization."
Then another line.
"Parental information removed."
Sebastian's expression turned cold.
"They erased you."
Lucia looked away.
"Yes."
"Why?"
Her eyes met his.
"Because I wasn't supposed to survive."
Nobody spoke.
The words were terrifying.
A newborn baby.
A child.
A life someone tried to erase.
Sebastian looked at the papers again.
"Who knew?"
Lucia hesitated.
"Everyone involved."
"Names."
Her face changed.
"I don't have all of them."
"Lucia."
His voice wasn't angry.
It was desperate.
"I need names."
She looked at him.
"I only know the person who protected me."
A pause.
"Maria."
Everyone turned.
Maria looked down.
Sebastian stared at her.
"You knew."
Maria's eyes filled with tears.
"I knew she was alive."
The room became silent.
"You knew?"
His voice was different now.
Not loud.
That was worse.
"How long?"
Maria couldn't look at him.
"Ten years."
The words landed like a weapon.
Sebastian stepped back.
Ten years.
A decade.
Ten years of searching.
Ten years of believing he had failed.
Ten years while someone who knew the truth stayed silent.
"Why?"
Maria cried quietly.
"Because Elena asked me to."
Sebastian froze.
"What?"
"Before she died."
Maria wiped her face.
"Elena knew someone was trying to take Lucia."
She looked at him.
"She knew you would destroy yourself trying to find her."
Sebastian's expression broke.
"She wanted me to stop looking?"
"No."
Maria shook her head.
"She wanted you to survive."
That was the first time I saw Sebastian truly lose control.
Not with anger.
With grief.
He sat down.
The chair behind him caught his weight.
For years, he had carried the belief that he failed Elena.
That he failed Lucia.
But maybe...
Maybe the truth was more complicated.
Lucia stayed.
Not because everything was fixed.
It wasn't.
She still kept distance from Sebastian.
She still flinched whenever he moved too quickly.
But she stayed.
And Sebastian accepted that.
He didn't demand forgiveness.
He didn't ask her to call him anything.
He didn't pretend seventeen years could disappear overnight.
He just sat beside her.
Like he sat beside Baby Boy Miller.
Patient.
Quiet.
Waiting.
I watched them from across the room.
A father and daughter who had lost almost two decades.
Trying to find a way back.
But there was still one problem.
Dr. Adrian Vale.
And Matteo.
Sebastian's security team found another piece of evidence that afternoon.
A hidden location.
An abandoned medical facility outside the city.
The place where Lucia's records had been transferred.
The place where someone had kept the truth buried.
Sebastian wanted to leave immediately.
But Lucia stopped him.
"You can't go alone."
He looked at her.
"I can handle it."
"No."
The firmness in her voice surprised everyone.
"You always did."
Sebastian became quiet.
Lucia continued.
"You always thought you had to protect everyone by yourself."
A pause.
"That's why they won."
Those words affected him.
Because they were true.
For seventeen years, Sebastian fought enemies.
But he never imagined the enemy was standing beside him.
"We go together."
Sebastian looked at her.
Then slowly nodded.
"Okay."
One word.
But it meant everything.
That night, I stayed late.
I told myself it was because Baby Boy Miller needed monitoring.
But the truth was...
I wanted to see how this ended.
I wanted to know if people who lost each other could actually find their way back.
Around midnight, Sebastian received a call.
His security team.
Something had happened.
He answered.
Then his expression changed.
"What do you mean?"
A pause.
"Send me the photo."
Seconds later, his phone received an image.
He opened it.
Then immediately stood.
"What is it?"
Lucia asked.
Sebastian didn't answer.
He turned the screen toward us.
It was a photograph.
A security camera image.
From the abandoned medical facility.
A man standing outside the building.
Older.
Gray hair.
Wearing a doctor's coat.
Maria covered her mouth.
Because she recognized him.
Sebastian stared at the picture.
The person he thought was dead.
The person who started everything.
Dr. Adrian Vale.
But that wasn't what made him afraid.
It was what the doctor was holding.
A hospital bracelet.
An old one.
The same kind Sebastian had worn beneath his watch for seventeen years.
Lucia stepped closer.
Then whispered:
"That's not mine."
Sebastian looked at her.
She pointed at the bracelet.
Her face went pale.
"That belongs to someone else."
Sebastian zoomed in.
The name became clearer.
And when he saw it...
He dropped the phone.
Because the bracelet belonged to a baby who had been declared dead seventeen years ago.
May you like
A baby named...
Baby Boy Miller.
