Chapter 3 - The Blood Between Us
Marin answered.
“Who are you?”
The voice replied immediately.
“The man who should have raised you.”
Dante took the phone and activated the speaker.
“Name.”
The caller laughed.
“You've grown into your father, Dante.”
Dante went still.
“Raymond.”
Marin looked between him and the phone.
Raymond Moretti.
The uncle she remembered as Raymond Holloway.
The man who used to bring her birthday cards.
The man whose funeral she had attended.
“Why did you pretend to die?” Marin demanded.
“To survive.”
“Are you my father?”
A pause.
“No.”
The answer should have relieved her.
It didn't.
“Then who is?”
“You'll learn when you're ready.”
Dante's voice hardened.
“She is ready.”
“No, nephew. She isn't.”
Nephew.
Marin suddenly felt trapped between two families whose names kept changing.
“Why bring me here?”
Raymond's voice softened.
“Because Evelyn made me promise.”
Dante's fist tightened.
“My mother?”
“She knew they were coming for her.”
“Who?”
“The people your father trusted.”
Dante's expression darkened.
“My father is dead.”
“Dead men leave long shadows.”
The call ended.
Dante immediately ordered Luca to trace it.
Marin sat on the edge of her overturned bed.
She looked at the silver ring.
“Take this back.”
Dante didn't move.
“You put it on me to protect me.”
“Yes.”
“It made things worse.”
“Possibly.”
“That isn't reassuring.”
“It wasn't intended to be.”
Despite everything, she almost laughed.
Then she removed the ring.
Dante stopped her hand.
“Keep it.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone in this city understands what it means.”
“What does it mean?”
“That touching you means answering to me.”
Marin looked at him.
“And what if I don't want to belong to anybody?”
Something shifted in his expression.
“You don't.”
His answer was immediate.
“You belong to yourself.”
That mattered.
More than she wanted it to.
Dante released her hand.
“The ring isn't ownership. It's a warning.”
“To whom?”
“Everyone.”
By midnight, the gala had emptied.
The internet had exploded.
Photographs of Dante placing the ring on Marin's finger were everywhere.
Headlines called her the mystery maid.
Some mocked her.
Others celebrated her.
Strangers dissected her weight, face, uniform, background, and worth as if she were fictional.
Marin shut off her phone.
“I hate this.”
“I can have the photographs removed.”
“From the entire internet?”
“No.”
“Then don't make promises you can't keep.”
Dante nodded.
“Fair.”
Luca entered.
“We found Raymond's vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned.”
“And Celeste?”
“Gone.”
Dante looked toward Marin.
“Pack what you need.”
“For what?”
“You're moving upstairs.”
She stared at him.
“No.”
“This floor isn't secure.”
“Then fix the floor.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Do people normally argue with you this much?”
“No.”
“Maybe that's why you're so difficult.”
Luca looked like he wanted to disappear.
Dante almost smiled.
“Guest suite. Temporary.”
Marin agreed.
Only because someone had already entered her room once.
She slept badly.
At six the next morning, someone knocked.
Marin opened the door.
A woman in a business suit stood outside.
“Ms. Holloway?”
“Yes?”
“Detective Elena Shaw.”
Dante appeared from the corridor.
“No interview without counsel.”
Elena sighed.
“Good morning to you too, Moretti.”
“You have thirty seconds.”
“A body was found near the river.”
Marin's stomach dropped.
“Raymond?”
“No.”
Elena showed them a photograph.
Mrs. Voss.
Alive.
Bruised.
Sitting in the back of an ambulance.
Marin exhaled.
“She escaped whoever took her last night.”
“Who took her?”
“She doesn't know. But she had something in her pocket.”
Elena handed Marin a sealed evidence photograph.
A hospital bracelet.
INFANT FEMALE.
Birth date: October 17.
Marin's birthday.
Mother: Evelyn Moretti.
Marin stared.
“No.”
Dante took the photograph.
His face drained of color.
“That makes her my—”
“Don't,” Marin said.
Nobody finished the sentence.
Sister.
If Evelyn Moretti was truly her mother, Dante was her brother.
Every rumor about the ring suddenly became grotesque.
Dante removed it from Marin's finger immediately.
Neither spoke.
Elena watched them carefully.
“The bracelet could be fake.”
Dante looked at her.
“Could be?”
“We're testing it.”
Marin felt sick.
The public believed she was engaged to Dante.
She might actually be his sister.
“This has to stop.”
Dante agreed.
“We make no statements until we know.”
But somebody else made one for them.
Luca rushed in holding his phone.
“It's everywhere.”
A video had been uploaded anonymously.
Evelyn Moretti appeared on-screen.
Young.
Terrified.
Holding a newborn.
Marin watched.
Evelyn looked directly into the camera.
“If you're watching this, then I failed.”
Marin covered her mouth.
Evelyn continued.
“They will tell my daughter she is a Holloway. Let them. It is safer.”
Dante gripped the table.
“My daughter must never know who her father is until Raymond says it's safe.”
The video ended.
Marin couldn't move.
Dante looked devastated.
Elena said, “We need DNA.”
They took samples that morning.
The hours afterward were unbearable.
Marin avoided the internet.
Dante stayed in his office.
By evening, preliminary results arrived.
Elena returned personally.
Marin sat opposite Dante.
Elena opened the report.
“Marin is biologically related to Evelyn Moretti.”
Marin closed her eyes.
“And Dante?”
Elena hesitated.
“They are not siblings.”
Marin opened her eyes.
Dante stared.
“How?”
“Evelyn is Marin's biological mother. But your maternal DNA doesn't match.”
Dante stood.
“That's impossible.”
“Unless Evelyn Moretti wasn't your biological mother.”
Silence.
Dante looked as if the floor had disappeared beneath him.
His entire identity had just fractured.
Marin whispered, “Then who was she to you?”
Dante's voice broke slightly.
“My mother.”
Biology didn't change that.
Marin understood.
Patricia Holloway was still her mother too.
Two women.
Two kinds of motherhood.
One enormous lie.
Elena closed the file.
“There is more.”
Dante looked at her.
“What?”
“Marin's paternal DNA produced a familial match.”
“To whom?”
Elena slid another page across the table.
Dante read the name.
His face became stone.
Marin took the report.
The name belonged to a man whose portrait hung in city hall.
A billionaire philanthropist.
A former state senator.
And Celeste Romano's father.
August Romano.
Marin stared at Dante.
“Celeste is my sister?”
“Half-sister,” Elena said.
Suddenly the humiliation at the gala looked different.
Celeste hadn't merely hated a maid.
Perhaps she had known.
Dante's phone rang.
Luca.
He answered.
“What?”
His expression changed.
“We're coming.”
He ended the call.
Marin stood.
“What happened?”
“They found Celeste.”
“Where?”
Dante looked toward the west wing.
“In the forbidden room.”
They ran.
The door was open.
Celeste sat inside.
Her evening gown was torn.
Her makeup streaked from crying.
The missing wooden box rested on her knees.
Marin stopped.
Celeste looked up.
“I didn't steal this from you.”
“You were on camera.”
“I took it because my father ordered me to.”
“Why?”
“Because he knew what was inside.”
Celeste opened the box.
The jewelry tray lifted.
There was a hidden compartment beneath it.
Inside lay a miniature cassette recorder.
Celeste pressed PLAY.
Evelyn's voice filled the room.
“Raymond, if August discovers the child survived, take Marin and run.”
Marin's blood went cold.
Then another voice spoke on the recording.
August Romano.
“If Evelyn won't give me the baby, I'll bury every Moretti who stands in my way.”
The tape clicked.
Celeste stared at Marin.
“My father knows you're alive.”
A gunshot exploded downstairs.
Everyone froze.
Luca's radio crackled.
May you like
Then a guard screamed one sentence:
“August Romano is inside the house.”
