Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
I grabbed Eric's shirt.
"What did you say?"
Emergency lights flashed red along the hospital corridor.
People moved around us.
Eric looked terrified.
"Lily was alive."
"No."
"Elena—"
"I held her."
My voice broke.
"I held my daughter."
"I know what they told you."
"I saw her."
"You saw a wrapped infant after they had sedated you."
The corridor seemed to tilt.
Lorenzo caught my arm.
I barely felt him.
"You're lying."
"I wish I was."
Eric pulled out his phone.
There was a photograph.
A newborn girl.
A hospital bracelet circled her ankle.
MORALES, ELENA.
Time of birth: 4:17 A.M.
My knees buckled.
"Where did you get this?"
"Margaret."
"Where is my daughter?"
"I don't know."
I struck him.
Once.
Hard.
Lorenzo didn't stop me.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know!"
Eric's voice cracked.
"Margaret said the baby was transferred."
"To where?"
"She wouldn't tell me."
The fire alarm stopped.
Suddenly.
The silence was worse.
Lorenzo looked down the corridor.
"We leave now."
We returned to the estate with Eric.
Margaret saw him and began crying.
"You idiot."
"Aunt Margaret, tell her."
Margaret looked at me.
I stood across from her holding the photograph.
"Is this Lily?"
She nodded.
The sound that came out of me didn't feel human.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know."
"Everyone keeps saying that!"
Margaret wiped her face.
"I was working at St. Catherine when you delivered. Your daughter had a heartbeat."
"Then why—"
"Someone changed the records."
"Who?"
Margaret looked at Lorenzo.
"Dr. Reed."
Lorenzo's expression turned to stone.
Margaret continued.
"But Reed wasn't acting alone."
She told us Sofia had discovered irregularities shortly before Leo's birth.
Medical charities connected to the Rossi family had been paying for neonatal programs at several hospitals.
Someone had been using those programs to hide illegal financial transfers and falsified patient records.
Sofia found evidence.
Then she died.
After Leo was born, Margaret became convinced someone was weakening him deliberately.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Lorenzo demanded.
"Because they threatened my daughter."
"You don't have a daughter."
Margaret stared at him.
"That's what you think."
Then she said a name.
"Isabella."
Lorenzo stepped backward.
I didn't understand.
He did.
"Isabella died seventeen years ago."
"No," Margaret whispered. "She disappeared seventeen years ago."
Lorenzo stared at her.
Isabella was his younger sister.
The family had been told she'd died in a car accident overseas.
No body had ever been returned.
Only ashes.
Margaret claimed Sofia had discovered Isabella was alive.
That was why Sofia had started investigating.
The conspiracy was older than Leo.
Older than Lily.
Maybe older than Eric and me.
Lorenzo demanded proof.
Margaret gave him an address.
An abandoned family property outside the city.
We arrived after dark.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Except one room.
That room had been used recently.
There were medical supplies.
Baby blankets.
Boxes.
And photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Children.
Mothers.
Hospital bracelets.
I searched frantically.
Then I found Lily.
Not physically.
A photograph.
My newborn daughter asleep beneath a pink blanket.
Written beneath it:
L.M. — TRANSFER CANCELLED.
I turned the photograph over.
There was an address.
Before I could show Lorenzo, we heard footsteps upstairs.
He signaled me to stay back.
A woman descended slowly.
She was in her thirties.
Dark hair.
Pale face.
A scar along her temple.
Lorenzo stared at her as if the dead had walked into the room.
"Isabella?"
The woman stopped.
Her eyes filled.
"Hello, brother."
Lorenzo couldn't speak.
She looked at me.
Then at the photograph in my hand.
"You came for Lily."
I stepped forward.
"Where is my daughter?"
Isabella's expression changed.
"She's alive."
My heart nearly stopped.
"Where?"
"Safe."
"Take me to her."
"I can't."
I moved toward her.
"Then you don't understand what safe means."
She held up her hands.
"Elena, listen to me. The person behind this knows you've started looking."
"I don't care."
"You should."
"Why?"
"Because Lily was never the real target."
I froze.
Isabella looked toward Lorenzo.
"Leo was."
Lorenzo stepped closer.
"Why?"
"Because Sofia left something behind."
"What?"
"A trust."
Isabella swallowed.
"Control of everything doesn't pass to you if Leo dies."
"Then who?"
She stared directly at him.
"Someone you've trusted your entire life."
A vehicle stopped outside.
Headlights swept across the windows.
Isabella's face went white.
"They found us."
Lorenzo turned toward the door.
But Isabella grabbed my arm.
"If they take me, find the blue file."
"Where?"
"Your apartment."
My blood ran cold.
"My apartment?"
She nodded.
"Under Lily's crib."
Then the front door slowly opened downstairs.
May you like
And a familiar voice called:
"Elena?"
