Chapter 5 - The Secret in Her Medical File
The empty box contained one thing.
A fresh white rose.
Victoria's favorite flower.
Clara stared at it.
Liam swore.
“She was here.”
Bradley Sr. shook his head.
“Or someone wants us to think she was.”
Elaine moved through the records.
“What photograph?”
Nobody knew.
They searched for two hours.
Clara found payments from Mercer Capital to shell companies.
Liam found surveillance reports.
Bradley found names of Russo employees who had been bribed.
Then Elaine found Clara's stolen medical file.
Everyone stopped.
It lay on a desk.
“How?” Clara whispered.
Elaine opened it.
Several pages had been removed.
The pregnancy confirmation remained.
Across it someone had written:
RUSSO HEIR CONFIRMED.
Dominic's child was not merely a secret.
It was a target.
Clara backed away.
“We have to tell him.”
Liam nodded.
This time she did not object.
Dominic arrived forty minutes later.
He entered Blackwood Lodge with six security men.
Clara had never seen him look frightened.
He crossed the room directly to her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“The baby?”
She froze.
Dominic froze too.
Liam looked away.
Clara's voice became quiet.
“How did you know?”
Dominic stared at her stomach.
“I didn't.”
She understood.
Her own words had told him.
The silence that followed felt enormous.
“You're pregnant?”
Clara could not speak.
“Clara.”
“Yes.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
For one second the feared head of the Russo family looked like a man whose entire world had shifted.
“Mine?”
The hurt in her expression answered before she did.
He immediately regretted asking.
“I'm sorry.”
“Yes. Yours.”
Dominic sat down.
No one had ever seen him do that because of shock.
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
His eyes lifted.
Blackwood.
“Yes,” Clara whispered.
He stood again.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
She stared at him.
He remembered.
Pain crossed his face.
“I was going to.”
“Before you heard me.”
“Yes.”
Dominic looked away.
Clara gave him the threat.
He read it.
Something changed.
The tenderness disappeared.
The dangerous Dominic Russo returned.
“Everyone leaves except Clara.”
“No,” Clara said.
He looked at her.
“No more orders.”
“Clara—”
“They stay.”
Dominic nodded.
It was small.
But it mattered.
Together they showed him the evidence.
When Clara mentioned the missing photograph, Dominic became still.
“What?”
“You know what it showed.”
He hesitated.
“Dominic.”
“My mother.”
“What about her?”
“She didn't die when I was eight.”
Clara stared.
Officially, Isabella Russo had died in a boating accident.
“She disappeared.”
“Why?”
“My father told me she betrayed us.”
Bradley Sr. spoke.
“She discovered Mercer’s operation.”
Dominic turned.
“You knew?”
“I helped her escape.”
Liam stared at his father.
Another buried truth.
“Where is she?” Dominic asked.
Bradley Sr. lowered his eyes.
“I don't know.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“You helped my mother disappear and never told me?”
“She believed you would be killed if she stayed.”
Dominic’s fists tightened.
Clara touched his arm.
He looked at her hand.
The anger in him softened by one degree.
Then a security man entered.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“We found something upstairs.”
They followed him.
In the bedroom where Dominic and Clara had spent that night together, someone had placed a photograph on the pillow.
Dominic picked it up.
A young Isabella Russo stood beside Clara’s mother.
Both women were pregnant.
On the back was a date.
Twenty-six years earlier.
And beneath it:
THE CHILDREN MUST NEVER KNOW THEY SHARE THE SAME ENEMY.
Dominic turned the photograph over again.
A second line appeared beneath the first.
Fresh ink.
SHE KNOWS ABOUT THE BABY NOW.
A phone began ringing downstairs.
It belonged to Clara.
May you like
The caller ID showed one name.
VICTORIA MERCER.
