Chapter 6 - THE SECOND MOTHER
“No.”
Roman said it once.
Not loudly.
The word carried more force than shouting.
Patricia looked at him with something dangerously close to pity.
“Roman—”
“No.”
His father leaned against the fireplace as if the room had moved beneath him.
Roman stared at the photograph.
Maria Costello.
His mother’s cousin.
The woman with the loud laugh.
The woman who disappeared.
“My mother raised me.”
“Yes,” Patricia said.
“That makes her my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Then say what you mean clearly.”
Patricia took a breath.
“Francesca gave birth to Claire. Maria gave birth to a boy the same night. Maria was unmarried. Her family considered it a disgrace.”
“And you switched us.”
Patricia shook her head.
“Francesca did.”
Roman’s father looked at her.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“She would never—”
“She had already lost one pregnancy. She believed Claire was dying. Maria wanted to leave Chicago and did not want the child.”
Roman stared at her.
“So Francesca took me.”
“Yes.”
“And Claire?”
Patricia’s voice broke.
“The nurse told us she had died.”
“But she hadn’t.”
“No.”
Roman walked away from the table.
Every truth opened another wound.
Marco appeared in the doorway.
“Boss.”
Roman didn’t look at him.
“What?”
“We found Grace.”
Roman turned immediately.
“Where?”
“She walked into a police station near the freight district five minutes ago.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Roman’s shoulders lowered by an inch.
That was all.
“Bring her here.”
Marco nodded.
“And there’s someone with her.”
“Who?”
“A retired private investigator named Thomas Vale.”
Patricia’s face changed.
Roman saw it.
“You know him.”
She stood.
“Do not bring him into this house.”
Roman almost smiled.
“Then I definitely will.”
Forty minutes later, Grace entered the study wearing borrowed gray sweatpants and a Chicago Police sweatshirt.
Her hair was damp.
Her wrists were red.
Roman crossed the room.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Who took you?”
“Thomas.”
Roman looked behind her.
A lean man in his sixties entered with Marco.
Thomas did not look frightened.
That annoyed Roman.
“You kidnapped someone from my house.”
“I removed her before someone worse could.”
“You tied her hands.”
“She tried to jump out of a moving car.”
Grace glanced at Roman.
“He’s telling the truth about that part.”
Roman’s eyes returned to her.
“Lucy is safe.”
Grace closed her eyes briefly.
“Thank God.”
Roman noticed Patricia watching Grace.
Not like a servant.
Like a ghost.
Grace saw her too.
Neither woman spoke.
Roman took the necklace from his pocket.
“Is this yours?”
Grace touched her throat.
“Yes.”
“Your mother’s?”
“Yes.”
Roman opened the pendant.
“My father says it belonged to his missing daughter.”
Grace’s gaze went to the old man.
For the first time, she understood who he was.
Her face went white.
“My mother was Claire Bellandi.”
Roman watched her carefully.
“You knew before tonight?”
“No.”
Thomas answered for her.
“She knew her mother had been adopted. Nothing more.”
Patricia stood by the fire.
“Thomas always loved dramatic timing.”
Thomas looked at her.
“And you always loved deciding who was allowed to exist.”
Grace turned toward Patricia.
“Did you take my mother?”
“No.”
“Did you threaten her?”
“Yes.”
The blunt answer surprised everyone.
Patricia sat again.
“I told Claire that if she exposed the birth records publicly, she would destroy Roman’s legitimacy and trigger challenges to every Bellandi holding.”
Grace’s eyes sharpened.
“So you frightened her into silence.”
“I tried.”
“But she wasn’t silent.”
“No.”
Thomas stepped forward.
“That’s why she contacted me.”
Roman looked at him.
“Tell me about my son.”
Grace turned sharply.
“Thomas told me Elena had another child.”
Thomas nodded.
“Elena gave birth eight years ago.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman’s restraint cracked slightly.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I never saw the child after the transfer.”
“What transfer?”
Thomas removed a folded photocopy from his wallet.
Not legal papers.
A nursing schedule.
St. Catherine’s neonatal unit.
One name was highlighted.
Nurse Amelia Grant.
“She carried the infant out of the neonatal ward at 2:14 a.m.”
Patricia looked confused.
“I never saw this.”
Thomas turned toward her.
“That’s because someone used your authorization code.”
Roman stared at Patricia.
“You said you controlled what happened.”
“I thought I did.”
Thomas placed another item on the table.
A grainy security still.
A nurse pushing a bassinet.
Walking beside her was a man wearing a dark coat.
His face was partially hidden.
But a distinctive watch showed beneath his cuff.
Roman knew it.
A Costello family heirloom.
Gabriel.
Patricia whispered, “No.”
Thomas nodded.
“Gabriel took the boy.”
Roman felt rage settle into something cleaner.
Purpose.
“Why?”
Thomas looked toward Patricia.
“You tell him.”
Patricia sat very still.
“Gabriel believed Roman was his son.”
Roman’s father said, “That still makes no sense.”
Patricia looked at him.
“Because Maria never told anyone who fathered Roman.”
Roman turned.
“Who?”
Patricia shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Thomas did.
Everyone saw it.
Roman stepped toward him.
“Say it.”
Thomas looked at Grace first.
Then Roman.
“According to Claire, Maria told her only once.”
Roman waited.
“The father was a Bellandi.”
Silence.
Roman’s father whispered, “Me?”
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
Patricia’s hand rose to her mouth.
Roman already understood.
There had been another Bellandi man in that generation.
His grandfather.
His mother Francesca’s father-in-law.
Roman’s own legal grandfather.
Patricia’s father.
Roman’s voice turned flat.
“My grandfather fathered me with Maria Costello.”
Thomas nodded.
“That is what Claire believed.”
Roman looked sickened.
That made Gabriel’s rage understandable, though not forgivable.
To Gabriel, Roman had been living proof that a powerful Bellandi patriarch had exploited his younger cousin and then absorbed the child into his own family.
Grace spoke quietly.
“Gabriel took Roman’s son because he thought he was taking back something the Bellandis stole from his family.”
Thomas nodded.
“Probably.”
Roman stared at him.
“Probably?”
“There’s another possibility.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
Thomas removed one final object.
A small silver bracelet.
Not a hospital bracelet.
A child’s bracelet.
The engraved name was:
NICHOLAS.
Roman could barely speak.
“Where did you get that?”
“Claire mailed it to me six months after Elena’s son disappeared.”
Grace stared.
“My mother was alive then.”
“Yes.”
Roman lifted the bracelet.
On the back were two initials.
G.C.
Gabriel Costello.
Roman looked at Thomas.
“Where was it mailed from?”
“Milwaukee.”
Grace’s eyes widened.
The train ticket.
Chicago to Milwaukee.
Roman saw the same realization.
Thomas continued.
“Claire wrote one sentence inside the envelope.”
“What?”
Thomas looked at Roman.
“Gabriel doesn’t have the boy anymore.”
Roman’s pulse jumped.
“Who does?”
Thomas swallowed.
“She wrote: ‘The woman with my bracelet has him.’”
Grace reached into her pocket.
“My mother wrote the same thing on a ticket she left for me.”
Roman looked at her.
Grace finished:
“Find the woman wearing my bracelet.”
From the hallway came a small voice.
“I know that lady.”
Everyone turned.
Lucy stood in the doorway holding her stuffed rabbit.
Roman crossed the room.
“Lucy, you should be upstairs.”
She pointed at Nicholas’s bracelet.
“I saw one like that.”
Roman crouched.
“Where?”
Lucy looked at Celeste’s engagement photograph on the mantel.
May you like
Then pointed directly at Celeste’s mother.
“On Mrs. Harrington.”
