Chapter 3 - RACHEL’S FATHER HAD A NAME GABRIEL KNEW
For the first time since Rachel had entered Gabriel DeLuca’s mansion fourteen months earlier, she wished she had never taken the job.
She wished she were back inside her old two-bedroom apartment with the broken dishwasher, the noisy upstairs neighbors, and the heating system that failed every February.
She wished her biggest fear was losing health insurance.
Instead, she stood inside a locked security room beside one of the most powerful men in New York while discovering that her dead mother was alive, her childhood had been constructed around secrets, and someone had threatened to abduct her son.
Gabriel watched her carefully.
“Sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“Rachel.”
“What?”
“You’re shaking.”
“I just spoke to my dead mother.”
He didn’t argue.
She walked toward the window.
Outside, security vehicles moved through the circular drive.
“What did she mean?”
Gabriel said nothing.
Rachel turned.
“Who was my father?”
“I don’t know.”
“She said you couldn’t learn the truth.”
“That doesn’t mean I already know it.”
“But she knows you.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Isabella. She knew Isabella. Victor knew both of them.”
“Yes.”
“And Sophie called her Aunt Caroline.”
Gabriel nodded once.
Rachel laughed bitterly.
“I feel like everyone had a copy of my life except me.”
Gabriel understood that better than he wanted to admit.
He had spent seven years believing Sophie was dead.
Rachel had spent five believing Caroline was.
Both had buried people who apparently had not been in their graves.
Marco entered quietly.
“We recovered traffic footage of Caroline’s car.”
“Where did she go?”
“Bronx River Parkway. Then we lost her.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Was she alone?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel said, “Find her.”
Marco nodded.
Then hesitated.
“What?”
“We confirmed something about Rachel’s birth certificate.”
Rachel turned.
“What about it?”
Marco placed a scanned document onscreen.
Rachel Bennett.
Born August 7, 1995.
Mother: Caroline Bennett.
Father: Thomas Bennett.
Nothing unusual.
Until Marco placed a second document beside it.
“There was an amendment filed six weeks later.”
The father’s name had originally been blank.
Thomas Bennett was added afterward.
Rachel frowned.
“My father adopted me?”
“No,” Marco said. “The filing claimed clerical error.”
“Was it?”
“We checked DNA records available through old medical databases.”
Gabriel looked at him sharply.
“And?”
“Thomas Bennett was blood type AB positive.”
Rachel whispered, “So?”
“You’re O negative.”
Rachel understood slowly.
An AB-positive father could not biologically produce an O child.
Thomas Bennett was not her biological father.
Rachel sat down after all.
“My dad loved me.”
Marco softened.
“I’m not questioning that.”
Gabriel said, “Who filed the amendment?”
Marco enlarged the signature.
Dr. Victor Salerno.
Of course.
Rachel stared at it.
Everything returned to Victor.
Gabriel began pacing.
“What medical records exist from the birth?”
“Almost none.”
“Hospital?”
“St. Anne’s Medical Center. Closed in 2001.”
“Doctor?”
Marco hesitated.
“Victor.”
Gabriel stopped.
“And witnesses?”
“One nurse.”
“Caroline?”
“No.”
Marco looked uncomfortable.
“Isabella Moretti.”
Gabriel stared at him.
Rachel’s head lifted.
“Isabella?”
“She was twenty-one then,” Marco said. “Before Gabriel married her. She volunteered in the maternity unit while studying social work.”
Rachel whispered, “My mother and Isabella knew each other before either of us were born.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel looked at the photograph again.
Suddenly the image no longer seemed random.
These women had shared something for decades.
A hidden history.
His phone buzzed.
A message from Teresa.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT SOPHIE.
Attached was an address.
Gabriel immediately stood.
Marco blocked the door.
“No.”
Gabriel’s eyes hardened.
“Move.”
“It’s a trap.”
“I know.”
“Then you’re not going alone.”
“That’s the condition.”
Marco didn’t move.
Gabriel spoke quietly.
“Marco.”
“No.”
Rachel stared at both men.
“Where is it?”
Neither answered.
She stepped closer.
“Where?”
Gabriel finally said, “An abandoned convent outside Yonkers.”
Rachel remembered the childhood stories her mother used to tell.
A convent with a blue chapel.
A bell that rang only once a day.
Her stomach turned.
“What is the name?”
“Saint Agnes.”
Rachel went cold.
“My mother took me there when I was six.”
Gabriel stared.
“What?”
“She said we were visiting an old friend.”
Marco’s attention sharpened.
“Do you remember who?”
Rachel searched the memory.
A long hallway.
Waxed floors.
An elderly nun.
Her mother crying behind a closed door.
And a man.
A man with dark hair.
He had crouched in front of Rachel and given her a silver coin.
She had forgotten him completely until now.
“I remember someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel showed her old family photographs.
Uncles.
Associates.
Bodyguards.
Rachel rejected each one.
Then Gabriel displayed a photograph taken twenty-five years earlier.
Rachel stopped.
“That’s him.”
Gabriel went perfectly still.
Marco muttered something under his breath.
The man in the photograph was Gabriel’s father.
Alessandro DeLuca.
Rachel stared.
“No.”
Gabriel’s voice was barely audible.
“You’re sure?”
“He gave me a coin.”
“What kind?”
“A silver saint medal.”
Gabriel reached beneath his shirt.
From a chain around his neck, he removed an identical medal.
“My father gave these only to family.”
Rachel stared at him.
“No.”
Gabriel looked as disturbed as she felt.
Rachel stood quickly.
“No. Don’t even say it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“My mother would have told me.”
“Your mother faked her own death.”
“That doesn’t make Alessandro my father.”
“No.”
But neither could ignore the possibility.
If Alessandro DeLuca was Rachel’s biological father, Gabriel and Rachel would share a father.
Brother and sister.
Rachel almost laughed at the absurdity.
Then another thought occurred.
“Your father died when?”
“2008.”
“When I was thirteen.”
“Did he know me?”
Gabriel looked at the medal.
“Apparently.”
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at Gabriel.
“We traced Teresa’s phone.”
“Saint Agnes?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel reached for his jacket.
Rachel grabbed his arm.
“You can’t go alone.”
“I’m getting Sophie.”
“You think your mother kidnapped your daughter for seven years and suddenly decided to hand her over because you follow instructions?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Making them believe I’m desperate enough to obey.”
Rachel looked toward Marco.
He already understood.
There would be teams positioned nearby.
Gabriel turned toward Rachel.
“You stay here with Ben.”
“No.”
“Rachel.”
“My mother took me to that convent. If there are hidden rooms or old entrances, I might recognize them.”
“I’m not bringing you.”
“You dragged me into this the second you started digging into Caroline.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ll put you in danger.”
Rachel stepped closer.
“My son was threatened because of this. My mother lied to me for thirty-one years. Someone altered my birth certificate. Isabella witnessed my birth. Sophie knows my mother.”
Her eyes burned.
“You don’t get to decide that I’m too fragile for the truth.”
Gabriel studied her.
Then nodded.
“One condition.”
“What?”
“You do exactly what Marco tells you.”
“Fine.”
“And Ben remains here under guard.”
Rachel agreed immediately.
An hour later, three vehicles stopped half a mile from Saint Agnes.
Rain had begun falling.
The convent sat beyond bare trees, abandoned for more than a decade.
Gabriel approached the front entrance alone.
Rachel and Marco entered through a side path.
Rachel remembered more with every step.
The stone fountain.
The broken statue.
The blue chapel windows.
Then she saw a small door half-hidden behind ivy.
“There.”
Marco looked at her.
“You remember it?”
“My mother took me through there.”
They entered.
Inside was a narrow hallway descending beneath the chapel.
Rachel’s pulse climbed.
Voices echoed ahead.
Gabriel.
Teresa.
“You stole my daughter.”
“I saved her.”
“You let me believe she was dead.”
“Because your enemies were going to kill her.”
“Which enemies?”
“All of them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were one of the dangers.”
Gabriel’s voice sharpened.
“What?”
Teresa replied, “Your father’s bloodline had become a target. Isabella discovered it before you did.”
Rachel looked at Marco.
They moved closer.
Teresa continued.
“She came to me terrified. She had learned there was a second DeLuca child.”
Rachel stopped breathing.
Gabriel said, “What second child?”
A pause.
Then Teresa answered.
“A daughter your father hid from everyone.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
No.
Marco stared at her.
Inside the chapel, Gabriel said:
“Rachel?”
Teresa laughed softly.
“You’ve always been slow with family secrets.”
Rachel pressed a hand against the stone wall.
Gabriel asked, “Is Rachel my sister?”
Teresa did not answer immediately.
Then:
“No.”
Rachel’s eyes opened.
“She is something much more dangerous.”
Suddenly Marco’s radio crackled.
Movement behind them.
He spun.
A gunshot shattered the silence.
Rachel ducked.
Marco pulled her behind the stone column.
Men rushed through the passage.
Inside the chapel Gabriel shouted Sophie’s name.
Rachel heard a girl scream.
Then the old church bells began ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Marco returned fire toward the ceiling, forcing the attackers back.
“Move!”
Rachel ran through another doorway.
She found herself inside a small underground room.
Photographs covered one wall.
Dozens of them.
Sophie as a toddler.
Sophie at six.
Sophie at eight.
Sophie at ten.
And Rachel.
Rachel at school.
Rachel with Ben.
Rachel outside her apartment.
Someone had been watching her for years.
Then she saw the photograph in the center.
Her mother stood beside Isabella.
Between them was a newborn baby.
Written beneath it:
AUGUST 7, 1995.
Rachel’s birthday.
But the infant was not labeled Rachel.
The handwritten name beneath the baby was:
ISABELLA DE LUCA.
Rachel stared.
That made no sense.
Isabella had already been twenty-one in 1995.
Unless Isabella wasn’t the woman’s name.
Behind her, a floorboard creaked.
Rachel turned.
Caroline Bennett stood in the doorway.
Alive.
Her mother looked at the photograph and began to cry.
“Rachel.”
Rachel could barely speak.
“Who am I?”
Caroline closed the door behind her.
Then she said:
“You’re not Alessandro DeLuca’s daughter.”
Rachel waited.
May you like
Caroline wiped tears from her face.
“You’re his granddaughter.”
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