Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE
Sebastian Moretti had spent most of his adult life believing fear was useful.
It kept dishonest men cautious.
It kept enemies from getting too close.
And it kept people from asking questions that were better left unanswered.
But standing in the marble foyer of his own mansion with a twenty-nine-year-old hospital bracelet in his fist, Sebastian discovered there was one kind of fear he had never learned to control.
The fear that his entire life had been built on somebody else’s lie.
Anthony opened the front doors.
Two guards escorted an elderly man inside.
Thomas Moretti looked nothing like the photograph Sebastian remembered from childhood.
That Thomas had been broad-shouldered, black-haired, and permanently laughing.
This man was thinner.
His hair was white.
A cane supported his right side.
But the eyes were unmistakable.
Gray-green.
Exactly like Sebastian’s father’s.
Exactly like Sebastian’s.
Rebecca walked three steps behind him.
Her face had lost every trace of color.
Sebastian looked at her first.
“You tried to leave with him.”
Rebecca swallowed.
“I can explain.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“You’ve explained enough.”
Thomas gave a tired laugh.
“That part he got from Carlo.”
Sebastian’s eyes snapped toward him.
Carlo Moretti.
His father.
Dead for eleven years.
“You don’t get to say his name like you knew him yesterday.”
Thomas stopped walking.
“I knew him better than anyone.”
“You were dead.”
“Legally.”
Anthony shifted beside Sebastian.
Sebastian raised one finger.
Nobody moved.
He stepped closer to Thomas.
“I attended your funeral.”
“I know.”
“There was a body.”
“There was a coffin.”
“I watched my father carry it.”
Thomas’s expression tightened.
“Your father knew.”
That landed harder than Sebastian expected.
“My father knew you were alive?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca whispered, “Thomas, don’t.”
Sebastian turned toward her.
The warning in his expression silenced her instantly.
Thomas lowered himself into a chair.
“I was supposed to disappear for six months.”
“You disappeared for twenty-eight years.”
“Because the reason I left never went away.”
Sebastian placed the hospital bracelet on the table between them.
“June 14, 1997.”
Thomas stared at it.
For the first time, genuine fear crossed the older man’s face.
“Where did you get that?”
“Maria.”
Thomas looked toward the rear hallway.
“Is she alive?”
Sebastian became still.
“That’s an interesting question.”
Thomas understood immediately.
“I didn’t hurt her.”
“Why did you ask whether she was alive?”
“Because Evelyn trusted Maria.”
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
“And Rebecca?”
Silence.
Sebastian leaned closer.
“What was Rebecca doing in a photograph with my mother in 1997?”
Thomas looked at Rebecca.
She shook her head almost imperceptibly.
Sebastian saw it.
So did Anthony.
Thomas sighed.
“Her name wasn’t Rebecca Sloan.”
Sebastian looked at his fiancée.
She stared at the floor.
“What was it?”
“Rebecca Vale.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Thomas continued.
“Her father was Dr. Jonathan Vale.”
Sebastian knew the name.
Everyone in the Moretti family did.
Dr. Vale had been his mother’s private physician for almost twenty years.
He had died in a car accident when Sebastian was nineteen.
“You’re telling me Rebecca is Vale’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“And she never thought to mention that?”
Rebecca finally spoke.
“My father made me promise.”
Sebastian laughed once.
There was nothing amused about it.
“Apparently everybody in this family survives on promises.”
Thomas pointed toward the bracelet.
“That child was born at Mercy Hospital at 2:14 in the morning.”
Sebastian waited.
Thomas’s fingers tightened around his cane.
“There were two boys.”
The room seemed to contract.
Sebastian stared at him.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My mother had one son that night.”
“That’s what the official record says.”
“She already had me.”
Thomas looked confused.
Then comprehension appeared.
“You think the baby was Evelyn’s?”
Sebastian felt cold move through him.
“Wasn’t he?”
“No.”
Thomas looked straight at him.
“The babies were mine.”
Nobody spoke.
Rebecca sat down slowly.
Sebastian’s face became expressionless.
“Explain.”
Thomas took a long breath.
“In 1996, I was having an affair with a nurse named Elena Vargas.”
Sebastian’s stomach tightened.
Maria’s last name was Ramirez.
He told himself it meant nothing.
Thomas continued.
“Elena became pregnant. Twins.”
“Why was my mother involved?”
“Because your grandfather would have killed me if the scandal became public.”
Sebastian knew that was not an exaggeration.
Giovanni Moretti had built the family empire with discipline, money, violence, and an almost religious obsession with reputation.
“Evelyn helped Elena hide.”
Thomas nodded.
“She arranged the hospital admission under an alias. Dr. Vale helped.”
“Then why does the bracelet say Moretti?”
“Because something went wrong.”
Rebecca whispered, “Stop.”
Thomas looked at her.
“No. We stopped too long.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
“What went wrong?”
Thomas looked toward the dark windows.
“One baby was healthy.”
“And the other?”
“Born with respiratory complications.”
Sebastian glanced at the bracelet.
“Which one survived?”
Thomas stared at him.
“That depends on who you believe.”
Sebastian’s patience ended.
“Thomas.”
“The hospital records say the stronger twin died.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It didn’t to Evelyn either.”
Thomas leaned forward.
“She was there when the babies were delivered. She saw both of them alive. She also saw your father arrive at the hospital.”
“My father?”
“Carlo had discovered the affair.”
Sebastian looked away for half a second.
Thomas continued.
“Carlo believed Elena had information about the Moretti businesses. He thought she had gotten close to me deliberately.”
“Did she?”
“I never knew.”
“What happened?”
“A fire alarm went off on the maternity floor shortly after three.”
Sebastian’s eyes moved back.
“Accidental?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because somebody disabled two cameras seven minutes before it happened.”
Anthony muttered, “Jesus.”
Thomas continued.
“When the floor reopened, Elena was gone.”
“With the babies?”
“One baby.”
“And the other?”
Thomas’s voice softened.
“Officially dead.”
Sebastian stared.
“You said my mother lied about which Moretti baby survived.”
Thomas nodded.
“She did.”
“Why?”
“Because the surviving child was not the baby Carlo thought survived.”
A silence stretched across the room.
Sebastian looked at Rebecca.
She had begun crying.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
She simply sat there with tears sliding down her cheeks.
“You know this story.”
She nodded.
“How much?”
“Parts.”
“Did you know Thomas was alive?”
Another nod.
“How long?”
“Since I was sixteen.”
Sebastian walked away from her.
His anger was becoming too controlled.
Anthony recognized it.
Thomas did too.
“Sebastian,” Thomas said, “Rebecca came into your life because her father left instructions.”
Sebastian turned.
“She came into my life two years ago because we supposedly met at a charity auction.”
“That meeting was arranged.”
Rebecca whispered, “I didn’t know I would fall in love with you.”
Sebastian looked at her.
The sentence only made everything worse.
“So the engagement was what? Surveillance?”
“No.”
“Access?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what you wanted.”
Rebecca wiped her face.
“A key.”
Anthony straightened.
Sebastian said nothing.
Rebecca continued.
“Your mother left something inside the Moretti estate that my father believed could prove what happened at Mercy Hospital.”
“The sewing box?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Evelyn’s music box.”
Sebastian knew it immediately.
A carved walnut box his mother had kept beside her bed.
It played an old Italian lullaby.
He had not opened it since her funeral.
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I was told there was a second compartment.”
Thomas nodded.
“Vale believed Evelyn hid the original delivery documents there.”
Sebastian looked at Anthony.
“Where is it?”
“In storage with Mrs. Moretti’s personal effects.”
“Bring it.”
Anthony left.
Thomas watched him go.
Then said quietly, “You should ask Maria something before you open it.”
Sebastian turned.
“What?”
“Ask her mother’s first name.”
Sebastian stared at him.
“Why?”
Thomas looked toward the service cottage.
“Because Elena Vargas didn’t disappear alone.”
A terrible thought entered Sebastian’s mind.
“No.”
Thomas’s expression answered before his words did.
“Maria was twelve years old in 1997.”
Sebastian remembered Maria mentioning that her mother had died when she was young.
He remembered Maria coming to work for the Morettis as a teenager.
He remembered his mother treating her with unusual tenderness.
“Maria’s mother…”
“Elena Vargas.”
Sebastian took one step backward.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
Thomas continued.
“Which means Maria has been living on Moretti property for nineteen years without knowing that the child born beside her mother’s hospital bed was connected to the family she served.”
“Connected how?”
Thomas’s eyes locked on Sebastian.
Before he could answer, Anthony rushed back into the room.
His face was different.
No music box.
No paperwork.
Just urgency.
“Boss.”
Sebastian’s pulse jumped.
“What happened?”
“The cottage alarm triggered.”
Sebastian was already moving.
“Maria?”
Anthony grabbed his arm.
“Maria’s still there.”
“Lucy?”
Anthony said nothing.
Sebastian’s face changed.
“Where is Lucy?”
“We don’t know.”
Sebastian ran.
They crossed the mansion in seconds.
The cottage door stood open.
Maria was stumbling barefoot into the yard despite her fever, screaming her daughter’s name.
“Lucy!”
Sebastian caught her before she fell.
“What happened?”
“I woke up and she was gone.”
“Who came inside?”
“Nobody.”
Anthony entered the cottage and checked the back room.
Then froze.
“Boss.”
Sebastian followed.
Lucy’s backpack lay open on the floor.
Beside it was Evelyn Moretti’s old wooden sewing box.
The hidden compartment had been emptied.
And on Lucy’s pillow sat a single Polaroid photograph.
Sebastian picked it up.
Two newborn babies lay side by side.
On the back, his mother had written:
ONE OF THESE BOYS GREW UP IN MY HOUSE.
Below that was another sentence.
THE OTHER ONE DOESN’T KNOW HIS REAL NAME.
Sebastian’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted male voice said:
“Stop asking about June 14, or the little girl disappears the way Elena did.”
Sebastian’s expression became terrifyingly calm.
“Touch her and there won’t be anywhere on earth you can hide.”
The caller laughed.
Then a tiny frightened voice came through the phone.
“Mr. Sebastian?”
Lucy.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
“Lucy, listen to me.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“Mommy wants me?”
“More than anything.”
A door slammed on the other end.
Then the man returned.
“You want the child?”
Sebastian’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Yes.”
“Then bring Thomas Moretti to the old Mercy Hospital maternity wing.”
Thomas went pale behind him.
The voice continued.
“Midnight.”
A pause.
“And Sebastian?”
“What?”
“Before you come, ask Thomas why one of those babies was given your name.”
The line went dead.
Sebastian slowly turned toward his supposedly dead uncle.
Thomas’s face told him the answer was worse than kidnapping.
“What did he mean?”
Thomas stared at the photograph.
Then at Sebastian.
May you like
And whispered:
“Because Sebastian Moretti wasn’t the name your parents gave you.”
