Chapter 3 - THE NAME THAT WAS STOLEN
For three seconds, nobody moved.
Maria stood barefoot in the cottage doorway, trembling with fever and terror.
Rebecca remained several feet behind Thomas.
Anthony was already speaking into his radio, ordering every vehicle, gate camera, traffic feed, and security contact in Chicago checked for any sign of Lucy.
Sebastian heard none of it clearly.
One sentence occupied his mind.
Sebastian Moretti wasn’t the name your parents gave you.
He walked toward Thomas.
“What was my name?”
Thomas looked at Maria.
“This isn’t how you should learn it.”
“My three-year-old goddaughter has been kidnapped.”
Maria looked up sharply.
Sebastian had never called Lucy that before.
Perhaps he had never consciously thought of her that way.
But the word felt right.
Family.
That was what mattered now.
He stepped closer to Thomas.
“You have ten seconds.”
Thomas swallowed.
“Your name was Matteo.”
Sebastian froze.
“Matteo what?”
“Matteo Vargas.”
Maria made a strangled sound.
“My mother’s name.”
Thomas nodded.
Sebastian stared between them.
“No.”
Thomas reached into his coat.
Three guards moved immediately.
Sebastian lifted his hand.
Thomas slowly produced an old envelope.
Inside was a photocopy of a birth registration.
Twin A: Gabriel Vargas.
Twin B: Matteo Vargas.
Mother: Elena Vargas.
Father field:
Blank.
Sebastian read it twice.
Then a third time.
“That proves nothing.”
“I know.”
“Anyone could create this.”
“I know.”
“My mother had photographs of me before 1997.”
“Of course she did.”
Sebastian looked up.
Thomas’s expression changed.
Then Sebastian understood the problem.
He had been seven years old in 1997.
He couldn’t possibly have been one of those newborn twins.
“You said one of those babies was given my name.”
Thomas nodded.
“Not your first name.”
Sebastian’s jaw clenched.
“The Moretti name.”
“Yes.”
Sebastian shoved the document back at him.
“Start making sense.”
Thomas looked older than he had ten minutes earlier.
“The surviving baby was registered three days later as a Moretti child.”
“Whose?”
“My brother’s.”
“Carlo?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian laughed coldly.
“My parents did not have an infant in 1997.”
“They did for eleven days.”
Sebastian said nothing.
Thomas continued.
“Your mother claimed she had been asked to temporarily care for a relative’s child. Most people never questioned it. Then suddenly the baby was gone.”
“Where?”
“Nobody would tell me.”
Sebastian remembered nothing.
At seven, he had been sent to his grandfather’s Lake Geneva property for most of that summer.
His mother had told him she was recovering from surgery.
“You’re saying my mother took one of your twins.”
“To protect him.”
“From whom?”
Thomas looked at Rebecca.
“Her father believed somebody at Mercy wanted the surviving child erased.”
“Why?”
Rebecca answered this time.
“Because Elena Vargas had evidence.”
Maria looked at her.
“What kind?”
“Financial records.”
Thomas continued.
“Elena worked night shifts at Mercy. She discovered that a charitable foundation connected to the Moretti family was being used to wash money through false medical contracts.”
Sebastian’s face darkened.
“Whose operation?”
“That’s what she didn’t know.”
“Carlo?”
“I thought so.”
“You thought my father was laundering money?”
“Your father controlled several contractors.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Thomas’s gaze hardened.
“We were not good men, Sebastian.”
“I’m aware.”
“But Carlo had rules.”
Sebastian knew those rules.
No narcotics near schools.
No trafficking.
No harming children.
No hospitals.
Their father could be brutal, but certain lines had never moved.
Thomas said, “The Mercy scheme violated everything Carlo claimed to believe.”
“So who ran it?”
“Somebody inside the family.”
Before Sebastian could ask more, Anthony returned.
“We found Lucy’s exit.”
Everyone turned.
“Kitchen delivery gate. Eleven thirty-seven.”
Sebastian checked the clock.
11:51 p.m.
“Vehicle?”
“Laundry van.”
“Plate?”
“Stolen.”
“Driver?”
“Camera caught part of his face.”
Anthony held up a tablet.
A gray-haired man sat behind the wheel.
Thomas stared.
Then dropped his cane.
Sebastian noticed.
“You know him.”
Thomas’s lips parted.
“Impossible.”
“Apparently that word means nothing tonight.”
Thomas looked at him.
“That’s Dr. Jonathan Vale.”
Rebecca stood so quickly her chair fell backward.
“My father is dead.”
Thomas pointed toward the image.
“That is Jonathan.”
Rebecca grabbed the tablet.
Her hands began shaking.
“No.”
She enlarged the image.
“No. No, he died in 2014.”
“Did you see the body?” Sebastian asked.
Rebecca looked at him.
That silence was answer enough.
Sebastian almost smiled.
Another dead man walking.
“Your family has a remarkable relationship with death certificates.”
Rebecca ignored him.
“My father’s car went off an embankment.”
“Was a body recovered?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know he died.”
“I saw DNA confirmation.”
Anthony asked, “From whom?”
Rebecca turned.
“What?”
“Who arranged the identification?”
“My father’s law firm.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Vale & Sloan.”
Sebastian looked at Rebecca.
“Sloan.”
Her surname.
Rebecca whispered, “My mother’s surname.”
The room fell quiet.
Thomas slowly retrieved his cane.
“We’ve been manipulated.”
Sebastian’s attention sharpened.
“By Vale?”
“For decades.”
“Why kidnap Lucy?”
Thomas looked genuinely lost.
“That I don’t understand.”
Maria suddenly spoke.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
She was pale enough that Dr. Warren would have ordered her back into bed immediately, but something stronger than illness held her upright.
“My mother left me something.”
Thomas stared.
“What?”
“A letter.”
“When?”
“I was fourteen.”
“Where is it?”
“I burned it.”
Thomas cursed.
Maria shook her head.
“I memorized part.”
Sebastian approached her.
“What did it say?”
Maria’s eyes filled.
“My mother wrote that if anyone ever came asking about Mercy Hospital, I should never trust the doctor.”
Rebecca whispered, “My father.”
Maria nodded.
“And she wrote something else.”
“What?”
“She said, ‘The baby is safe as long as nobody knows what he can prove.’”
Sebastian frowned.
“What can a baby prove?”
Maria looked at Thomas.
“Blood.”
Thomas’s face changed.
Sebastian caught it.
“Explain.”
Thomas stepped backward.
“No.”
Sebastian’s voice became dangerously soft.
“Thomas.”
“If I’m right, this is worse than we thought.”
“What does his blood prove?”
Thomas looked toward Rebecca.
Then Maria.
Finally Sebastian.
“That the man everyone believed was Giovanni Moretti’s son…”
He stopped.
Sebastian waited.
“…wasn’t.”
Sebastian felt his heartbeat slow.
“Which man?”
“Carlo.”
The answer hit like a physical blow.
“My father?”
Thomas nodded.
“Your grandfather suspected Carlo wasn’t biologically his.”
“That is absurd.”
“I know what I heard.”
“What did you hear?”
“In 1997, Giovanni and Evelyn were arguing. She said Elena’s baby could finally prove ‘the truth about Carlo.’”
Sebastian tried to follow.
“If one of your twins could prove something about my father, then—”
He stopped.
Thomas’s eyes answered.
Sebastian looked at him.
“Elena’s twins weren’t yours.”
Thomas said nothing.
Maria covered her mouth.
Rebecca whispered, “Thomas?”
Thomas lowered his head.
“I believed they were mine.”
“You said you had an affair with Elena.”
“I did.”
“But?”
“She admitted shortly before delivery that there had been someone before me.”
“Who?”
“She refused to say.”
Sebastian felt a sick certainty growing.
“She didn’t need the baby to prove Carlo wasn’t Giovanni’s son unless the real father connected them somehow.”
Thomas nodded slowly.
“Exactly.”
Anthony broke the silence.
“Boss, we need to move.”
Sebastian looked at the clock.
12:02.
Mercy Hospital’s old maternity building had closed twelve years earlier.
The city planned to demolish it in November.
If Vale had Lucy there, every minute mattered.
Sebastian turned to Maria.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“You have pneumonia.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And I’m bringing her home.”
“I’m coming.”
Sebastian stepped close enough that only she could hear him.
“Maria. If this goes wrong, Lucy needs one parent outside that building.”
Her eyes filled.
“I’m all she has.”
“No.”
Sebastian’s answer came immediately.
“You aren’t anymore.”
Maria stared at him.
His voice softened.
“I’ll bring her back.”
For the first time since Lucy vanished, Maria stopped arguing.
Sebastian turned to Rebecca.
“You stay too.”
She shook her head.
“If my father is alive—”
“That makes you a liability.”
“I know him.”
“So did everyone else, apparently.”
Thomas picked up his coat.
“I’m coming.”
“You’re the ransom.”
“That’s why.”
Sebastian stared at him.
Then nodded.
Ten minutes later, three black SUVs moved through midnight Chicago.
No sirens.
No police.
Just Anthony’s people closing streets ahead of them.
The abandoned Mercy maternity wing stood behind the modern hospital like a forgotten ghost.
Broken windows.
Boarded entrances.
Old brick darkened by decades of weather.
Sebastian stepped from the SUV.
Thomas followed.
Anthony and four men spread out.
A light appeared on the fourth floor.
Then Lucy screamed.
“Mommy!”
Sebastian looked up.
A small figure stood behind dusty glass.
A man’s silhouette appeared beside her.
Jonathan Vale.
Alive.
Sebastian’s phone rang.
“Bring Thomas inside,” Vale said.
“No.”
“You don’t negotiate well.”
“I negotiate fine.”
Sebastian stared at the window.
“You hurt Lucy, Thomas becomes useless to you.”
Vale laughed.
“You still think Thomas is what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
Sebastian’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“Because Evelyn made one mistake.”
“What?”
“She kept the wrong boy.”
The call ended.
Sebastian looked at Thomas.
Thomas looked terrified.
They entered.
The old building smelled of plaster, mildew, and abandoned medicine.
Their footsteps echoed through empty corridors.
On the second floor, they found a trail.
Children’s stickers.
Lucy’s.
She had apparently peeled them from her sweater and stuck them to doorframes.
Sebastian almost smiled.
Smart girl.
He followed them.
Third floor.
Then fourth.
A room at the end of the hallway stood open.
Lucy sat on a hospital bed.
Unharmed.
Jonathan Vale stood beside her.
He was seventy-three now, but Sebastian recognized him immediately.
The doctor who had treated his scraped knees.
The man who had attended his mother’s funeral.
The man whose death Sebastian had never questioned.
Vale smiled.
“Sebastian.”
Sebastian’s gaze stayed on Lucy.
“You okay, sweetheart?”
She nodded.
“Mommy sick?”
“She’s waiting for you.”
Vale touched Lucy’s shoulder.
Sebastian’s eyes changed.
Vale removed his hand.
“Good,” Sebastian said.
Vale smiled.
“You really are Carlo’s son.”
“You brought me here. Talk.”
Vale glanced at Thomas.
“You still haven’t told him?”
“Told me what?”
Thomas’s face tightened.
Vale seemed delighted.
“Thomas never wondered why Evelyn protected Elena’s baby.”
Sebastian said nothing.
Vale stepped toward an old medical cabinet.
“Because she knew who the father was.”
“Who?”
Vale opened a drawer.
He removed a yellowed envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
He tossed it onto the bed.
Sebastian picked it up.
His father, Carlo, stood beside Elena Vargas.
Their hands were intertwined.
The date stamp read January 1997.
Maria’s mother had been pregnant.
Vale said softly:
“Elena Vargas wasn’t carrying Thomas Moretti’s twins.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“She was carrying Carlo’s.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
Vale continued.
“Which means one of those babies was your half brother.”
Sebastian looked at Lucy.
Then the photograph.
“But both twins disappeared.”
Vale smiled.
“One died.”
“And the other?”
Vale’s eyes moved toward the hallway behind Sebastian.
Footsteps approached.
Slow.
Measured.
A man emerged from the darkness.
Late twenties.
Dark hair.
Gray-green eyes.
Sebastian stared.
The resemblance to Carlo was unmistakable.
The stranger looked directly at Sebastian.
May you like
Vale smiled.
“And the other has spent twenty-nine years waiting to meet the brother who inherited the life that should have been his.”
