Chapter 7 - THE MOTHER'S FINAL LIE
Sebastian had spent four years grieving Evelyn Moretti as the best person in his family.
Now her name sat on Elena Vargas’s ledger beside criminals.
He wanted to reject it immediately.
But that was what everyone had done for thirty years.
Rejected facts that hurt.
So he read the page again.
Evelyn Moretti.
No explanation.
No amount.
Only a date.
June 17, 1997.
Three days after the twins were born.
The same day the surviving baby had apparently been given the Moretti surname.
Carlo sat against a warehouse column while Daniel pressed cloth against his wounded shoulder.
“The bullet passed through.”
Daniel looked at his brother.
“You’re lucky.”
Carlo gave him a tired smile.
“I stopped relying on luck around 1998.”
Sebastian held up the ledger page.
“Why is Mom’s name here?”
Carlo’s smile disappeared.
“I don’t know.”
“You knew about the ledger.”
“Not every page.”
“You expect me to believe Elena listed Mom beside Giovanni without telling you?”
“Elena stopped trusting me after the hospital.”
“Why?”
Carlo looked away.
Sebastian understood.
“Because you helped cover it up.”
“Yes.”
Daniel nearly hit him.
Sebastian stopped him.
“Not yet.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“Your family loves postponing consequences.”
“So does yours.”
Daniel glared.
Sebastian nodded toward him.
“You are my family.”
That stopped him.
Carlo looked between them.
Something almost like regret appeared.
Police sirens grew louder outside.
Not Chicago PD units Sebastian had requested.
Federal vehicles.
Anthony woke.
He sat up, disoriented.
“Who called the FBI?”
Nobody answered.
A female voice came from the warehouse entrance.
“I did.”
Rebecca Sloan walked inside.
Behind her were six federal agents.
Sebastian stared.
Rebecca met his eyes.
“I owe you another explanation.”
He almost laughed.
“Get in line.”
An agent approached.
“Sebastian Moretti?”
“Yes.”
“Special Agent Claire Donovan.”
She showed credentials.
“We’ve been investigating the Mercy Foundation laundering network for nineteen months.”
Sebastian looked at Rebecca.
“You were federal?”
“No.”
Donovan answered.
“She became a cooperating witness eight months ago.”
Rebecca swallowed.
“After I realized my father was alive.”
Sebastian’s expression hardened.
“You could have told me.”
“I didn’t know whether you were involved.”
“You were sleeping beside me.”
“I know.”
“You agreed to marry me.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
“And every morning you wondered whether I was a criminal your father needed you to watch.”
Rebecca looked away.
The relationship ended in Sebastian’s mind at that moment.
Whatever affection had existed, trust was dead.
“Take Vale,” Sebastian said.
Donovan nodded.
“We already have him.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Protective custody.”
Sebastian almost corrected the name.
Then stopped.
The man had no other one.
Not yet.
Donovan looked at the ledger page.
“Where’s the rest?”
“Taken.”
“By whom?”
“If I knew, we wouldn’t be standing here.”
Carlo spoke.
“There’s one person who could explain Evelyn’s role.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Who?”
“Maria.”
Sebastian’s face darkened.
“Stop putting this on her.”
“I’m not.”
Carlo winced as he stood.
“Evelyn left Maria recordings.”
Sebastian stared.
“What recordings?”
“Audio cassettes.”
“Where?”
“She told me Maria would receive them if ‘the truth became dangerous again.’”
“When?”
“Before she died.”
“Who has them?”
Carlo looked at Rebecca.
Rebecca blinked.
“I don’t.”
“No,” Carlo said. “Your father did.”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“Jonathan?”
“He was Evelyn’s physician. She entrusted him with the package before she understood his role.”
Sebastian looked at Donovan.
“Vale’s property?”
“We’ve searched it.”
“No tapes?”
“Nothing.”
Daniel said, “Then Vale moved them.”
A thought hit Sebastian.
“Rebecca’s bracelet.”
Everyone looked at him.
“The missing bracelet was staged to get Maria out.”
Rebecca lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
“You wanted the sewing box.”
“Yes.”
“But Vale wanted more.”
She nodded.
“He believed Maria knew where Evelyn’s tapes were.”
“Did you threaten Maria?”
Rebecca began crying.
“I grabbed her wrist. I told her if she didn’t give me the box, I’d make sure she and Lucy left the property.”
“Did you put the bracelet in Lucy’s backpack?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian looked away in disgust.
Rebecca whispered, “I never intended for Lucy to be blamed.”
“You put stolen jewelry on a three-year-old.”
“I panicked.”
“You terrorized her mother.”
“I know.”
“No, Rebecca. You know now because there are consequences.”
She fell silent.
Sebastian turned to Donovan.
“Get her out of here.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Sebastian—”
“No.”
One word.
Their engagement ended there.
No screaming.
No dramatic goodbye.
Rebecca left with the agents.
Daniel watched.
“You loved her?”
“I trusted her.”
“Same thing?”
“No.”
Sebastian thought of Maria.
“No.”
They returned to the mansion before dawn.
Lucy ran into Maria’s arms.
Maria held her so tightly the child complained she couldn’t breathe.
Sebastian stood nearby.
Lucy reached one hand toward him.
He took it.
For several quiet seconds, the three remained connected.
Maria looked at him over Lucy’s curls.
“Thank you.”
Sebastian shook his head.
“Don’t thank me for fixing what happened inside my house.”
“Still.”
Lucy looked up.
“Mr. Sebastian?”
“Yes?”
“Did you catch the bad doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Is he going to timeout?”
Sebastian almost smiled.
“A very long one.”
Lucy seemed satisfied.
Maria carried her to bed.
Later, Sebastian found Maria in the cottage kitchen.
She was making tea despite doctor’s orders.
“You should be asleep.”
“So should you.”
“I don’t follow medical advice.”
“I noticed.”
He sat.
Silence settled.
Then Sebastian said, “My mother left you tapes.”
Maria stopped stirring.
That answered him.
“You knew.”
“I found them after she died.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She asked me not to unless certain things happened.”
“What things?”
Maria looked at him.
“Thomas returned.”
“He did.”
“Dr. Vale returned.”
“He did.”
“And Carlo returned.”
Sebastian became still.
“She knew my father was alive?”
Maria nodded.
The betrayal reached deeper.
Everyone knew except him.
“Where are the tapes?”
Maria stood.
She walked to Lucy’s small bedroom and returned carrying a stuffed rabbit.
Old.
Faded.
One ear repaired twice.
She opened a hidden zipper along the bottom.
Inside were four tiny digital memory cards.
“Lucy sleeps with the evidence every night?”
Maria almost smiled.
“Your mother said the safest place in that mansion was wherever no powerful man would bother looking.”
Sebastian looked at the child’s toy.
His mother had been right.
Maria inserted the first card into a laptop.
Evelyn’s voice filled the kitchen.
Older.
Tired.
Familiar enough that Sebastian’s throat tightened.
“If you are hearing this, then secrets have failed us.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
His mother continued.
“I helped Giovanni hide the Mercy operation.”
Sebastian opened them.
“I did it because he threatened my sons.”
Maria looked at him.
Evelyn continued.
“Carlo was not Giovanni’s biological son. Giovanni discovered this when Carlo was thirty-eight.”
Sebastian whispered, “What?”
“Carlo’s father was a man named Samuel Bennett, whom I knew before my marriage.”
Sebastian frowned.
Evelyn wasn’t Carlo’s mother.
She was his wife.
Then she meant someone else.
The recording clarified.
“This is not my secret. It belongs to my late mother-in-law, Alessandra Moretti.”
Sebastian leaned back.
His grandfather Giovanni had not fathered Carlo.
That was why Elena’s baby mattered.
Blood testing could expose succession fraud.
If Carlo wasn’t Giovanni’s biological son, Giovanni feared Carlo could lose authority—or worse, discover Giovanni had lied about his mother’s relationship.
Evelyn continued.
“Elena learned everything. Giovanni intended to silence her. I helped her escape.”
Maria began crying.
“I am sorry, Maria. Your mother survived. Daniel was innocent. I lacked the courage to destroy my father-in-law while my children were young.”
Then Evelyn’s voice changed.
“There is something else.”
Sebastian leaned closer.
“The surviving baby was not Carlo’s son.”
Carlo had just claimed otherwise.
Sebastian froze.
“DNA taken at Mercy proved the surviving child belonged to Thomas.”
Thomas.
Meaning the real surviving twin was Thomas’s son.
Evelyn continued.
“Carlo’s baby died that night.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Somewhere in the maze of lies, his father had never learned his son died.
“The living child was placed under protection.”
Maria whispered, “Where?”
As though answering her, Evelyn said:
“You know him.”
Sebastian stared at the laptop.
“The boy was raised under a different surname by a family outside Chicago.”
A pause.
“If Thomas ever returns, tell him his son survived.”
Sebastian grabbed his phone.
He called Thomas.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Maria’s face tightened.
Sebastian called mansion security.
“Find Thomas.”
A guard answered.
“He left twenty minutes ago.”
“With who?”
“He said he was meeting his son.”
Sebastian froze.
“What son?”
The guard hesitated.
“He got a phone call from a man named Gabriel.”
Sebastian looked at Maria.
The false Gabriel was in federal custody.
Or was supposed to be.
Sebastian called Agent Donovan.
She answered immediately.
“Gabriel escaped transport ten minutes ago.”
Sebastian stood.
“Where?”
“We don’t know.”
His phone beeped with an incoming message.
Thomas.
A photograph loaded.
Thomas sat tied to a chair.
Beside him stood the man they had called Gabriel.
The message read:
IF THOMAS WANTS TO MEET HIS REAL SON, BRING EVELYN’S RECORDINGS.
Then another line appeared.
AND BRING MARIA. SHE KNOWS WHO I REALLY AM.
Maria stared at the screen.
Her face went white.
Sebastian noticed.
“You recognize him.”
She whispered:
“I didn’t before.”
“Who is he?”
Maria looked at him.
“When I was a little girl, my mother showed me one photograph of the man she was most afraid of.”
Sebastian waited.
Maria pointed at Gabriel.
“That’s his son.”
“Whose son?”
May you like
Maria swallowed.
“Jonathan Vale’s.”
