Chapter 2 - THE BOY WHO CALLED HER MOM
“Rachel Foster isn't Caleb's biological mother.”
Damien Russo stared at the video on his phone.
Across the office, Rachel stood frozen, one hand gripping the back of a chair to keep weight off her injured knee.
On the screen, Caleb sat on a wooden bench beneath a bare lightbulb. His hearing aids were missing.
He looked terrified.
Michael Russo leaned into the camera.
“Tell your cousin something, Caleb.”
The boy didn't respond.
Michael repeated the instruction, louder.
Still nothing.
Damien felt his jaw tighten.
“Put his hearing aids back in, you son of a bitch.”
Michael smiled into the camera.
“Funny how much you suddenly care about this kid.”
The video ended.
Rachel took one uneven step forward.
“Play it again.”
“Rachel—”
“Please.”
Damien replayed the recording.
Rachel watched Caleb's face, not Michael's.
Then she covered her mouth.
“He's asking for me.”
Damien frowned.
“The boy didn't say anything.”
“He's signing.”
She pointed at the screen.
Caleb's hands moved briefly against his chest.
“Mom. Home.”
Rachel's voice broke.
“He's asking to go home.”
Damien set the phone down.
“Then we're bringing him home.”
Anthony, his security chief, was already arranging a search.
But Rachel caught Damien's sleeve.
“Michael knows where I live. He knows Caleb's school. He knows everything about us.”
“Then you need to tell me how.”
She looked toward the leather case sitting on Damien's desk.
The birth certificate Anthony had recovered lay beside it.
Damien turned the paper toward himself.
The child's name was partially covered by a water stain, but several details remained legible.
Born in Hartford.
September 17, 1998.
Father: Vincent Anthony Russo.
Mother: Evelyn Marie Bennett.
Damien stared at the name.
“Evelyn Bennett.”
Rachel lowered her eyes.
“You knew her?” Damien asked.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Damien looked up.
“Rachel.”
Her shoulders sagged.
“She was my sister.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Damien glanced at the certificate again.
His father had died believing his oldest legitimate son knew everything important about the Russo family.
Apparently, Vincent had left more secrets than money.
“Your sister had my father's child?”
Rachel nodded.
“Evelyn was twenty-two. Your father was fifty-three.”
Damien slowly sat down.
The age difference disturbed him. So did the possibility that his father had used his power over a young woman.
“Was it a relationship?”
“I don't know what to call it,” Rachel answered. “Evelyn loved him. He promised to protect her. Then she found out that loving a Russo could get people hurt.”
“What happened to the baby?”
Rachel looked at the photograph of Caleb on her phone.
“That baby is why your family has been chasing me for years.”
Damien felt a cold sensation spread through his chest.
“Caleb?”
“No.”
Rachel shook her head.
“Caleb was born fourteen years after Evelyn's baby.”
“Then where is my father's child?”
Rachel said nothing.
Anthony approached the desk.
“Boss, I can trace Michael's vehicle from the therapy center. But there's another problem.”
He placed a printed authorization form beside the birth certificate.
“Michael didn't force his way into the clinic. Someone authorized Caleb's release.”
Rachel stared at the signature.
Her face drained of color.
It read:
Rachel Foster.
“I never signed that.”
“I believe you,” Anthony said. “But the clinic's receptionist had a photograph of your driver's license.”
Rachel looked at Damien.
“Vanessa.”
Damien's expression hardened.
His fiancée had requested copies of household employees' identification documents two months earlier, supposedly for new insurance paperwork.
At the time, he hadn't questioned it.
Now he remembered Vanessa insisting that Rachel's son should attend a particular therapy center because it offered a private scholarship.
Rachel had been grateful.
Damien felt sick.
“They helped arrange this,” he said.
Anthony nodded.
“And whoever did it planned ahead.”
Damien stood.
“Find Vanessa.”
“She left the house forty minutes ago.”
“Then bring her back.”
Rachel grabbed the chair again as pain shot through her knee.
Damien noticed immediately.
“You need to sit.”
“My son is missing.”
“And you're not going to help him by collapsing.”
Rachel looked ready to argue.
Instead, she sank into the chair.
Damien crouched until they were at eye level.
“Listen to me. I won't promise something I can't control. But I'm going to use every resource I have to bring Caleb back safely.”
Rachel searched his face.
“Do you have children, Mr. Russo?”
“No.”
“Then you don't know what this feels like.”
He accepted that without arguing.
“No,” he said. “I don't.”
Her eyes filled.
“I became his mother when he was six days old. I held him through surgeries. I learned sign language because sometimes he couldn't hear my voice. I slept in hospital chairs when the nurses told me to go home.”
She swallowed.
“I don't care whose blood he has. He's mine.”
Damien looked down.
For the first time that night, the family trust seemed insignificant.
A child was frightened somewhere because adults had turned him into a bargaining chip.
Damien rose.
“Anthony, call Detective Sarah Bennett at Hartford Major Crimes.”
Anthony blinked.
“You want police involved?”
“Yes. This is a child abduction, not a family negotiation.”
Rachel looked surprised.
Damien continued.
“And tell her I'll provide everything. The video, the false release form, the entire security record.”
Anthony nodded.
As he left, Damien noticed Rachel staring at something on the desk.
A small silver bracelet had slipped from the leather case.
Its oval charm was engraved with the letter E.
Rachel reached for it with trembling fingers.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was inside the suitcase.”
Rachel turned the bracelet over.
Three tiny scratches marked the back.
She pressed her thumb against them.
“Evelyn wore this every day.”
Damien said nothing.
“She gave it to her daughter before she disappeared.”
“Her daughter?”
Rachel nodded.
“Your father's child was a little girl.”
Damien glanced at the birth certificate.
The water-stained section concealed the first name, but the sex was clearly marked female.
“Where is she now?”
Rachel closed her fingers around the bracelet.
“I was told she died.”
“Who told you?”
“Michael.”
Damien felt his stomach tighten.
Rachel looked at him.
“He told me Evelyn and the baby were killed in a car accident. But six years ago, I found proof that one of them survived.”
“Which one?”
“I never found out.”
Damien's phone vibrated.
Anthony had located a useful detail in the original video.
Behind Caleb was a faded green door bearing the painted number 14.
The same number appeared on an old property ledger recovered from Vincent's trust files.
Damien recognized the address.
A shuttered Russo-owned printing company outside New Britain.
He was about to tell Anthony to send the police the location when Rachel grabbed his wrist.
“Wait.”
She was looking at the bracelet again.
Beneath the scratches, something had been engraved so lightly it was almost invisible.
Not a date.
Not a name.
Three words.
ASK THE GIRL.
Rachel's face changed.
“Damien,” she whispered, “I think I know who Vincent's daughter became.”
May you like
And then she said a name that made him stop breathing.
“Vanessa Whitmore.”
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