Chapter 7 - MADELINE’S MOTHER
Catherine Cross lived thirty miles away in a quiet retirement community.
Not a mansion.
Not behind guards.
A modest stone cottage with white curtains and pots of rosemary beside the front steps.
By dawn, Gabriel and Rachel were standing in her living room.
Victor waited outside.
Gabriel had decided Catherine might speak more freely without seeing him.
Catherine was seventy-one.
Elegant even in a robe and slippers.
When Rachel placed Michael’s locket on the table, Catherine sat down.
“Oh, Michael.”
Rachel’s chest tightened.
“You knew my father.”
Catherine’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
“All his life?”
“No.”
“Then when?”
“Until he was six.”
Gabriel stood near the fireplace.
“Start at the hospital.”
Catherine looked at him.
“You have Carlo’s eyes.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“I’ve heard enough about who I resemble.”
Catherine nodded.
Fair.
“Carlo called Richard before sunrise.”
“Your husband.”
“Yes.”
“He said there was a disaster at St. Matthew’s.”
Rachel asked, “Anna switching the bracelets?”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“Anna never switched them.”
Silence.
Gabriel stared.
“Samuel said she did.”
“Samuel believed what Carlo told him.”
Another reversal.
Catherine looked at Rachel.
“Richard switched them.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
Her answer came with no attempt at dignity.
“He owed Carlo nearly two hundred thousand dollars.”
In 1988, it had been enormous.
“Carlo discovered Anna was going to tell Elena about their affair,” Catherine continued. “He wanted confusion.”
Gabriel’s face went cold.
“He wanted Elena to question which child was hers.”
“Yes.”
“But the babies were still in the correct bassinets.”
“At first.”
Rachel whispered, “At first.”
Catherine looked at her.
“When Carlo reached the nursery, he made the confusion real.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“He took Elena’s baby. Michael.”
Rachel’s eyes closed briefly.
“He gave him to you.”
“Yes.”
“Why you?”
“My husband refused.”
Catherine’s voice broke.
“Richard was willing to switch bracelets for money. He wasn’t willing to take a child.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“There’s a moral distinction you’re proud of?”
“No.”
Catherine accepted the blow.
“I have had thirty-eight years to understand that there wasn’t one.”
Rachel asked, “You took my father to Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“Why Evelyn?”
“She couldn’t have children. Carlo knew it.”
“Did she know Michael had been stolen?”
“No.”
Catherine shook her head.
“She was told his mother had died and his father could not raise him.”
“And Daniel?”
“Carlo left Anna’s baby for Elena.”
Gabriel stared at the floor.
“So Daniel was raised as Gabriel DeLuca.”
“Yes.”
“Then who am I?”
Catherine looked at him strangely.
Rachel did too.
Because the question sounded almost absurd.
The man standing before them was Gabriel DeLuca.
Yet biology had become a blade cutting through the name.
Catherine said softly, “You are Daniel Reed biologically.”
Gabriel’s face tightened.
“But Elena raised you.”
“Yes.”
“And Carlo was still your biological father.”
Gabriel looked up.
Catherine nodded.
“Anna’s child was also Carlo’s.”
Half brothers.
Both sons of Carlo.
One son of Elena.
One son of Anna.
Carlo had not removed an unrelated baby.
He had chosen which of his sons would inherit Elena’s name.
Rachel suddenly understood.
“Carlo kept the child born to Anna because Anna could expose him.”
Catherine nodded.
“And he removed Elena’s son because Elena’s family shares would eventually pass to her biological child.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“That makes no sense.”
Rachel saw it too.
“If he wanted control of Elena’s shares, why remove her biological son?”
Catherine looked frightened.
“Because Michael wasn’t Carlo’s son.”
Nobody moved.
Rachel’s mouth went dry.
“But you just—”
“I said Michael was Elena’s son.”
Catherine’s fingers tightened.
“I never said Carlo was his father.”
Gabriel stared.
The room seemed to tilt.
Catherine continued.
“Elena had separated from Carlo briefly the year before.”
Gabriel whispered, “Who?”
Catherine shook her head.
“I only knew his first name. Thomas.”
That changed the entire motive.
Carlo had discovered that Elena’s baby was another man’s child.
Anna happened to give birth to Carlo’s son in the same hospital.
So he replaced the child he considered another man’s with his own.
Not inheritance alone.
Pride.
Possession.
Punishment.
Gabriel looked physically sick.
“He stole her baby and made her raise his.”
“Yes.”
“Did Elena know?”
“Not until Michael was six.”
Rachel gripped the edge of the table.
“My father met her?”
Catherine nodded.
“Once.”
“The photograph.”
“Yes.”
“Elena on the park bench.”
“With Michael.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Her father had been the boy.
Not Daniel.
They had assumed wrong because Margaret had never known Michael’s later name.
Catherine said, “Elena wanted him back.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Why didn’t she take him?”
“Because Michael thought Evelyn was his mother.”
Rachel’s tears finally fell.
Of course.
At six years old, her father had a home.
A mother.
A name.
Elena faced an impossible decision.
Catherine continued.
“She would not rip him away the way Carlo had ripped him away from her.”
Gabriel sat down.
For the first time all night, he looked tired rather than dangerous.
Rachel whispered, “So she watched from a distance.”
“For years.”
“Paid for things?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did my father know who she was?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“When he was twenty-nine.”
Rachel thought of her childhood.
Her father would have been married by then.
She had already been born.
“He chose not to tell us.”
Catherine nodded.
“He wanted his daughters kept away from the DeLuca world.”
Gabriel’s eyes met Rachel’s.
That hurt in a different way.
Her father had known.
And he had deliberately kept her safe.
Catherine reached for a wooden box.
Inside was a simple rosary.
Worn black beads.
A small silver cross.
“Elena gave this to Michael when he learned the truth.”
Rachel touched it.
Her father had carried a rosary in his truck for years.
She had never known where it came from.
Catherine said, “He returned it to me after Elena died.”
“Why?”
“He said keeping it made him angry.”
Rachel understood that too.
Gabriel asked, “Where is Madeline?”
Catherine stiffened.
Rachel noticed.
“You know.”
Catherine stood.
“My daughter is not a monster.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“She assaulted Rachel.”
“I know.”
“She threatened Emily.”
“I know.”
Rachel stared at her.
“You knew?”
Catherine looked ashamed.
“She came here tonight.”
“When?”
“Before she went to Samuel.”
“Why?”
“To get something Richard left me.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“What?”
Catherine shook her head.
“I refused.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel said quietly, “Mrs. Cross, if you keep protecting her from consequences, you’re doing what everyone did for Carlo.”
That landed.
Catherine’s eyes closed.
When they opened, she crossed to a cabinet.
She removed an envelope.
Inside was one final page cut from Elena’s address book.
At the bottom, Elena had written:
Richard recorded everything. Catherine has the tape.
Gabriel looked at Catherine.
“The tape.”
Catherine swallowed.
“It contains Carlo admitting what he did.”
Rachel stared.
“Then why hasn’t this ended?”
“Because there’s something else on it.”
Catherine’s hands began to shake.
“Something Madeline has spent her entire adult life trying to keep Gabriel from hearing.”
“What?”
Catherine looked directly at him.
“Your mother discovered the truth years before she died.”
Gabriel frowned.
“We know that.”
“No.”
Catherine’s voice broke.
“You don’t understand.”
“Elena knew exactly who you were.”
Gabriel stopped breathing.
May you like
“And she chose you anyway.”
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