Chapter 6 - The Third Child
The first thing Luca did was count the living.
Hannah.
Daniel.
Patricia.
Gabriel.
Celeste.
All alive.
Rebecca and Bellini were gone.
Dante entered through the shattered patio doors with two armed men behind him.
“Boss.”
“Rebecca.”
“Vehicle left north gate ninety seconds ago.”
“Follow it.”
“Already have two cars moving.”
Detective Hale rushed in next.
Luca handed him the photograph.
“Find her.”
Hale looked at it.
“Who is she?”
“Apparently my daughter.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Luca saw it.
“You know.”
She looked away.
“Celeste.”
“This isn't the time.”
He crossed the room.
“It is exactly the time.”
Hannah had seen Luca angry before.
This was different.
There was no raised voice.
No dramatic threat.
Only a terrible stillness.
Celeste looked at the photograph.
“Her name is Sophie.”
Luca stopped.
“How old?”
“Twelve.”
Rebecca's lost pregnancy.
Thirteen years ago.
Hannah understood before Luca did.
“She's the baby Rebecca was told she miscarried.”
Celeste nodded.
Luca's face emptied.
“Where has she been?”
“With a family in Connecticut.”
“You knew?”
“For six months.”
Hannah stared at her.
“You found out six months ago and said nothing?”
“I was trying to get her out.”
Luca spoke quietly.
“You keep confusing secrecy with protection.”
Celeste flinched.
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
He held up Sophie's picture.
“You did it with Ben. You did it with Rebecca. Now this girl.”
“I wasn't the one who hid Rebecca.”
“But you knew she could be alive.”
“Not until this year.”
“And you told me nothing.”
“Because Bellini had people inside your companies.”
“So you trusted yourself instead.”
“No.”
Celeste's eyes filled.
“I trusted nobody.”
That was perhaps the first honest answer she had given.
Detective Hale approached.
“We found the north vehicle abandoned three blocks away.”
Luca turned.
“Rebecca?”
“No sign.”
“Bellini?”
“Gone.”
“Cameras?”
“Wiped.”
Luca looked toward Gabriel.
“You said you've been hunting Bellini.”
“For decades.”
“Then where would he take her?”
Gabriel considered.
“The clinic.”
“Which one?”
“The original.”
Elisabetta, who had just entered with Owen and Ben under police escort, stopped.
“No.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You know.”
She whispered, “Saint Agnes.”
Hannah frowned.
“Hospital?”
“Closed maternity hospital in Newark,” Daniel said.
Everyone looked at him.
He swallowed.
“I worked there.”
Hannah stared at her father.
“As what?”
“Maintenance.”
“When?”
“Before you were born.”
Gabriel's face hardened.
“You never told me that.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You didn't deserve anything from me.”
Hannah stepped between them.
“What happened at Saint Agnes?”
Daniel sat.
For the first time that night, he looked old.
“Your mother worked there as a nurse.”
Hannah turned to Patricia.
She nodded.
“That's where I met Michael.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Daniel continued.
“I knew about him. Patricia told me. What I didn't know was what the hospital was doing.”
“Moving babies?” Hannah asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you see it?”
“I saw records that didn't match. Incineration logs for infants with no bodies. Discharge paperwork for mothers whose babies supposedly died. Private vehicles arriving after midnight.”
“Why didn't you report it?”
“I did.”
Bellini's father had been chief of medicine.
The complaint disappeared.
Daniel lost his job.
Patricia became pregnant soon after.
Then Michael vanished.
Gabriel interrupted.
“I was taken.”
Daniel looked at him.
“I thought you ran.”
“I was twenty-two.”
“You disappeared without a word.”
“I woke up in Montreal under another name.”
Hannah stared.
“Why?”
Gabriel looked at Elisabetta.
“Because Carlo discovered who I was.”
His grandmother's organization had found the child stolen from Elisabetta years earlier.
Instead of bringing him home, they had taken him again.
“For seven years,” Gabriel said, “I worked for people connected to the network because I thought that was the only way to survive. When I got out, Patricia had married Daniel and Hannah was already a child.”
Hannah felt anger rise.
“You knew I existed.”
“Yes.”
“And stayed away.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the first time I tried to see you, someone put a bomb under Daniel's truck.”
Daniel looked at him.
Hannah went still.
“That explosion when I was six?”
Daniel stared.
“You know about that?”
“I remember you saying it was an electrical fire.”
“It wasn't.”
Gabriel looked at Hannah.
“I understood the message.”
She hated that the explanation made sense.
Luca crouched in front of Owen and Ben.
“You boys stay with Dante.”
Owen shook his head.
“Are you going for Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Bring her back.”
Luca's face softened.
“I will.”
Ben whispered, “And Sophie?”
Luca looked at him.
“You know her?”
Ben nodded.
“She visited me once.”
Celeste stared.
“When?”
“Last winter.”
“That isn't possible.”
“She came with Grandma.”
Everyone looked at Elisabetta.
She shook her head.
“I never brought a girl.”
Ben's face tightened.
“The other Grandma.”
Again.
The mysterious woman.
Hannah crouched.
“Ben, describe her.”
“White hair. Blue glasses. Smells like roses.”
Patricia went pale.
Hannah saw it.
“You know her.”
Patricia whispered one name.
“Margaret Bellini.”
Gabriel swore.
Luca frowned.
“Adrian Bellini's mother?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
“She'd be ninety.”
“Apparently that's not a barrier in this family.”
Gabriel rubbed his forehead.
“Margaret was a geneticist. She worked with Carlo Rinaldi.”
Hannah understood.
“The original program.”
“Yes.”
Elisabetta looked frightened.
“My father listened to Margaret more than anyone.”
“Why?”
“Because she convinced him bloodlines could be optimized.”
The room went silent.
Luca looked at the twins.
“Optimized how?”
Gabriel answered reluctantly.
“Embryo selection. Compatibility. Traits. Later, experimental fertility protocols.”
Hannah felt sick.
Owen asked, “What's that mean?”
Luca immediately said, “Nothing you need to worry about.”
But Ben whispered, “It means we're special.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Who told you that?” Rebecca wasn't there to ask, so Hannah did.
Ben said, “Rose Grandma.”
Margaret.
“What exactly did she say?”
“She said Owen and I were the successful pair.”
Luca's hands curled into fists.
“And Sophie?”
Ben stared at the floor.
“She said Sophie was better.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Dante's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“They found Bellini's vehicle.”
“Rebecca?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“Outside Saint Agnes.”
Luca reached for his coat.
Dante continued.
“There's something else.”
He turned his phone around.
A police photograph showed the old hospital entrance.
Someone had written across the glass doors in red paint:
BRING THE TWINS.
BENEATH it:
OR THEIR MOTHER DOESN'T WAKE UP AGAIN.
Luca stared at the message.
Then Ben said something so quietly Hannah nearly missed it.
“She isn't talking about Rebecca.”
Luca turned.
“Who isn't?”
“Rose Grandma.”
Ben looked terrified.
“When she says Mother, she means the woman who made us.”
Luca's face tightened.
“Rebecca is your mother.”
Ben shook his head.
“No.”
He touched his chest.
“She said Rebecca carried us.”
May you like
Then pointed toward Saint Agnes on Dante's phone.
“But somebody else made us.”
