Chapter 5 - THE THIRD CHILD
Vanessa sat down.
Not gracefully.
Not carefully.
She simply missed the chair behind her and caught the edge of the bed before she fell.
“My mother had a son?”
No one answered.
She looked at Eleanor.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Henry?”
“No.”
“Walter?”
He shook his head.
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“All these years, everyone blamed me for protecting the wrong secret.”
Roman folded Claire’s drawing.
“Your mother told you her child died?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I was sixteen.”
“Why then?”
“She was dying.”
Vanessa stared at her hands.
“Cancer.”
Her voice lost its edge.
“She had weeks left. She told me she’d had a baby before marrying my father. She said the child died after birth and that the DeLucas were somehow involved.”
Amelia watched her.
“And you believed that justified what you did to me?”
Vanessa looked up.
“No.”
It was the first clean answer she had given Amelia all night.
“No. It explains my fear. It doesn’t excuse me.”
Roman remained expressionless.
“That distinction came late.”
“I know.”
Noah leaned against Amelia.
The adults had forgotten he was there.
Amelia hadn’t.
She touched his shoulder.
“Maybe we should take this downstairs.”
Roman immediately understood.
“Yes.”
They moved to Walter’s kitchen.
Noah settled at the table with warm milk while Anthony stood nearby.
Roman did not send him away this time.
No more secret rooms.
No more making a child understand that something terrible was happening while adults insisted otherwise.
Roman placed Claire’s drawing beneath the kitchen light.
Three initials.
A.R.
R.D.
M.C.
Amelia pointed to the symbols.
“Cross. Bell. Crown.”
Henry studied them.
“The bell could mean Gabriel.”
“Or you.”
“Maybe.”
Vanessa touched the crown.
“Caruso means crown in some family stories. My grandfather used it on private ledgers.”
Roman looked at the cross.
“Then A.R. gets the cross.”
Amelia touched the Saint Christopher medal.
The necklace from Claire’s coat.
A saint.
A cross.
Maybe Claire had been marking objects.
Not bloodlines.
Henry’s gaze sharpened.
“Where is the hospital bracelet?”
Anthony produced it from an evidence envelope.
Roman set it beside the drawing.
BABY BOY DELUCA — B.
Walter frowned.
“B.”
Roman looked at him.
“What?”
“Everyone assumes B means Baby B.”
“What else?”
Walter pointed to the handwritten symbols.
“Bell.”
Henry’s face changed.
“Gabriel.”
Amelia whispered, “Baby Boy DeLuca—Bell.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Hospital bracelets didn’t work like that.”
“No,” Roman said. “But altered ones might.”
He examined the clasp.
Then noticed something.
“Anthony.”
The security chief leaned over.
Roman turned the bracelet beneath the light.
There was a tiny cut beneath the printed label.
Someone had pasted one strip over another.
Anthony used tweezers from Walter’s first-aid drawer.
Slowly, he lifted the outer label.
Beneath it, faded but readable, was another name:
BABY BOY CARUSO
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Her brother.
The bracelet had been altered to make a Caruso baby appear DeLuca.
Roman’s voice remained calm.
“So Diane’s child left the hospital under our name.”
Eleanor whispered, “Maybe.”
Vanessa stared at Roman.
“You?”
He met her gaze.
Neither liked the implication.
Amelia intervened.
“Claire’s drawing says R.D. and M.C. as separate children.”
Roman nodded.
“Meaning if he was the Caruso baby, Claire still called him R.D.”
Vanessa looked confused.
“Then initials were assigned names after the switch.”
Henry leaned forward.
“Or Claire recorded what names they eventually received.”
That was the first theory that fit everything.
Three newborns.
Their original identities deliberately hidden.
Later names assigned.
A.R.
R.D.
M.C.
Roman looked at Vanessa.
“Your missing brother may have grown up as someone else.”
Vanessa whispered, “For thirty-seven years.”
Amelia stared at the drawing.
“Who is M.C. now?”
No answer.
Walter suddenly stood.
“I may know where to look.”
He went upstairs and returned carrying Margaret’s old recipe box.
Amelia almost smiled.
Her mother wrote everything on index cards.
Lasagna.
Apple pie.
Grandpa’s low-sodium soup.
Walter emptied them onto the table.
Between recipes, he found three cards with no food on them.
Margaret’s handwriting.
Each card contained a date and a place.
One matched Amelia’s first day of kindergarten.
One matched Roman’s high school graduation.
The third matched a date twenty-one years ago.
Beside that one was an address in South Philadelphia.
Henry recognized it.
“St. Dominic’s Boys Home.”
Roman frowned.
“It closed years ago.”
Vanessa went rigid.
“My mother donated there.”
Roman looked at her.
“How often?”
“Every Christmas.”
“Why?”
“I thought it was charity.”
Amelia picked up the card.
Margaret had written one additional note:
MARCUS SAFE. DO NOT CONTACT UNTIL SALVATORE IS GONE.
Vanessa began crying.
“Marcus.”
The initial M.
Roman looked at the drawing.
M.C.
Marcus Caruso.
Henry whispered, “Claire named him.”
Vanessa covered her face.
“My brother lived.”
Roman looked toward Anthony.
“Find everything on St. Dominic’s. Admission records. Staff. Closures.”
Anthony nodded.
But Walter spoke before he left.
“You won’t find Marcus there.”
Everyone looked at him.
Walter’s face was pale.
“How do you know?” Amelia asked.
“Because I met him.”
The kitchen went silent.
“When?” Vanessa demanded.
“Twelve years ago.”
Her chair scraped backward.
“You met my brother twelve years ago and said nothing?”
“I didn’t know who he was.”
“What did you know?”
“That Margaret was frightened of him.”
Vanessa’s anger rose.
“Why?”
Walter looked at Amelia.
“Because he was looking for Claire.”
Amelia frowned.
“My biological mother.”
“Yes.”
“Did he think she was alive?”
Walter shook his head.
“He thought she left something behind.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Roman leaned forward.
“What kind?”
Walter’s mouth tightened.
“A record of which baby went home with which family.”
Everything stopped.
The answer existed.
Or had existed.
Roman’s parentage.
Amelia’s.
Marcus’s.
All of it.
Vanessa’s voice trembled.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said Margaret was frightened.”
“She told Marcus it had been destroyed.”
“Was that true?”
Walter looked at Amelia.
“I don’t think so.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
Walter reached beneath the recipe cards.
There was a false cardboard bottom.
He lifted it.
Inside rested a photograph of Margaret standing beside a teenage boy.
Dark hair.
Thin face.
A scar through one eyebrow.
On the back:
Marcus — age 16. He still asks why nobody wanted him.
Vanessa stared at the boy.
Her brother.
Alive.
Abandoned.
Roman quietly turned the photograph over again.
Another line had been written beneath the first.
If he learns who Victor chose, he will come for Roman.
Roman looked up.
Amelia felt Noah shift beside her.
The boy had heard his father’s name.
“Come for Daddy?”
Roman pulled Noah close.
“That was a long time ago.”
But Henry was staring at the photograph.
“No.”
Roman looked at him.
“What?”
Henry pointed at Marcus’s eyebrow scar.
“I know him.”
Vanessa stood.
“From where?”
“He doesn’t call himself Marcus.”
“Then what does he call himself?”
Henry’s face drained of color.
“Anthony Vale.”
Roman went completely still.
Amelia had heard that name.
Everyone in Philadelphia had.
Anthony Vale ran the private security company that guarded half the DeLuca businesses.
Roman whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Henry shook his head.
“No.”
Amelia looked toward Roman’s security chief.
Anthony—the man standing three feet behind Noah.
The room changed.
May you like
Slowly, Roman turned.
Anthony had already drawn his gun.
