Chapter 7 - THE MAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Roman watched the surveillance image without blinking.
Victor DeLuca.
Eleven years after his funeral.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
The scar beside his left eye.
The slope of his nose.
The same controlled expression Roman saw every morning in his own mirror.
Eleanor sank into a chair.
“No.”
Henry stared.
“It’s him.”
Anthony looked toward Roman.
“We can track the sedan.”
Roman shook his head.
“No chase.”
Anthony frowned.
“He just left.”
“With cameras everywhere and a license plate visible.”
Roman’s anger had become cold again.
“He wanted us to see him.”
That frightened Amelia more than the image.
Victor was not running.
He was leading.
Roman looked at Anthony.
“Trace the plate quietly.”
Anthony nodded.
Roman turned to Eleanor.
“You told me my father died in Tuscany.”
“I believed he did.”
“You identified his body.”
Eleanor began crying.
“I identified his wedding ring.”
Roman went still.
“What?”
“The accident was bad.”
Amelia remembered the funeral photograph displayed in Roman’s hallway.
Closed casket.
Private burial.
Roman’s voice lowered.
“You never saw his face.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“No.”
Roman walked outside.
Amelia followed.
Snow had begun falling harder.
He stood beside the car with both hands on the roof.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Amelia stopped a few feet away.
“I’m not going to tell you this is okay.”
He gave a humorless laugh.
“Good.”
“I don’t think you’d believe me.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“My father may be alive.”
“Yes.”
“And may not be my father.”
“Yes.”
“And everyone who raised me knew some version of that.”
“Not everyone knew the same version.”
Roman studied her.
“You’re defending them?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I’m reminding you that confusion and betrayal aren’t the same thing.”
He looked away.
“My mother lied.”
“Yes.”
“Henry lied.”
“Yes.”
“Walter lied.”
“Yes.”
“Vanessa—”
“Vanessa did worse.”
That brought his eyes back.
Amelia touched her cheek.
The swelling had gone down.
The memory hadn’t.
Roman’s gaze sharpened.
“She will answer for that.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“No but.”
He nodded.
She continued.
“Anthony also protected Noah for years. Eleanor was terrified. Walter raised me. None of that erases what they did. But what they did doesn’t erase everything else either.”
Roman stared at the snow.
“You sound very certain for someone who learned tonight that her mother wasn’t her biological mother.”
Amelia smiled sadly.
“I’m not certain about anything.”
“Then how are you standing?”
She thought about Margaret.
Walter.
Noah.
The rosary in her pocket.
“Because somebody has to.”
Roman looked at her for a long time.
Then Anthony came outside.
“The sedan is registered to a shell company.”
Roman turned.
“Address?”
“Same apartment.”
Of course.
Victor wanted them there.
Roman looked at Amelia.
“You stay with Noah.”
“No.”
“Amelia.”
“No.”
“This is not your fight.”
She almost laughed.
“My biological mother hid a ledger connected to your father. My mother raised me under a false identity. My grandfather guarded the secret for thirty years. Your fiancée assaulted me because of it.”
She folded her arms.
“It became my fight before I could walk.”
Roman did not argue again.
---
Victor’s old apartment occupied the top floor of a narrow historic building near Rittenhouse Square.
No guards waited outside.
No trap.
The door was unlocked.
Roman entered first.
Anthony followed.
Amelia, Henry, Eleanor, and Vanessa came behind them.
The apartment smelled faintly of cedar and coffee.
It was lived in.
A coat hung beside the door.
Fresh bread sat on the counter.
Roman touched the coffee pot.
Warm.
“He was here.”
On the dining table lay six envelopes.
Each labeled with a name.
ROMAN.
AMELIA.
ELEANOR.
HENRY.
VANESSA.
ANTHONY.
Roman stared.
Amelia whispered, “He knew exactly who would come.”
Anthony checked every room.
Empty.
Roman opened his envelope.
Inside was no letter.
Only a brass key.
Amelia’s contained another photograph.
Claire holding a newborn girl.
Margaret beside her.
Both women crying.
On the back:
SHE WAS ALWAYS YOURS, MARGARET. I ONLY GAVE HER LIFE. — C
Amelia sat down.
Margaret had not stolen her.
Claire had chosen her.
Whatever else had happened, Amelia had been wanted.
She pressed the photograph against her chest.
Henry opened his envelope.
A single train ticket.
Philadelphia to Baltimore.
Unused.
He closed his eyes.
“Gabriel’s.”
Eleanor’s contained Victor’s wedding ring.
She began sobbing.
Vanessa hesitated before opening hers.
Inside was a torn newspaper clipping about Diane Caruso’s funeral.
Across the margin Victor had written:
SHE DESERVED TO KNOW HER SON LIVED. I WAS A COWARD.
Vanessa’s anger disappeared.
She sat beside Anthony.
He opened his own envelope.
Inside was a hospital ankle band.
Not DeLuca.
Not Caruso.
Just:
MALE INFANT — DONNELLY
Anthony stared.
Amelia stared too.
“Donnelly?”
Claire’s surname.
Henry whispered, “No.”
Anthony looked at Amelia.
“If I was registered Donnelly…”
Vanessa finished it.
“Then Diane’s son was given to Claire.”
Or meant to be.
Roman picked up the brass key.
“What does this open?”
A grandfather clock stood against the wall.
Inside its lower cabinet was a small keyhole.
Roman inserted the key.
The panel opened.
Inside rested a leather ledger.
Everyone stopped breathing.
Thirty years of lies sat inside a book no larger than a Bible.
Roman carried it to the table.
The first pages listed financial accounts.
Hospital staff payments.
Cash transfers.
Names.
Salvatore DeLuca.
Dominic Caruso.
A hospital administrator.
A private adoption broker.
Amelia felt sick.
Babies turned into transactions.
Anthony’s fists tightened.
“Keep reading.”
Near the center, Victor’s handwriting replaced the financial entries.
SALVATORE ORDERED R.D. REMOVED. DOMINIC ORDERED M.C. RETURNED. CLAIRE REFUSED BOTH. GABRIEL INTERVENED.
Roman turned the page.
THREE CHILDREN. THREE NAMES. ONE SWITCH WAS PLANNED. TWO WERE NOT.
Amelia whispered, “Two were not?”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
Roman kept reading.
CLAIRE LEFT WITH THE GIRL. GABRIEL TOOK THE CARUSO BOY. I TOOK THE CHILD ELEANOR BELIEVED WAS OUR SON.
Roman stopped.
Anthony looked at Henry.
“Gabriel took me?”
Henry nodded slowly.
“That explains how you ended up at St. Dominic’s.”
Vanessa looked at Roman.
“And you?”
His face had gone pale.
The ledger said Victor took a child.
Not whose.
Amelia pointed to the next line.
Roman turned the page.
It had been cut out.
Cleanly.
Anthony slammed his palm against the table.
“Of course.”
Then Amelia noticed an indentation on the next page.
“Pencil.”
Roman looked at her.
She found a pencil in the desk drawer and shaded lightly across the paper.
Words emerged from pressure left by whatever had been written on the missing sheet.
R. IS NOT VICTOR’S.
Roman stopped breathing.
Eleanor cried out.
Amelia kept shading.
Another line appeared.
BUT HE IS MINE.
Roman looked at Eleanor.
Her face crumpled.
“My son.”
Roman’s eyes filled for the first time.
Eleanor reached for him.
He let her.
Not forgiving everything.
But letting her touch him.
Then Amelia uncovered the final indentation.
GABRIEL KNOWS WHO THE FATHER IS.
Henry stared at it.
“I don’t.”
Roman stepped away from Eleanor.
“Where is Gabriel?”
Henry looked stricken.
“I thought he died.”
“Did you see a body?”
No.
Another missing body.
Another family certainty built on nothing.
Anthony examined the ledger binding.
“There’s something inside the cover.”
He cut a loose stitch.
A flat object slid out.
A child’s silver bracelet.
Not a hospital band.
A keepsake.
Engraved:
GABRIEL TO CLAIRE — FOR OUR DAUGHTER, AMELIA.
Amelia stared.
Her father was Gabriel.
Confirmed.
She looked at Henry.
“My father loved Claire?”
Henry’s face broke into a sad smile.
“More than anything.”
Roman looked at the indentation again.
Gabriel knows who the father is.
Then someone spoke behind them.
“He did.”
Everyone turned.
Victor DeLuca stood in the apartment doorway.
Alive.
Older.
Holding a cane.
Roman stared at the man he had buried.
Victor looked at his son.
“You want to know who your father was?”
Roman’s voice came out rough.
“Yes.”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
Roman stepped forward.
Victor’s eyes filled.
“You want to know who your father is.”
And from the hall behind him, another elderly man entered wearing Gabriel’s silver watch chain around his neck.
Henry dropped into a chair.
Amelia stopped breathing.
May you like
The man looked at her.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
