Chapter 5 - The Name on the Hospital Bracelet
Dominic listened to the recording three times.
Each time his expression became colder.
“Your father took Elena?”
“I don't know.”
“It says Carlo Moretti.”
“My father was involved in dozens of businesses, charities, hospitals, foundations.”
“That doesn't answer me.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“It doesn't.”
Carlo Moretti had died eight years earlier.
According to Dominic, he had been powerful, controlling, and obsessed with protecting the family name.
“But why us?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
“Your father somehow separated two little girls, then decades later one of them married you?”
Dominic looked sick at the implication.
“He didn't introduce us.”
“How did you meet Elena?”
“College fundraiser.”
“Did your father know who she was?”
“Not that I knew.”
“But he might have.”
“Yes.”
We searched the boxes.
Near the bottom of the second one, we found records from St. Agnes.
My mother's name appeared repeatedly.
So did Dr. Samuel Greer's.
Then another name.
Thomas Vescari.
Dominic recognized it.
“My father's attorney.”
“Still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Dominic looked at me.
“Don't say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you're about to frighten an old man into confessing.”
“I don't frighten people into confessing.”
“You don't?”
Rafael cleared his throat from the doorway.
Dominic looked at him.
Rafael became fascinated by the ceiling.
I folded my arms.
“We talk to him.”
“We will.”
“Together.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Elina—”
“This is my life.”
“And my father.”
“Exactly.”
For several seconds we stared at each other.
Dominic gave in first.
“Fine.”
Thomas Vescari lived in a private retirement community overlooking a lake.
He was eighty-one.
Thin.
Immaculately dressed.
When he saw Dominic, he smiled.
When he saw me, the smile vanished.
That reaction told us everything before he said a word.
“Elena,” he whispered.
“No,” I said. “Elina.”
The old man closed his eyes.
“So Marisol kept one.”
My skin prickled.
“You knew my mother.”
Thomas sat down slowly.
“I knew of her.”
Dominic placed the hospital documents on the table.
“My father.”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“Your father believed he was protecting your family.”
“From two toddlers?”
Thomas gave a tired laugh.
“No.”
“Then from what?”
He looked at me.
“Your father.”
I frowned.
“My father?”
“You were told Marisol raised you alone.”
“Yes.”
“She did.”
“Then who was he?”
Thomas hesitated.
Dominic leaned forward.
“Thomas.”
The old man sighed.
“His name was Gabriel DeLuca.”
Dominic went completely still.
I noticed.
“You know that name.”
“Yes.”
“Who was he?”
“My father's business partner.”
Thomas corrected him.
“Former business partner.”
I felt cold.
“What happened?”
Thomas looked at me.
“Gabriel wanted out.”
“Out of what?”
“Everything.”
Dominic took over.
“My father and Gabriel built several companies together. Some legal. Some less so.”
Thomas continued.
“Gabriel met Marisol when she was working at St. Agnes. He fell in love. When the twins were born, he decided he wanted a different life.”
“And Carlo didn't like that.”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“Gabriel disappeared.”
The room became silent.
I could barely speak.
“Did your father kill him?”
Dominic's face hardened.
Thomas shook his head.
“I don't know.”
“You worked for Carlo for forty years,” Dominic said. “You know.”
“I know Gabriel disappeared. I know Carlo believed Marisol had information Gabriel had hidden. And I know Carlo was convinced one of the girls might eventually lead someone to it.”
My stomach turned.
“So he threatened my mother.”
“Yes.”
“Why take Elena?”
Thomas looked ashamed.
“Leverage.”
Dominic stood.
“My father stole a child?”
“He didn't raise her. He arranged the adoption.”
“That's kidnapping.”
“Yes.”
The word hung between us.
Thomas rubbed his face.
“I told him not to.”
“But you helped.”
“I prepared paperwork.”
I hated him immediately.
He looked at me.
“I have regretted it every day.”
“That must be very comforting for you.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Why Elena?” I asked.
“What?”
“Why take her instead of me?”
Thomas stared.
“Your mother chose.”
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
“She was told one child would be relocated. She chose Elena.”
The cruelty of the sentence cut deeper than anything else.
My mother chose her.
Not me.
Elena.
Why?
Dominic seemed to read my face.
“That doesn't mean what you're thinking.”
“You don't know what I'm thinking.”
“Yes, I do.”
I stood.
“I need air.”
Outside, the lake was painfully calm.
Dominic followed several minutes later.
I didn't turn.
“My mother gave her away.”
“She was threatened.”
“She chose.”
“She had no good choice.”
“She kept me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“What if she loved me more?”
Dominic's answer was immediate.
“Then she wouldn't have spent thirty years preserving proof that Elena existed.”
I turned.
He continued.
“She kept photographs. Recordings. Documents. She paid for a storage unit until you were old enough to discover it.”
“She never told me.”
“She was afraid.”
“So was Elena.”
Dominic flinched.
I regretted it.
“I'm sorry.”
“No.”
He looked toward the lake.
“You're right.”
We returned inside.
Thomas had something else.
A small safe.
Inside were copies of adoption paperwork.
Elena's bracelet.
And a letter from Carlo Moretti.
Dominic read it silently.
Then handed it to me.
The letter ordered Thomas to ensure Elena's records never connected her to Marisol Valdez or Gabriel DeLuca.
It also contained one line underlined twice.
The second girl stays with Marisol. She knows the consequence if she speaks.
I looked at Dominic.
“Your father knew about me.”
“Yes.”
“And Elena.”
“Yes.”
“Did Elena ever meet Carlo?”
“Many times.”
The horror of it landed slowly.
Carlo had attended Dominic and Elena's wedding.
There were photographs.
Dominic described them.
Carlo hugging Elena.
Carlo raising a glass to the bride.
Carlo knowing he had once arranged for that same woman to be taken from her mother.
“That is monstrous,” I whispered.
Dominic didn't defend him.
“No argument.”
Thomas leaned forward.
“Elena discovered some of this before she died.”
Dominic's eyes snapped toward him.
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two months before the accident.”
“You never told me.”
“She asked me not to.”
“Everyone seems to have honored Elena's requests except when she needed someone to save her.”
Thomas looked wounded.
Dominic didn't care.
“What did you tell her?”
“Not everything.”
“What did she know?”
“That Carlo arranged her adoption. That Marisol had another daughter.”
“Me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Thomas looked terrified.
“That Gabriel left something behind.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“What?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
“I swear.”
Thomas's hand shook.
“He called it insurance. Something that could destroy Carlo if Gabriel disappeared.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
I thought of the storage unit.
The locket.
My mother's letter.
“Maybe Elena found it.”
Thomas nodded.
“That's what I feared.”
“Why?”
He looked toward Dominic.
“Because three weeks before Elena died, someone came to me asking exactly the same question.”
“Who?”
Thomas swallowed.
“One of your own men.”
Dominic's face became stone.
“Name.”
Thomas whispered it.
“Rafael Torres.”
Neither of us spoke.
Rafael.
The man who had protected us.
The man who had followed me home.
The man waiting outside that very house.
Dominic slowly turned toward the window.
Rafael's black car was parked near the entrance.
And suddenly we had to ask the most dangerous question yet.
Had Rafael been protecting us?
May you like
Or watching us?
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