Chapter 3 - The Baby Isn’t Mark’s
Eliza read the line until the words stopped making sense.
Mark Tanner excluded.
She laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes shock escaped the human body in the wrong form.
“No.”
Dominic took the phone.
“It could be fake.”
“It is fake.”
“We’ll verify.”
“I don’t need verification.”
“Eliza—”
“I know who I slept with.”
Dominic stopped.
Luca looked away.
Heat flooded her face.
“There hasn’t been anyone except Mark for almost two years.”
“Then the report is false,” Dominic said.
But his tone told her he wasn’t convinced.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Dominic handed the phone back.
“We’ll run another test.”
“No.”
“We need to know why someone wants you to believe Mark isn’t the father.”
“My pregnancy is not evidence in your investigation.”
“It became evidence when someone stole your medical records.”
Eliza hated that he was right.
By afternoon, a private physician arrived at Dominic’s estate.
Dr. Elaine Foster was calm, gray-haired, and unimpressed by Dominic’s reputation.
“No intimidation in my exam room,” she told him.
“It’s my house.”
“And currently my exam room.”
Luca coughed into his hand to hide a smile.
Eliza liked her immediately.
Blood was drawn.
Additional samples were sent to two independent laboratories under coded names.
The results would take time.
Dominic doubled security.
Eliza demanded access to her phone.
He gave it back.
That surprised her.
She called Jenna.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
A third time.
Still nothing.
“When did you last speak with her?” Dominic asked.
“Four days ago.”
“From Europe?”
“Yes.”
“Which country?”
Eliza hesitated.
“She was moving around.”
Dominic looked at Luca.
“No.”
Eliza stepped between them.
“Don’t you dare investigate Jenna.”
Dominic’s expression remained calm.
“I investigate anyone connected to a threat.”
“She is not a threat.”
“You thought Mark was an investment consultant.”
The sentence landed like a slap.
Dominic regretted it immediately.
“Eliza—”
She walked away.
That night she refused dinner.
At eleven, hunger defeated pride.
She went downstairs in borrowed pajamas and found Dominic alone in the kitchen making scrambled eggs.
The sight was so absurd she stopped in the doorway.
“You cook?”
“No.”
“That explains what’s happening in the pan.”
Dominic looked down.
The eggs were burning.
Eliza took the spatula from him.
“You’re ruining them.”
“I noticed.”
“Then why didn’t you stop?”
“I assumed persistence might improve the situation.”
“That explains a lot about you.”
This time he actually smiled.
It transformed his face.
For one second, Eliza forgot to be afraid of him.
Then she remembered where she was.
“Why were you making food?”
“You didn’t eat.”
“That’s not your responsibility.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Dominic turned off the stove.
“My mother used to cook when people were upset.”
“You think eggs solve kidnapping trauma?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Pancakes might.”
Eliza unexpectedly laughed.
The sound startled them both.
Dominic leaned against the counter.
“Better.”
“What?”
“You laughing.”
She studied him.
“Were you always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Terrifying for six hours and weirdly normal for thirty seconds?”
“Yes.”
Silence settled.
Then Eliza asked:
“What happened to Gabriel?”
Dominic stared at the counter.
“He was twenty-four.”
“That young?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My father and I were involved in things Gabriel hated.”
“What things?”
Dominic met her eyes.
“Exactly what you think.”
Eliza said nothing.
“He wanted out. He wanted me out too.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My father had built an empire that didn’t allow resignations.”
“And Gabriel?”
“He left anyway.”
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“Three weeks later his car went through a barrier in Westchester. The vehicle burned.”
“Did you see the body?”
“A closed coffin.”
Eliza remembered the photograph from the chapel.
“Then maybe he survived.”
“Maybe.”
“Wouldn’t you be happy?”
Dominic’s expression became unreadable.
“If Gabriel lived, he chose not to contact me for years.”
“Maybe he couldn’t.”
“Or maybe he feared me.”
Something painful entered Dominic’s voice.
Eliza understood then that his greatest fear was not Gabriel being dead.
It was Gabriel having lived and stayed away deliberately.
Her phone rang.
Jenna.
Eliza answered immediately.
“Jen?”
Static.
Then Jenna whispered:
“Eliza?”
“Oh my God. Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
Eliza froze.
“What do you mean?”
Dominic stepped closer.
Jenna began crying.
“I woke up in a hotel room. They took my passport.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I can see water.”
Dominic held out his hand.
Eliza refused.
“Eliza,” Jenna whispered. “There’s a man outside.”
“What man?”
“He said I needed to call you.”
Dominic’s expression became deadly serious.
“Put it on speaker.”
Eliza did.
Jenna’s breath trembled through the room.
Then a male voice spoke in the background.
“Ask Mr. Castellano whether he remembers Sicily.”
Dominic went completely still.
Luca appeared in the doorway.
The voice continued.
“Tell him Gabriel remembers.”
Then the call ended.
Dominic seized the phone.
“Trace it.”
Luca began dialing.
Eliza stared.
“That was Gabriel?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know my brother’s voice.”
“But whoever has Jenna knows him.”
“Yes.”
Dominic started toward the hallway.
Eliza grabbed his arm.
“Where are you going?”
“To get your friend.”
“You don’t even know where she is.”
“We will.”
“Why did he say Sicily?”
Dominic stopped.
The silence lasted too long.
“What happened in Sicily?”
He turned back.
“My father sent Gabriel there when he was nineteen.”
“For what?”
“To learn the family business.”
“What happened?”
Dominic looked at her.
“He came home six months later with a woman.”
“What woman?”
“We never knew her real name.”
Eliza’s stomach tightened.
“And?”
“She was pregnant.”
The kitchen became silent.
“What happened to her?”
“My father made her disappear.”
Eliza whispered, “And the baby?”
Dominic shook his head.
“I was told there was no baby.”
The phone on the counter chimed.
Another anonymous message.
A photograph.
Jenna sitting on a hotel bed.
Terrified but unharmed.
Beside her was a newspaper dated that morning.
Beneath it:
48 HOURS. BRING THE DRIVE TO SICILY.
A second photograph loaded.
A woman walking through an airport.
Dark hair.
Maybe early thirties.
She carried a small boy asleep against her shoulder.
Dominic zoomed in.
His hand began trembling.
“What?” Eliza asked.
Dominic stared at the boy.
“He looks like Gabriel.”
Eliza’s heart pounded.
Then a third image appeared.
This one showed Eliza.
Taken three months earlier.
She was sitting beside Mark at a restaurant.
The caption contained only six words:
MARK TANNER WAS NEVER YOUR BOYFRIEND.
And underneath:
May you like
HE WAS ASSIGNED TO YOU.
---
