Chapter 7 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Emergency lights painted the hallway red.
Dominic moved Eliza toward the safe room while Luca coordinated security.
Glass shattered somewhere downstairs.
Eliza’s heart hammered.
“Are they inside?”
“Stay behind me.”
“That means yes.”
A man appeared at the far end of the corridor.
Dominic shoved Eliza behind the wall.
Security intercepted the intruder before he reached them.
Within minutes, the estate was contained.
Three intruders were captured.
One escaped.
None carried identification.
But one carried an old photograph.
Dominic’s mother.
Victoria Castellano.
She had supposedly died from cancer twelve years earlier.
On the back someone had written:
A mother never loses what belongs to her.
Dominic stared at it for a long time.
Eliza watched him become a son instead of a boss.
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she love you?”
“I thought so.”
He looked at the photograph.
“That’s becoming a dangerous sentence.”
They moved to a secondary property in Manhattan.
Dominic insisted Eliza stay in a private apartment occupying an entire upper floor.
For the first time in days, she had a room with a lock controlled from the inside.
Dominic gave her the only key card.
She noticed.
“You trust me with the door?”
“It should have been that way from the start.”
Progress.
Small.
But real.
That evening Sofia and Matteo arrived from Sicily.
When Sofia learned about the embryo, she stared at Eliza’s stomach for several seconds.
Eliza braced for anger.
Instead, Sofia crossed the room and hugged her.
Eliza froze.
“I’m sorry,” Sofia whispered.
“What?”
“For even looking at you like this could be your fault.”
Eliza began crying.
“I don’t know how to feel.”
“Neither do I.”
They sat together for hours.
Sofia explained that she and Gabriel had tried for years to have another child.
They had created four embryos.
Three failed.
One disappeared during the chaos surrounding Gabriel’s staged death.
They thought it had been destroyed.
It had not.
“Do you want the baby?” Eliza asked quietly.
Sofia’s eyes filled with tears.
“I wanted that baby eight years ago.”
Eliza swallowed.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
Sofia held her hand.
“I want you to decide. Whoever stole that embryo already stole enough choices from both of us.”
That night, Eliza lay awake.
At two in the morning, she found Dominic standing on the balcony.
“You don’t sleep?”
“Not well.”
“Same.”
He opened the door.
Cool September air entered.
“You should be inside.”
“You’re starting again.”
“Right. Your choice.”
She smiled faintly.
They stood in silence.
Then Eliza said:
“I’m keeping the baby.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
He waited.
“I’m terrified. I’m angry. I don’t know what happens legally or emotionally. But when I saw the ultrasound…”
Her voice softened.
“That was my child before I knew any of this.”
Dominic nodded.
“Then we protect both of you.”
“We?”
The word came out before she could stop it.
Dominic looked toward the city.
“You’re family.”
“Second cousins barely counts.”
“To Italians, everyone counts.”
She smiled.
“Was that a joke?”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
They were interrupted by Luca.
“We found Victoria.”
Dominic turned.
“Where?”
“Manhattan.”
“Where exactly?”
Luca handed him a photograph.
Victoria Castellano had entered Harland & Wilson headquarters two hours earlier.
Eliza’s workplace.
She used an executive access badge.
Belonging to Martin Graves.
Eliza’s boss.
The senior manager who had buried her Northbridge report.
Everything connected.
They went to Harland & Wilson before sunrise.
The building appeared empty.
Martin Graves’s office was unlocked.
Inside they found no documents.
No laptop.
No personal effects.
He had vanished.
But behind a framed certificate, Eliza discovered a button.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside sat an old cassette recorder.
Dominic pressed play.
Victoria’s voice filled the office.
“If Dominic finds this, he will come looking for me.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“He always did have Gabriel’s sentimentality, though he hides it better.”
Eliza looked at him.
Victoria continued.
“Eliza Reynolds was never supposed to discover her inheritance.”
A pause.
“But then Mark Tanner fell in love.”
Dominic closed his eyes briefly.
“That made him unpredictable.”
Another pause.
“So I gave him a choice.”
The recording crackled.
“Disappear forever, or watch Eliza die.”
Eliza stopped breathing.
Victoria continued.
“He chose her.”
Tears filled Eliza’s eyes.
Mark had not abandoned her.
He had sacrificed himself.
Then Victoria laughed softly.
“But men in love are fools. Mark did not disappear.”
The tape clicked.
“He came looking for me.”
Dominic stepped closer.
Victoria’s final sentence played:
“So I buried him where nobody would ever search.”
The recording ended.
Eliza whispered:
“Is he dead?”
Dominic didn’t answer.
Luca examined the recorder.
“There’s something taped underneath.”
A small key.
Attached was a metal tag.
B-17.
Eliza recognized it.
Harland & Wilson storage facility.
Basement level.
Unit 17.
They descended beneath the building.
B-17 was a climate-controlled records room.
Dominic unlocked it.
The lights flickered on.
At first, Eliza saw nothing except shelves.
Then a sound.
A cough.
From behind a partition.
Eliza ran.
“Mark?”
A man sat chained to a pipe.
Thinner.
Bruised.
Bearded.
Alive.
His eyes opened.
“Eliza?”
She stopped.
Every emotion she had carried for three weeks crashed together.
Love.
Rage.
Relief.
Betrayal.
She crossed the room and slapped him.
Then she dropped to her knees and hugged him.
Mark began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
“You idiot.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You absolute idiot.”
He looked over her shoulder.
Dominic stood there.
Mark’s face tightened.
“You brought him?”
“He saved me.”
Mark laughed weakly.
“That’s new.”
Eliza pulled back.
“You knew I was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Mark’s expression changed.
“I saw the clinic report.”
“What report?”
He looked at Dominic.
“Victoria knew before Eliza did.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“How?”
Mark whispered:
“Because she planned the pregnancy.”
Then he looked at Eliza.
“And there’s one thing none of you understand yet.”
“What?”
Mark’s eyes filled with fear.
May you like
“The embryo wasn’t the only thing they changed.”
---
