Chapter 8 - Someone Knew They Were Alive
Gemma did not speak for almost a minute.
“Why?”
Elena wiped her eyes.
“Why what?”
“Why was I born at a psychiatric hospital?”
“It wasn't a psychiatric hospital then.”
Anthony answered.
“Not officially.”
Gemma turned toward him.
“What does that mean?”
“Part of St. Gabriel operated as a private clinic before the state closed it. Vittorio owned the company that held the property.”
Leo stared.
“My father owned it?”
“Through a subsidiary.”
“Why?”
Anthony looked at Elena.
She nodded.
“You were born early,” Elena said.
Gemma sat.
“How early?”
“Seven weeks.”
Leo looked shaken.
Elena continued.
“There was a snowstorm. Roads were nearly closed. I started bleeding.”
Gemma's expression changed.
Leo whispered, “Where was I?”
“New York.”
He closed his eyes.
Elena touched the table.
“Vittorio sent a doctor to St. Gabriel because it was closer than the city.”
“Why didn't anyone ever tell me?”
“You were supposed to come home the next morning.”
Elena's voice softened.
“But Gemma needed care.”
Leo stared at his daughter.
“I didn't know.”
“No one tells anyone anything in this family,” Gemma muttered.
Anthony said, “There’s more.”
Gemma laughed without humor.
“Of course.”
“Vittorio used the opportunity to hide the archive.”
Leo understood.
“In the hospital.”
Anthony nodded.
“The third copy.”
“The pendant key opens it.”
“Yes.”
Gemma looked at Elena.
“That is why you gave me the necklace?”
“No.”
Elena looked genuinely confused.
“I didn’t know.”
Anthony nodded.
“Vittorio gave it to me after Gemma’s birth and told me to make sure it stayed with her.”
“Why a baby?”
Leo asked.
“Because no one would search a baby's necklace for financial evidence.”
Gemma touched the pendant.
“Apparently Grandpa was dramatic too.”
Leo murmured, “Genetic.”
She glared.
He almost smiled.
The larger problem remained.
Daniel Mercer knew.
Samuel Krell had known for years.
They had watched Gemma grow up.
Yet never taken the pendant.
“Why?” she asked.
Arthur answered.
“Maybe they didn't know which item was the key.”
“They photographed me for years.”
“You wore other necklaces.”
Gemma thought.
That was true.
The pendant had spent stretches inside drawers.
Sometimes she wore it.
Sometimes not.
Elena said, “They may have known you had something without knowing what.”
Anthony leaned back.
“Thomas Mercer only knew Vittorio had used the child as protection.”
Leo's expression hardened.
“My father turned his granddaughter into a hiding place.”
“He believed no one knew.”
“They knew enough.”
Raymond had been silent.
Gemma noticed.
“What?”
He looked up.
“What?”
“You have a face.”
“I always have a face.”
“A guilty one.”
Leo looked toward his uncle.
Raymond sighed.
“When Elena ran, I searched their house.”
Elena stiffened.
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“You weren't subtle.”
Raymond continued.
“I found a note from Vittorio.”
Anthony frowned.
“What note?”
“It said, ‘The future carries what the past cannot protect.’”
Leo stared.
“You never mentioned that.”
“I thought it referred to Gemma.”
“It did.”
“But I didn’t understand how.”
Daniel and Samuel apparently understood enough to keep watching.
Arthur said, “Then they want us back at St. Gabriel.”
Leo shook his head.
“Which means we don't go.”
Gemma looked at him.
“We have to.”
“No.”
“There may be evidence that can end this.”
“Or a trap designed to make you bring them the key.”
“Both can be true.”
“Gemma.”
She stood.
“You don't get it.”
“I get it perfectly.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice rose.
“For you, this is an old war. For Mom, it's survival. For Raymond, it's guilt. For Anthony, it’s something he promised my grandfather.”
She touched the pendant.
“For me, it’s my entire life.”
Leo remained silent.
“I spent twenty-two years being told I was Gemma Hayes because my father died before I could know him.”
Her eyes filled.
“Then in one night I find out my father is alive, my mother isn't Clare, my name wasn't Hayes, my childhood was being photographed, and the necklace I've worn since I was a kid may be the reason.”
She shook her head.
“I am done letting other people decide which truth I can handle.”
Leo’s expression softened.
“That doesn't mean I let you walk into a trap.”
“Then don't let me walk alone.”
Silence.
Arthur looked down.
Elena wiped one tear.
Leo studied his daughter.
“Do you realize how irritating you are?”
Gemma blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“You sound exactly like me.”
Elena laughed unexpectedly.
It broke through the tension.
Even Anthony smiled.
Gemma pointed at both parents.
“I dislike both of you.”
Leo finally nodded.
“We go together.”
Elena immediately objected.
“No.”
Gemma turned.
“Oh, come on.”
Elena shook her head.
“I'm going too.”
Now Leo objected.
“No.”
Elena folded her arms.
Gemma smiled.
“Welcome to the family.”
They did not return immediately.
Arthur spent twelve hours studying building plans.
A former employee provided utility routes.
Raymond located a disused access tunnel beneath an adjacent maintenance shed.
Anthony identified the likely archive location.
The maternity room where Gemma had been born.
Room 207.
Gemma stared at the floor plan.
“The evidence was hidden in the room?”
“Vittorio chose it after your birth,” Anthony said.
“He said nobody would remember where history began.”
Leo looked at the plan.
“I would've.”
Anthony regarded him sadly.
“You never knew.”
They drove at dawn.
No convoy.
One nondescript van.
Leo wore jeans and a dark jacket instead of a suit.
Gemma stared.
“What?”
“You look like somebody’s dad.”
His expression shifted.
“I am.”
She immediately regretted the joke.
Not because it upset him.
Because it made him happy.
The maintenance tunnel was exactly where Raymond remembered.
It led beneath the oldest section.
Dust.
Rusting pipes.
Cold concrete.
Gemma touched the wall.
She had begun here.
Somewhere above them, twenty-two years earlier, her mother had held her for the first time.
Leo had been hundreds of miles away.
Her grandfather had decided her innocence made her the safest place for a secret.
Families were strange.
Some gave children jewelry.
Hers gave her evidence in a criminal conspiracy.
They reached room 207.
It no longer looked like a maternity room.
A desk.
Old examination table.
Cabinet.
Gemma whispered, “I was born here.”
Elena stood beside her.
“You were so small.”
Leo looked at Elena.
“How small?”
“Four pounds.”
He swallowed.
“Was she okay?”
“She screamed constantly.”
Gemma smiled.
“Still do.”
Leo laughed.
Then Anthony pointed toward the wall.
“There.”
A small floral symbol had been carved beside an electrical outlet.
The same flower as Gemma’s pendant.
She removed the necklace.
The metal strip fit inside a narrow slot behind the outlet plate.
A click.
Part of the wall opened.
Inside sat a waterproof package.
Leo pulled it out.
Records.
Photographs.
Audio tapes.
And one sealed envelope.
FOR GIANNA.
Gemma stared.
“My grandfather wrote to me?”
Leo handed it to her.
Her fingers trembled.
She opened it.
Before she could read the first line, the door closed behind them.
Automatically.
A speaker crackled.
Daniel Mercer.
“Welcome home, Gianna.”
Leo moved toward the door.
Locked.
Gemma looked toward the ceiling.
A camera watched them.
Daniel continued.
“I have waited almost your entire life for someone to open that wall.”
Leo shouted, “If you touch her—”
“I’m nowhere near your daughter.”
A pause.
“Yet.”
Gemma clutched the letter.
Mercer said, “Leave the archive inside the room and walk away.”
Arthur examined the lock.
“Electronic.”
“If you take it,” Mercer continued, “the facility doors remain sealed.”
Leo looked at Gemma.
Mercer finished quietly.
“And in ten minutes, the fire-suppression system will remove enough oxygen from that room to make everyone very sleepy.”
Gemma stared at the archive.
For twenty-two years, people had fought to keep it hidden.
Now the choice appeared simple.
Evidence.
Or survival.
Leo picked up the package.
Then handed it directly to Gemma.
She frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“Teaching you something your grandfather apparently learned too late.”
“What?”
Leo looked at the sealed door.
“Family comes before the empire.”
Then he turned to Arthur.
“Break the wall.”
And for the first time in two generations, a Moretti man chose not to protect the secret.
May you like
He chose the people carrying it.
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