Chapter 5 - The Brother Who Came Back From the Dead
Sophia read the line three times.
“Unknown male child?”
Antonio nodded.
“That's what it says.”
“I have a brother?”
“Possibly.”
“Why wouldn't my mother tell me?”
“Maybe she didn't know.”
Teresa did.
The moment Sophia showed her the document, the color drained from her face.
“You knew.”
Teresa sat down.
“I suspected.”
Sophia's anger rose.
“I'm getting tired of that word.”
“Rebecca gave birth to twins.”
Silence.
Sophia stared at her.
“No.”
“One girl. One boy.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nobody knew.”
Teresa explained that the night Sophia and her twin were born, Margaret believed they were still in danger. The children were separated.
Sophia stayed with Rebecca.
The boy was placed temporarily with someone Margaret trusted.
Then that person disappeared.
“So my grandmother lost him?”
“She spent years looking.”
Sophia remembered the mysterious trips Margaret took when she was young.
Weekends away.
Phone calls she ended whenever Sophia entered the room.
“She never stopped.”
“No.”
Sophia sat in stunned silence.
Antonio immediately began searching.
Records from twenty-six years earlier were incomplete, but money left trails.
A payment from Michael's old trust had been made every year to the same private account.
The account belonged to a man named Gabriel Hart.
Age twenty-six.
Sophia's hands trembled.
“Where is he?”
Antonio looked at the address.
“Chicago.”
They found Gabriel the next afternoon.
Not in a mansion.
Not surrounded by guards.
He owned a small restoration workshop where he repaired antique furniture.
When Sophia walked inside, a man looked up from a wooden desk.
She stopped.
So did he.
There was no need for DNA.
His eyes were hers.
His smile was Margaret's.
Gabriel slowly put down his tools.
“Sophia?”
She couldn't speak.
He knew her.
“How?”
Gabriel wiped his hands on a cloth.
“Grandma Margaret.”
Sophia started crying.
“She found you?”
“When I was nineteen.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She wanted to.”
“Then why didn't she?”
“Because I asked her not to.”
That hurt more than Sophia expected.
“Why?”
Gabriel looked past her toward Antonio and Teresa.
“Because every time someone tried bringing us together, somebody followed.”
He had known the truth for seven years.
Margaret had found him shortly before becoming ill.
She explained everything.
Michael.
Rebecca.
Sophia.
The Rossi family.
Vittorio.
“She made me promise I'd stay away until Vittorio was dead.”
“But he's alive,” Sophia said.
“I know.”
Gabriel looked at Antonio.
“And now he's looking for both of us.”
Antonio's phone buzzed.
A message.
No number.
A photograph appeared.
Elena sitting in the Rossi garden that morning.
Taken from outside the property.
Beneath it:
MICHAEL'S CHILDREN SHOULD NOT HAVE COME TOGETHER.
Antonio's expression became ice.
“We're going home.”
Back at the mansion, security doubled.
Sophia sat beside Gabriel in the library.
Twenty-six years apart could not be repaired in one evening.
So they started small.
Favorite foods.
Childhood memories.
Music.
Schools.
Gabriel told her he had always wondered whether she existed.
Sophia told him she had spent her entire childhood wishing for a sibling.
“Apparently you had one.”
“Apparently he was hiding in Chicago.”
He smiled.
“You would have hated me when we were teenagers.”
“Definitely.”
“How do you know?”
“I hate you a little now.”
He laughed.
It felt strangely familiar.
Across the room, Antonio watched them.
Elena noticed.
“You care about her.”
Antonio looked at his mother.
“Don't.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
Elena smiled.
“You look at Sophia the way your father looked at me.”
Antonio became quiet.
“I don't know how to give her a normal life.”
“Perhaps she doesn't need you to give her one.”
Elena touched his hand.
“Perhaps she needs you to let her choose one.”
Later, Sophia found Antonio in the hallway.
“Gabriel wants to stay.”
“For now.”
“And after?”
“He decides.”
Sophia nodded.
Antonio started walking away.
“Antonio.”
He stopped.
She approached.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For finding him.”
“I had resources.”
“You used them for me.”
He looked at her.
“I would use everything I have for you.”
The words escaped before either could soften them.
Sophia's breathing changed.
Antonio stepped closer.
Slowly.
Giving her time to move away.
She didn't.
He touched her cheek.
Sophia closed her eyes.
Their first kiss was gentle.
Almost hesitant.
Completely unlike Antonio.
When they separated, Sophia smiled.
“That wasn't very terrifying.”
“I can try again.”
She laughed.
Then every light in the mansion went out.
Darkness swallowed the corridor.
Security alarms sounded.
Antonio immediately pulled Sophia close.
“Stay with me.”
Emergency lights activated.
A guard appeared.
“Boss.”
“What happened?”
“Power system was overridden.”
“Where's my mother?”
“Safe.”
“Gabriel?”
The guard hesitated.
Antonio's expression changed.
“Where is Gabriel?”
They rushed to the library.
Empty.
A window stood open.
On the desk was Gabriel's phone.
Beside it lay a note.
Sophia picked it up.
Three words.
I'M SORRY, SOPHIA.
Antonio examined the security system.
Then he realized something.
“Nobody took him.”
“What?”
“He disabled the window sensor himself.”
Sophia shook her head.
“No.”
Antonio turned Gabriel's phone over.
Taped underneath was a tiny storage card.
They loaded it.
A video appeared.
Gabriel sat alone.
“If you're watching this, I've gone to meet Vittorio.”
Sophia covered her mouth.
Gabriel continued.
“He contacted me months ago. He says he has proof of what happened to our father.”
Antonio swore quietly.
The video continued.
“But that's not why I'm going.”
Gabriel looked directly into the camera.
“He says Rebecca is alive.”
Sophia frowned.
“Of course she's alive.”
Then Gabriel spoke the sentence that changed everything.
May you like
“He says the woman Sophia has called Rebecca her entire life isn't our biological mother.”
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