Chapter 3 - The Hospital Bracelet Revealed That Isabella Had Secretly Given Birth Days Before Her Death, and the Missing Child Was Connected to My Own DaughterThe name on the bracelet was Alex.
Male.
Birth date six years earlier.
Exactly five days before Isabella's death.
I looked at Alessandro.
He looked like someone had taken the ground from beneath him.
“She had a child.”
His voice cracked.
I nodded.
“What happened to him?”
“I don't know.”
He called the hospital.
Records were missing.
Not deleted.
Removed.
The doctor who had delivered the child had disappeared.
The nurse who signed the paperwork had moved overseas.
The baby had no death certificate.
No adoption record.
No discharge record.
Nothing.
The child simply vanished.
Alessandro stared at the bracelet.
Then at Sophia.
My daughter stood quietly.
“She knows him.”
I looked at her.
“How?”
Sophia shrugged.
“Isabella says he has the same eyes.”
I frowned.
She pointed at Alessandro.
“Like Daddy.”
Alessandro went pale.
“Who?”
“Alex.”
Silence.
He stared at her.
Then asked:
“Is Alex alive?”
Sophia nodded.
“He's sleeping.”
“Where?”
She pointed upstairs.
“The garden room.”
I felt cold.
There was no garden room.
Except there was.
The room Isabella had painted.
The room we had entered.
I realized something.
Sophia wasn't making random claims.
She was remembering something.
Or someone was using her imagination to reveal clues.
Alessandro searched the hidden room.
Behind the bed, he found a small compartment.
Inside was another photograph.
Isabella holding a newborn.
And beside her stood a man.
I recognized him.
So did Alessandro.
“Marco.”
His head of security.
The man who had worked for him for fifteen years.
The man who had supposedly been away on business the night Isabella died.
I stared.
“Was he the father?”
Alessandro shook his head.
“No.”
Then he noticed something.
A red mark on Marco's hand.
The same red mark Sophia had drawn.
I felt sick.
Marco had been watching my daughter.
He had known about Isabella.
He had been present when the baby disappeared.
And now he had entered the eastern corridor.
Alessandro ordered him brought in.
Marco was gone.
His office had been emptied.
A safe was open.
Everything missing.
Alessandro stood in the center of the room.
The most dangerous man in New York looked helpless.
Then Sophia tugged his sleeve.
“Don't be sad.”
He looked down.
“I'm not.”
“Yes, you are.”
She touched his hand.
“Your baby is safe.”
His entire body froze.
“What baby?”
“Alex.”
“Where?”
“Across the water.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
She looked at me.
“New Jersey.”
My blood went cold.
Alessandro immediately sent investigators.
They found a house.
A woman.
And a little boy.
Alex.
Six years old.
Alive.
He had been raised under another name.
The woman caring for him said Isabella had brought him to her.
Then disappeared.
Alex had a small silver butterfly tattoo on his wrist.
Exactly like Isabella's pendant.
The same symbol.
The same family.
But there was something else.
A DNA test showed Alex wasn't Isabella's son.
He was related to me.
I stared.
Impossible.
Then the doctor said:
“He is your daughter Sophia's half-brother.”
My stomach dropped.
The child belonged to Sophia's missing father.
The man I believed dead.
He wasn't.
He had been part of Isabella's secret life too.
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And suddenly, my own daughter's father was connected to the Moretti family.
Everything became personal.
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