Chapter 3 - The Baby That Was Never His
No one spoke.
Sofia’s breathing crackled through the speaker.
Adrian stared at the phone as though it had become a weapon.
“What did you say?”
“The baby isn’t yours.”
His face did not change.
Mine did.
My first emotion was relief.
It lasted less than a second.
Then rage replaced it.
Because whether Sofia’s baby belonged to Adrian or not, he had still slept with her.
A paternity test could change biology.
It could not change betrayal.
Adrian’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“Whose child is it?”
Sofia sobbed.
“Daniel’s.”
Everyone in the room froze.
“Daniel Russo?” Adrian asked.
“Yes.”
Adrian’s attorney.
His friend.
A man who had been sitting across from us at Christmas dinner two months earlier.
My mother muttered something under her breath.
Adrian turned away and dragged a hand over his face.
“You and Daniel?”
“We’ve been together almost a year.”
I stared at the speaker.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Sofia heard me.
“Claire?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I never wanted you to find out like this.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“You called my husband on our anniversary and announced you were pregnant.”
“My brother made me.”
Adrian turned sharply.
“What?”
Sofia’s breath hitched.
“Luca knows about the affair.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“He knew Daniel was the father. He said if I told you that, he would kill Daniel.”
I pressed my fingertips against my temple.
The pieces refused to fit.
“Why would Luca want Adrian to think the baby was his?”
Silence.
Then Sofia said, “Because he needed Claire to leave him.”
Adrian’s eyes moved to me.
I felt cold.
“Why?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Try.”
“He said Adrian’s one weakness had always been you.”
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
Sofia continued.
“If you left him, he would become reckless. Angry. Easier to manipulate.”
A humorless laugh escaped me.
“So your brother turned your pregnancy into psychological warfare?”
“Yes.”
“And you agreed?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
My voice sharpened.
“You chose to sleep with my husband too.”
Sofia began crying harder.
“I know.”
“Do not cry to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop.”
She fell silent.
I had known Sofia since college.
We had shared coffee after exams.
She attended my bridal shower.
She sat three rows behind my mother at my wedding.
She hugged me that night and said Adrian looked happier than she had ever seen him.
Then six months ago, she climbed into his bed.
Whatever Luca had forced her to do tonight, that part had been her choice.
Adrian looked at Marco.
“Trace the call.”
“Already doing it.”
Sofia inhaled sharply.
“They’re moving me.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look around.”
“Warehouse. Concrete walls. No windows.”
“Sounds?”
She went quiet.
“A train.”
Marco’s eyes sharpened.
“How often?”
Another pause.
“Every few minutes.”
“Freight line,” he said.
Adrian nodded.
“South corridor.”
Sofia whispered, “Adrian, Luca knows Claire is pregnant.”
My blood froze.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Adrian’s expression became lethal.
“You told him?”
“No!”
“Then how?”
“I swear I didn’t.”
He looked at me.
The test had existed for less than thirty minutes.
If Luca knew already, someone close to us was feeding him information in real time.
Adrian understood the same thing.
He scanned the room.
Marco.
My mother.
Two guards near the entrance.
The wounded man on the sofa.
Me.
His eyes narrowed.
“There’s a leak.”
Marco swore.
The house suddenly felt unsafe.
Adrian started issuing orders.
“Phones on the table. Everyone.”
One of the guards hesitated.
Adrian looked at him.
The man placed his phone down immediately.
My mother did too.
I did not.
Adrian looked at me.
“You’re not taking my phone.”
“I’m not asking to read it.”
“Then what?”
“Turn it off.”
I did.
Marco collected the devices and placed them inside a metal security pouch.
“Use radios only,” Adrian said.
Then he looked at me.
“You’re leaving.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“I am not being hidden somewhere while everyone discusses my father, my baby, and my life.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m trying to stop letting you decide everything for me.”
That stopped him.
He looked away first.
“Fine.”
Marco stared at him.
“Boss?”
“She stays.”
“I didn’t say that either.”
Adrian’s eyes returned to mine.
“What do you want?”
The question surprised both of us.
“I want the truth.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
His mouth tightened.
“You may hate me more.”
“I already asked for a divorce. We can survive that.”
Pain flashed across his face.
He nodded.
Then he told me what he should have told me years ago.
The Moretti organization had been under pressure for eighteen months.
Not from law enforcement.
Not from rival crews.
From inside.
Money disappeared from legitimate construction contracts.
Shipping manifests were altered.
Weapons moved through Moretti warehouses without authorization.
Someone had been using Adrian’s infrastructure to build a shadow organization beneath his own.
He suspected Victor Russo.
He was wrong.
Luca Russo had been rebuilding power quietly.
And Sofia had become the bridge.
“She started feeding me information,” Adrian said.
I stared at him.
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
“And sleeping with you six months ago.”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt.
But I demanded it.
“So the affair started because she was an informant?”
“No.”
At least he did not hide behind that excuse.
“Then why?”
He stared at the floor.
“I was weak.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He took a long breath.
“You were in Boston.”
I remembered.
My mother had surgery the previous spring.
I stayed with her nearly three weeks.
Adrian visited twice but spent most of the month in Chicago.
“We had argued before you left,” he continued.
“About children.”
“Yes.”
I remembered that too.
I had told him I was tired of waiting.
He told me bringing a child into his world would be selfish.
I accused him of not trusting me to make my own decisions.
He slept in his office that night.
Three days later, I went to Boston.
“Sofia brought evidence that Luca was using our warehouses,” he said. “We worked late. We drank.”
“You said you barely drink.”
“I drank that night.”
“And that somehow removed your wedding ring?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“I knew exactly what I was doing.”
My eyes burned.
Good.
I preferred brutal truth to excuses.
“Did you think about me?”
“Yes.”
“That makes it worse.”
“I know.”
“Did you stop after the first time?”
“No.”
“How many?”
His face tightened.
“Claire.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“Eight. Maybe nine.”
My stomach twisted.
I turned away.
My mother reached for me.
I stepped aside.
I needed air.
I needed distance.
I needed to stop imagining rooms I had never seen.
“Why did it end?”
Adrian’s voice became rough.
“Because I looked at myself and realized I had become the kind of man I hated.”
“Convenient.”
“No. Cowardly.”
I looked at him again.
He continued.
“I ended it in January. Told her there would never be anything between us again. I offered to transfer her work to Daniel.”
“And apparently Daniel welcomed her.”
A strange expression crossed Adrian’s face.
“He already had.”
That was another betrayal.
Daniel knew.
Sofia was his girlfriend.
Yet she had slept with Adrian.
Why?
I asked the question.
Adrian did not know.
Marco’s radio crackled.
“We found the location.”
Everyone moved.
An abandoned distribution center near Cicero.
Owned through a shell company tied to Luca Russo.
Adrian reached for his coat.
“I’m going.”
“So am I,” I said.
“No.”
“I knew that was coming.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“Do not use my pregnancy to control me.”
“I’m using common sense.”
“Then use it on yourself. Luca wants you angry. You walking into his warehouse with guns seems exactly like what he wants.”
Adrian stopped.
Marco looked at me.
Then at him.
“She’s right.”
Adrian glared at him.
Marco shrugged.
“She is.”
I stepped closer to the table.
“What does Luca really want?”
“The ledger,” my mother said.
We all turned.
She still held the brass deposit-box key.
“Thomas told me something before he died.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He said the ledger could destroy two families.”
“Moretti and Russo?”
“Yes.”
Adrian’s expression tightened.
“Financial crimes?”
“Worse.”
“What?”
“He never told me.”
A thought formed.
“Then we need the box.”
Adrian shook his head.
“Too dangerous.”
“Everything is dangerous.”
“Claire.”
“Stop saying my name like it’s an order.”
Marco coughed suspiciously.
Adrian looked like he wanted to strangle him.
Then my mother said, “There may be another way.”
The transferred deposit boxes were held at a private storage facility in Evanston.
She had the key.
I was listed as beneficiary.
We could access it legally.
But not while Luca watched us.
So we divided.
Adrian and Marco went after Sofia.
My mother and I went after the ledger.
I expected Adrian to fight harder.
Instead, before we separated, he approached me in the hallway.
“I know I don’t have the right to ask anything of you.”
“Correct.”
His mouth twitched painfully.
“If something feels wrong, leave.”
“I know.”
“Don’t be brave for the sake of proving you don’t need me.”
“I don’t.”
“I know that too.”
That silenced me.
He looked at my stomach.
Not touching.
Not even allowing his hand to move.
Then his eyes met mine.
“Whatever happens between us, I will protect our child.”
I felt anger rise again.
“Protecting us isn’t enough.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I’m finally learning.”
He walked away before I could answer.
The storage facility was nearly empty.
Too empty.
My mother noticed too.
“Claire.”
“I know.”
We entered anyway.
The clerk verified my identification and led us through two security doors.
Box 417.
I inserted the brass key.
My hands shook.
Inside sat a black leather ledger.
A flash drive.
And a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Claire.
My father’s handwriting.
For a moment, I forgot Adrian.
Forgot Sofia.
Forgot Luca.
I touched the envelope with both hands.
My father had written this.
Before cancer took him.
Before I knew what his life really was.
I opened it.
My Claire,
If you are reading this, then everything I tried to bury has returned.
Do not trust the story either family tells you.
Carlo Moretti was not the monster people believed.
Victor Russo was not the ally he pretended to be.
And if a Moretti ever asks you for this ledger, make him answer one question first.
Who killed Carlo Moretti?
I stopped breathing.
Carlo died twelve years ago.
Heart attack.
At least that was what everyone said.
My mother read over my shoulder.
“Oh God.”
Then the lights went out.
A man’s voice came from the dark.
“Thank you for finding it for us.”
My mother screamed.
I grabbed the ledger.
Footsteps rushed toward us.
I swung the metal box door wildly and heard someone curse.
Then a gunshot exploded.
I dropped.
More shots.
Glass shattered.
Someone grabbed my arm.
I fought.
“Claire!”
Not Adrian.
A different voice.
Daniel Russo.
Adrian’s attorney.
He pulled me behind a concrete pillar.
“Stay down.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Saving your life.”
A gun appeared in his hand.
Across the room, two masked men rushed toward the exit.
Daniel fired.
One fell.
The other escaped.
My mother crawled toward me.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Daniel looked at the ledger.
His expression changed.
“You found it.”
“How did you know?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
I raised the gun I had taken from my mother’s emergency safe before we left.
Daniel froze.
“You’re the leak.”
“No.”
“Then how did you know we were here?”
His eyes moved to the gun.
“Claire, put that down.”
“Answer me.”
He exhaled.
“I tracked Margaret’s car.”
“Why?”
“To protect Sofia.”
My stomach dropped.
“You knew Luca would follow us.”
“Yes.”
“You used us as bait.”
His silence confirmed it.
My mother cursed him.
Daniel lifted both hands.
“I needed Luca’s men exposed.”
“You nearly got us killed.”
“I knew they wouldn’t shoot Claire.”
A hole in the wall six inches from my head suggested otherwise.
“You knew wrong.”
Then Daniel said something that made everything worse.
“Luca cannot kill you.”
“Why?”
“Because the ledger isn’t the only leverage Thomas Bennett left behind.”
I tightened my grip on the gun.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Your father made a deal before he died.”
“With whom?”
“With the FBI.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“He placed evidence in escrow. If you die under suspicious circumstances, everything gets released.”
I stared at him.
“So Luca needs me alive.”
“For now.”
My phone, sealed in the security pouch, suddenly began ringing.
Impossible.
Then I realized it was Daniel’s phone.
He looked at the screen.
His face turned white.
“Sofia.”
He answered.
No one spoke.
Then Adrian’s voice came through.
“Daniel.”
Not Sofia.
Adrian.
Cold.
Terrible.
“I found her.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
Relief flooded his face.
Then Adrian continued.
“She told me everything.”
Daniel’s relief disappeared.
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
A long silence.
Then Adrian said, “So here’s what happens next.”
His voice became quieter.
“You bring my wife home.”
Daniel looked at me.
May you like
“And then?”
“I decide whether you’re still breathing by sunrise.”
