Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Bakery Wasn’t Supposed to Be Alive
Mrs. Alvarez had disappeared before I could ask a single useful question.
Gabriel searched the street.
Nothing.
Adrian closed the bakery door and turned the sign to CLOSED.
I opened the ledger.
Every page was written by my grandmother.
At the beginning, there were only business records.
Then the entries changed.
She started documenting names.
People.
Meetings.
Promises.
Threats.
She had spent years collecting evidence against the Circle.
And she had hidden it beneath my floorboards.
“You knew this was here?” Adrian asked.
“No.”
“You never saw your grandmother write these?”
“She didn’t let me.”
“Why?”
“Because she thought ignorance could keep me alive.”
Adrian nodded.
“She was right.”
I turned the page.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Miriam Bellandi.
Adrian’s mother.
I looked at him.
“This is your mother.”
His expression hardened.
“Yes.”
“She was part of the Circle.”
“No.”
I pointed to a note.
MIRIAM IS TRYING TO GET OUT.
He took the book.
His jaw tightened.
“My mother died when I was twenty-six.”
“How?”
“Cancer.”
“Was that what they told you?”
Adrian looked at me.
I knew from his expression that the question had landed.
He sat.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying my grandmother recorded that your mother was trying to expose the Circle.”
He read several pages.
Then found a line.
MIRIAM BELIEVES LAWRENCE COLE WILL KILL HER.
Adrian stood abruptly.
Gabriel stepped closer.
“We need to check this.”
“Check what?”
“My mother’s death records.”
We spent two hours searching.
The official record said Miriam Bellandi died in Boston.
But the hospital number did not exist.
The physician named on the certificate had retired before the date of death.
The cemetery record showed no burial.
I stared at the screen.
“She wasn’t buried.”
Adrian’s face was pale.
“Then where is she?”
My grandmother had left another clue.
A restaurant receipt.
A date.
An address.
A small town in Connecticut.
We drove there before dawn.
The address belonged to an old boarding house.
An elderly man answered the door.
He looked at Adrian.
Then at me.
His eyes widened.
“You have her face.”
My heart stopped.
“You knew my grandmother?”
“I knew the people who came to see her.”
“Who?”
He looked at Adrian.
“Your mother.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“She was here?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Fourteen years ago.”
“What happened to her?”
The man hesitated.
“She was alive.”
“Where is she now?”
He swallowed.
“She left with a man.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
Adrian went very still.
“That's impossible.”
The old man shook his head.
“They were fighting.”
“About what?”
“The Circle.”
We left with another address.
A private clinic.
Inside an abandoned office building.
There, the records showed something impossible.
Miriam Bellandi had checked into the clinic under another name.
Pregnant.
I stared at Adrian.
“You have a sibling.”
His face changed.
“No.”
The file said otherwise.
A baby girl.
Born two months before Miriam disappeared.
The child was listed as abandoned.
I traced the placement records.
The adoptive mother’s name was Margaret Bennett.
My grandmother.
I dropped the papers.
Adrian stared at me.
“What?”
I pointed.
“Miriam was your mother.”
“And my grandmother adopted the baby.”
I nodded.
He looked at me.
Then at the file.
“You’re the baby.”
I could barely breathe.
My life suddenly seemed like a room where someone had turned on every light at once.
Adrian whispered my name.
“Maddie.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
The old story came back.
My grandmother said my mother died giving birth.
She had always told me my father disappeared afterward.
She had never explained why no birth certificate existed.
She had never shown me photographs.
I had believed her because I had no reason not to.
Now I knew.
I was Miriam Bellandi’s daughter.
Adrian’s younger sister.
The secret child of a family war.
Adrian stepped away from the desk.
Gabriel looked between us.
“Boss.”
Adrian did not answer.
I finally whispered, “Does that mean we’re related?”
Adrian looked at me.
“Yes.”
The word sounded like a door slamming shut.
Every strange moment between us.
Every time he had looked at me.
Every spark I had tried to pretend was impossible.
I felt sick.
“You knew?”
“No.”
He sat down.
“My father had another child?”
“So did my grandmother.”
He laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the truth was too absurd to fit inside grief.
Then the clinic lights went out.
Gabriel drew his gun.
A voice echoed through the darkness.
“Maddie.”
I froze.
The voice was female.
Older.
Trembling.
“Maddie, don’t trust Adrian.”
A light came on.
A woman stood at the end of the hallway.
Gray hair.
Pale face.
Alive.
Adrian whispered one word.
“Mom.”
Miriam Bellandi looked at him.
May you like
Then at me.
And began to cry.
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