Chapter 2 - THE BABY WHO NEVER DIED
I don't remember handing Leo to Mara.
I remember the photograph.
That was all.
Eli's tiny face filled Lorenzo's phone screen.
His eyes were closed.
His cheeks were thinner than I remembered.
But I knew him.
I knew the small curve beneath his lower lip.
I knew the dark patch of hair above his right ear.
I knew the shape of his fingers curled beneath his chin.
A mother can memorize a child in thirty seconds.
I had spent three weeks convincing myself those thirty seconds were all I would ever have.
Now my dead son was staring back at me from a stranger's photograph.
“Give me the phone.”
Lorenzo didn't move.
“Hunter—”
“Give me the phone!”
He handed it over.
I enlarged the image until it became grainy.
“That's him.”
Mara touched my shoulder.
“We need to be certain.”
“I am certain.”
“There could be—”
“That's my son.”
My voice broke so violently Leo stirred in her arms.
I immediately lowered it.
“That is Eli.”
Lorenzo was already speaking to his guards.
“Trace everything.”
“The number is masked.”
“I didn't ask if it was difficult.”
“No, sir.”
“Get Nico. Get Bell. Wake anyone you need.”
Both men disappeared.
I clutched the phone.
“When was this taken?”
“We don't know.”
“Can you tell?”
“Possibly.”
“Then do it.”
Lorenzo studied me.
The feared crime boss had disappeared.
For one strange second, we were simply two parents standing inside a nursery at two in the morning, both looking at a photograph that could destroy us.
“I will.”
I looked at the message again.
YOU SAVED HIS SON.
NOW COME SAVE YOURS.
“They know about tonight.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Lorenzo's eyes moved toward the ceiling.
Cameras.
My stomach dropped.
“Someone watched me feed Leo?”
“Someone knew.”
Inside the mansion.
The thought made the air cold.
Mara immediately looked toward the hall.
“Rebecca.”
“The nurse?”
“She was asleep.”
Lorenzo shook his head.
“Rebecca has worked for me for five weeks. Don't accuse her without evidence.”
“She fell asleep during a critical shift.”
“Which means we test her.”
He turned toward me.
“Do not leave this room alone.”
I laughed once.
A terrible sound.
“You think I'm going to sit here?”
“Yes.”
“My son is alive.”
“We don't know where.”
“Bellweather House.”
“Maybe.”
“You said—”
“I said the transport record named Bellweather. That doesn't mean the photograph was taken there.”
“So go check.”
“I am.”
“I am coming.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
I stepped toward him.
“You don't get to tell me no.”
“If this is a trap—”
“Of course it's a trap!”
My anger surprised even me.
“They sent the picture to you because they want me to come. If I don't, what do you think happens to Eli?”
Lorenzo said nothing.
Exactly.
I pointed at Leo.
“For two months you've been doing everything possible to save your son. Doctors. Guards. Machines. God knows what else. And now you expect me to stay behind when mine might be waiting for me?”
His jaw tightened.
“I expect you to stay alive.”
“So does Eli.”
Mara stepped between us.
“Both of you stop.”
Lorenzo glanced at her.
She didn't care.
“I need Leo fed again in two to three hours if he'll tolerate it. Hunter is currently the only person he has taken a full feeding from without immediate distress. If Hunter disappears into some abandoned clinic and gets hurt, you could lose both children.”
The words struck all of us.
Both children.
Leo began crying again.
Weakly.
Instinctively, I reached for him.
Mara handed him to me.
The second I settled him against my shoulder, the crying softened.
Lorenzo watched.
I saw something painful in his expression.
Sophia should have been doing this.
Not me.
The realization hurt.
Not because I wanted her place.
I didn't.
A dead woman deserved more than being replaced by the first living woman who could calm her son.
I stroked Leo's back.
“We have three hours.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“Until?”
“Until he needs me again.”
“You aren't coming.”
“Then I'm walking out the front gate.”
His guards would stop me.
We both knew it.
But if he physically prevented a grieving mother from trying to find her child after showing her proof the baby might be alive, whatever trust existed between us would die instantly.
Lorenzo knew that too.
Finally, he said, “You stay in the car until I say otherwise.”
“I'll decide that when we get there.”
“Hunter.”
“Lorenzo.”
Mara turned away, hiding what might have been the beginning of a smile.
Twenty minutes later, I was no longer wearing my maid uniform.
Someone had brought me black jeans, sneakers, a sweatshirt, and a coat.
I had no idea whose clothes they were.
I didn't care.
Leo had fed again briefly before falling asleep.
Mara promised she would stay beside him the entire time.
Rebecca had been taken downstairs to be examined.
Nobody would tell me more.
At 2:48 a.m., Lorenzo and I left the mansion.
Four black SUVs moved together through the dark Long Island roads.
I sat beside Lorenzo in the second vehicle.
A man named Nico drove.
Another guard sat in front.
Nobody spoke for the first five minutes.
I kept staring at Eli's photograph.
Eventually Lorenzo said, “Your son's father.”
I looked at him.
“What about him?”
“What was his name?”
“Daniel Harper.”
“What did he do?”
“Construction management.”
“Where?”
“Mostly Manhattan and Queens.”
“How long were you together?”
“Two years.”
“When did he disappear?”
“Seven weeks before Eli was born.”
Lorenzo looked toward Nico.
That silent look apparently meant something.
Nico spoke.
“We'll check him.”
“Why?”
“Because a man doesn't vanish seven weeks before his child is born by coincidence.”
“Men abandon women every day.”
Lorenzo's mouth hardened.
“Cowards do.”
I stared at him.
For a man rumored to have ordered terrible things, he had surprisingly strong opinions about abandoning children.
“What was Sophia like?”
The question slipped out.
Nico's hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
Lorenzo looked through the window.
“I don't discuss my wife.”
“Okay.”
Thirty seconds passed.
Then he said, “She hated lilies.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Everyone sent lilies after she died. Hundreds of them. She hated the smell.”
I almost smiled.
“What did she like?”
“Sunflowers.”
He looked down at his wedding ring.
“She said lilies looked like flowers that knew they were expensive.”
That time I did smile.
“She sounds funny.”
“She was.”
The smile disappeared from his face.
“She also knew I was surrounded by men who would kill to become me.”
There it was.
The wall returned.
“What does that have to do with Eli?”
“I don't know yet.”
Bellweather House sat behind iron gates at the end of a private road near the water.
At least, what remained of it did.
The property looked nothing like a hospital.
It resembled an old estate.
Three stories.
Brick exterior.
Boarded windows.
Dead ivy covering one side.
Lorenzo's vehicles stopped half a mile away.
Two men approached the property first.
I watched through the windshield.
My whole body trembled.
“Is there any chance he's inside?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any chance whoever has him knows we're here?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any chance we're walking into an ambush?”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“Yes.”
At least he didn't lie.
A guard returned twelve minutes later.
“Main building's empty.”
I reached for the door.
Lorenzo caught my wrist.
“Wait.”
“There could be another building.”
“There is.”
The guard looked grim.
“Old service house behind the main clinic. Power is running.”
My heart jumped.
We drove closer.
This time Lorenzo let me out.
The air smelled like ocean water and wet leaves.
He put one hand lightly against my back.
“Stay behind me.”
“I can walk by myself.”
“I know.”
“Then stop pushing.”
“I'm positioning you.”
“That's pushing with expensive vocabulary.”
Nico coughed suspiciously.
Lorenzo gave him a look.
We reached the service house.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, a lamp burned.
There was a rocking chair.
A bottle warmer.
A package of diapers.
My knees nearly folded.
“Eli.”
I moved forward.
Lorenzo blocked me.
“Hunter.”
“There are diapers.”
“I see them.”
“He was here.”
I pushed past him.
On the kitchen counter sat three clean bottles.
A can of formula.
Burp cloths.
Then I saw the blanket.
Gray.
The same one from the photograph.
I grabbed it.
It was still warm.
“He was here.”
Lorenzo touched it.
His expression changed.
“Recently.”
I spun around.
“Search outside!”
His men were already moving.
I ran upstairs.
Lorenzo cursed and followed.
The first room was empty.
Second room too.
The third had a crib.
I stopped in the doorway.
The mattress contained the faint outline where a baby had been lying.
Beside it sat a small stuffed elephant.
I recognized it instantly.
I had bought it at Target when I was six months pregnant.
I had packed it inside Eli's hospital bag.
I picked it up.
A sound escaped me.
Half sob.
Half scream.
“He had this.”
Lorenzo entered behind me.
“They took it from the hospital.”
“They took everything.”
My baby's blanket.
My baby's bracelet.
My baby's toy.
Maybe my baby.
I pressed the elephant against my face.
Then Lorenzo saw something I hadn't.
“Don't move.”
“What?”
He walked toward the crib.
There was a white envelope tucked beneath the mattress.
My name was written across it.
HUNTER.
Lorenzo put on gloves before touching it.
“Open it.”
“Could be contaminated.”
“Open it.”
He did.
Inside was a photograph.
Not of Eli.
Of me.
Taken outside the Rossi mansion two weeks earlier.
I was carrying laundry.
Another photograph showed me leaving my apartment.
Another showed me at the cemetery where I had stood beside Eli's tiny grave.
Someone had been watching me.
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
Lorenzo read it first.
Then tried to fold it.
I grabbed it.
The message made my blood turn cold.
YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO WORK FOR ROSSI.
Underneath:
ASK LORENZO WHAT HIS WIFE FOUND BEFORE SHE DIED.
I slowly looked at him.
“What did Sophia find?”
“Hunter—”
“What did she find?”
Before he could answer, a gunshot cracked outside.
Lorenzo shoved me to the floor.
Another shot.
Then another.
Men shouted.
Glass shattered downstairs.
Lorenzo covered me with his body until the shooting stopped.
I could barely breathe.
“Nico!” he shouted.
A voice answered from below.
“Clear!”
Lorenzo stood.
His face had changed.
There was no grieving husband now.
There was only the man everyone feared.
He drew a weapon from beneath his jacket.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
He turned.
“Not this time.”
Something in his voice stopped me.
Seconds later, his men dragged someone into the downstairs room.
A young man.
Maybe twenty.
Terrified.
He had been hiding behind the property wall.
“I was paid!” he yelled. “That's all!”
“By whom?” Lorenzo demanded.
“I don't know!”
Lorenzo stepped closer.
The man's eyes widened.
“I swear!”
“What were you paid to do?”
“Shoot over the cars! Just scare you!”
“Who took the baby?”
“I never saw a baby!”
Lorenzo stared at him.
The young man started crying.
“I only got a phone and an envelope!”
“What phone?”
He pointed toward his coat.
Nico removed it.
One number had called repeatedly.
Lorenzo handed it to another man.
“Trace.”
Then the phone rang.
Everyone froze.
Nico looked at Lorenzo.
Lorenzo answered on speaker.
A distorted voice filled the room.
“Did Hunter enjoy seeing the nursery?”
My skin went cold.
Lorenzo's expression didn't change.
“Where is the child?”
The caller laughed softly.
“Which one?”
My heart nearly stopped.
“You touch my son—”
“Hunter.”
The voice knew me.
“Your son is safer than you think.”
“Let me hear him.”
Silence.
Then—
A baby cried.
Sharp.
Angry.
Alive.
My knees buckled.
“Eli!”
The crying continued.
I lunged toward the phone.
“Please. Please don't hurt him.”
“We haven't.”
“Give him back.”
“That depends on Lorenzo.”
I looked at him.
“What do you want?”
The caller's voice became colder.
“Something Sophia Rossi died trying to hide.”
Lorenzo's eyes darkened.
“What?”
“You know exactly what.”
“I don't.”
Another laugh.
“Then ask your wife.”
“My wife is dead.”
“Exactly.”
The call ended.
I turned toward Lorenzo.
“What did Sophia hide?”
He stared at the dead screen for a long time.
Finally, he said, “Three days before the bombing, Sophia gave me a key.”
“A key to what?”
“She wouldn't tell me.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“You lost it?”
“No.”
His eyes met mine.
“She hid it somewhere she believed nobody in my organization would ever look.”
I thought about the message.
YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO WORK FOR ROSSI.
Then something clicked.
“When did I apply for the maid position?”
Lorenzo looked confused.
“Three weeks ago.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“I applied six months ago.”
His face changed.
“I never heard anything. Then the morning after Eli's funeral, someone called and said a position had suddenly opened.”
Lorenzo stared at me.
“You didn't choose to work for me.”
“I thought I did.”
He went completely still.
Someone had placed me inside the Rossi mansion.
And somewhere in Long Island, my supposedly dead baby was alive.
Which meant the person who had stolen him hadn't only been watching me.
May you like
They had been guiding me.
Straight toward Lorenzo Rossi.
