Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO CHOSE ME
By sunrise, I had stopped believing in coincidence.
Eli had been born eight minutes before Leo.
Both babies had been at St. Catherine's on the night of Sophia Rossi's murder.
My son's death certificate had never existed.
Someone had stolen him.
Someone had watched me grieve.
Then someone had placed me inside Lorenzo Rossi's home.
And now Leo—the child doctors could barely feed—had accepted milk from me as though my body had been waiting specifically for him.
The thought made me sick.
Not because feeding Leo felt wrong.
Because somebody might have planned even that.
When we returned to the mansion, Mara met us at the front entrance.
“How is he?” I asked immediately.
“Awake.”
“Did he eat?”
“Very little from the bottle.”
I hurried upstairs.
Leo was in Mara's arms.
He looked agitated.
His tiny fists moved weakly beside his face.
The moment I spoke, he turned toward the sound.
That nearly broke me.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
I sat.
Mara handed him over.
Within minutes, he settled.
Lorenzo stood by the doorway while I fed his son.
No guards inside.
No threats.
Just silence.
Afterward Mara weighed Leo.
She stared at the number.
“What?”
“He hasn't lost since last night.”
“Is that good?”
“For this baby, it's extremely good.”
Lorenzo exhaled.
The sound was almost invisible.
Mara looked at me.
“I want to run some tests on your milk.”
My muscles tightened.
“No.”
“Hunter, I'm not suggesting anything invasive.”
“Why?”
“Because we need to understand whether the difference is nutritional, immunological, mechanical, or behavioral.”
I hated the clinical words.
Still, she had a point.
“As long as I'm told exactly what's being tested.”
“You will be.”
“And I get a copy.”
“Absolutely.”
Lorenzo didn't interfere.
That mattered.
Maybe he had learned something from the night before.
Or maybe he understood that ordering me around was becoming less effective every hour.
Once Leo slept, Lorenzo took me downstairs.
I expected an office.
Instead, he led me to a small sitting room near the back of the mansion.
Sunlight spilled through enormous windows facing the water.
On one wall hung a photograph of Sophia.
I stopped.
She was beautiful.
Not in the polished way I expected.
She was barefoot in the picture, laughing as the wind blew dark hair across her face.
One hand rested over a pregnant stomach.
“That was three weeks before the bombing,” Lorenzo said.
I looked at him.
“You said she gave you a key.”
He opened a drawer and removed a velvet pouch.
Inside was a photograph.
Not the key.
A photograph of it.
Small.
Brass.
A number stamped on one side.
“She told me never to carry the original.”
“Why?”
“She said if I had it, someone might search me.”
“Who?”
“She didn't say.”
“And you didn't push?”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“She told me that for once in our marriage, she needed me to trust her instead of protecting her.”
Pain moved across his face.
“I agreed.”
“You regret it.”
“Every hour.”
He showed me another item.
A handwritten note.
The message was short.
If something happens to me, find the person who understands what it means to lose a child before ever getting to know them.
My skin prickled.
“Who did you think she meant?”
“I didn't know.”
“You think she meant me?”
“I didn't know you existed.”
“Did Sophia?”
Lorenzo stared at me.
“That is what we need to find out.”
Nico entered.
Unlike most of Lorenzo's men, he had an almost ordinary face.
Maybe that was why he was frightening.
He looked like someone who could stand behind you at a grocery store and never be remembered.
“We pulled Hunter's employment records.”
My stomach tightened.
“And?”
“You applied through East Harbor Domestic Staffing six months ago.”
“Yes.”
“They rejected you.”
“I never got a rejection.”
“They didn't send one.”
“Why?”
“Because East Harbor didn't place you here.”
I looked at Lorenzo.
“Then who called me?”
Nico handed me a printed sheet.
The number that contacted me belonged to a prepaid phone.
No registered owner.
But the call had bounced through a business account used by a charitable foundation.
I recognized the name immediately.
THE SOPHIA ROSSI FAMILY FOUNDATION.
I stared.
“Your wife hired me?”
Lorenzo's face became unreadable.
“The foundation continued operating after her death.”
“Who runs it?”
“My attorney and trustees.”
“But somebody used it to call me.”
“Yes.”
“Could Sophia have arranged it before she died?”
Nico answered.
“The authorization to place Hunter in the mansion was created four months before the bombing.”
I stopped breathing.
Four months.
I had only been five months pregnant then.
Sophia knew who I was before my baby was born.
“How?”
Lorenzo's phone rang.
He ignored it.
I looked at Sophia's photograph again.
“Did she ever come to Manhattan alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know Daniel?”
“Daniel Harper?”
“My son's father.”
“I don't know.”
Nico quietly said, “We found something about him.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Daniel Harper wasn't his legal name.”
I laughed because the alternative was screaming.
“Of course it wasn't.”
“His real name was Daniel Hayes.”
“So?”
“He did contract security work.”
“For whom?”
Nico looked at Lorenzo.
“Several companies associated with the Rossi organization.”
I stared at him.
“You knew him?”
Lorenzo shook his head.
“I employ thousands of people across legitimate companies alone.”
“Don't give me the legitimate-company speech.”
His expression hardened.
“I wasn't.”
Nico continued.
“Daniel worked on surveillance installation for a Rossi-owned shipping warehouse in Brooklyn.”
“What does that have to do with Sophia?”
“Three months before he disappeared, Mrs. Rossi visited the warehouse.”
“Why?”
“That's what we don't know.”
My skin felt cold.
“What happened to Daniel?”
Nico hesitated.
“We can't find him.”
“You mean now?”
“We can't find evidence he existed anywhere after April first.”
“He left me April first.”
Nobody spoke.
I sank into a chair.
April first.
Seven weeks before Eli's birth.
Three days before Daniel disappeared, Sophia Rossi had visited a warehouse where he worked.
Months earlier, she had selected me for a job inside her home.
“What was she doing?”
Lorenzo looked toward Sophia's picture.
“I thought she was reviewing foundation inventory.”
“You thought?”
“She had started asking questions about shipments coming through our warehouses.”
“What shipments?”
“Medical equipment.”
Mara entered behind us.
Apparently she had heard the last sentence.
“What kind?”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Ventilators. Monitors. Pharmaceutical refrigeration units. Things donated through Sophia's foundation to clinics.”
“Bellweather House?”
Silence.
Mara understood.
“Oh God.”
“What?” I demanded.
She looked at me.
“Bellweather House officially closed nine years ago, but its corporate registration was never dissolved. It's legally controlled by a charitable medical trust.”
“Whose trust?”
Mara looked at Lorenzo.
“Sophia's foundation.”
My mouth went dry.
“So whoever took Eli used a clinic owned by Sophia?”
“Controlled through layers,” Lorenzo said.
“But yes.”
I stood.
“And you didn't know?”
“No.”
“How does a man with a two-billion-dollar empire not know what his own wife's foundation owns?”
“Because Sophia deliberately kept some charitable operations separate from me.”
“Why?”
His answer was simple.
“Because she didn't trust everyone around me.”
That silenced the room.
Including Lorenzo.
Nico placed another document on the table.
“There is more.”
I almost laughed again.
Apparently there was always more.
“What now?”
“We checked Rebecca.”
“The nurse?”
“She had a sedative in her bloodstream.”
Mara's eyes widened.
“What?”
“A mild dose. Enough to explain why she fell asleep.”
“So she wasn't spying.”
“Probably not.”
“Then someone drugged her?”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
Lorenzo looked toward the mansion around us.
“Too many people.”
I suddenly hated every wall.
Every hallway.
Every polished surface.
Someone inside this beautiful house knew where Eli was.
I could feel it.
A knock came.
One of the household employees entered carrying my folded maid uniform.
“Ms. Morgan? We found something in your room.”
She held out the uniform.
A tiny object rested on top.
Brass.
My heart stopped.
A key.
Number 117 was stamped into the metal.
Lorenzo stared.
“No.”
“What?”
His eyes widened.
“That is Sophia's key.”
Nobody moved.
The housekeeper looked terrified.
“Where was it?” Lorenzo demanded.
“Inside the seam of Ms. Morgan's spare uniform.”
I grabbed the key.
“I've never seen this.”
“I believe you,” Lorenzo said.
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because Sophia had your uniforms altered before you were hired.”
The room spun.
“She put it there?”
“She must have.”
“But she died before I started.”
“Yes.”
I stared at the key in my palm.
Sophia Rossi had known my name.
She had arranged for me to work inside her home months before we ever met.
She had hidden a key inside a uniform that would eventually belong to me.
Then she had died.
And weeks later, my son had been stolen.
I suddenly remembered something.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at me.
“The day Daniel disappeared.”
“What about it?” Nico asked.
“He left something.”
I had forgotten because it seemed meaningless.
“He left an envelope in my apartment.”
“What was inside?”
“A baby book.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“That's all?”
“I thought it was an early gift. There was no note.”
“What kind of baby book?”
“Green cloth. Gold moon on the cover.”
Lorenzo's face changed.
“What?”
He crossed the room quickly and opened a cabinet.
From the top shelf he removed a photograph album.
Green cloth.
Gold moon.
My pulse exploded.
“Where did you get that?”
“Sophia.”
I touched the cover.
It was identical.
“She ordered two,” Lorenzo whispered.
One for Leo.
One for Eli.
Before either child was born.
I stumbled backward.
“Why?”
Nobody answered.
Then Mara spoke.
“Maybe the children were connected before the hospital.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Lorenzo's eyes remained on the album.
“Hunter, we need your copy.”
“It was in my apartment.”
“Was?”
“I threw almost everything into storage after the funeral.”
“We go now.”
An hour later, Lorenzo's men were opening the small storage unit I had rented in Queens.
Boxes covered the floor.
Baby clothes.
A bassinet.
Diapers.
Things I had been unable to look at.
I stood frozen.
Lorenzo quietly told everyone else to wait outside.
He didn't touch anything.
That mattered too.
I opened the box marked BOOKS.
The green album was inside.
My hands trembled as I lifted it.
I had never opened it.
Not once.
I thought Daniel had intended for us to fill it together.
I opened the front cover.
A folded piece of paper slipped onto the floor.
Lorenzo picked it up.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He handed it to me.
The handwriting belonged to Daniel.
I knew immediately.
Hunter, if I disappear, take this book to Sophia Rossi. Do not trust anyone who tells you our son died unless you see him yourself.
I couldn't breathe.
Below that was another line.
If Sophia is dead too, find locker 117.
I looked at the brass key.
Lorenzo stared at me.
Daniel had known.
Months before Eli was born.
Months before Sophia died.
May you like
He had known someone might try to make me believe my baby was dead.
And he had known Sophia Rossi was the only person I could trust.
