Chapter 8 - Rosa’s Confession
Nobody spoke.
Rebecca lay against me, bleeding from a cut along her side.
Rosa stood ten feet away.
Lorenzo’s face became unreadable.
“Mother.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“Take Rebecca inside.”
“No.”
Lorenzo moved toward her.
“You don't get to order anyone anywhere right now.”
One of the guards looked uncomfortable.
Good.
At least someone in this family still found things abnormal.
Rebecca gripped my arm.
“She started the adoption network.”
Rosa looked at her.
“You don't know what you're talking about.”
“I was there.”
“Thirty years ago.”
“I was seventeen, not blind.”
Lorenzo’s voice became frighteningly calm.
“Explain.”
Rosa stared at her son.
Then at me.
Finally:
“The original network wasn't trafficking.”
Rebecca laughed bitterly.
“That’s what you tell yourself?”
Rosa snapped, “We were helping women!”
“By changing birth certificates?”
“By helping unmarried girls escape men who would kill them.”
“And taking money from rich families?”
“To pay doctors. Lawyers. Housing.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“This is what she does. She makes everything sound necessary.”
Rosa’s eyes flashed.
“I saved your sister.”
The cemetery went silent.
Rebecca froze.
“What?”
“I got Catherine out.”
My heart stopped.
“You said she disappeared.”
“She did.”
“You said you didn't know what happened.”
“I lied.”
Lorenzo looked as if someone had struck him.
“Is Catherine alive?”
Rosa didn't answer.
I moved toward her.
“My mother.”
“Hunter—”
“Is my mother alive?”
Tears appeared in Rosa Rossi’s eyes.
“Yes.”
The world vanished.
Birds.
Wind.
Stone.
Everything.
“Yes?” I whispered.
“She survived.”
My knees weakened.
Lorenzo caught me.
I pushed him away.
“Where is she?”
“I don't know now.”
“Don't lie.”
“I’m not.”
“You've lied about everything.”
“I know.”
“Where?”
“She left the country twenty-three years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because Vincent wanted her dead.”
Lorenzo looked toward his father's mausoleum.
“My father?”
Rosa nodded.
“Catherine discovered the hospital accounts. She thought the money came from adoption payments. It didn't.”
“What was it?”
“Vincent was laundering money through medical charities.”
Rebecca stared.
“I knew that.”
“You knew part.”
Rosa looked at Lorenzo.
“Your father was building a private network beyond the family. Judges. Doctors. police. Politicians.”
Lorenzo’s mouth tightened.
“And Catherine had records.”
“Yes.”
“The ledger.”
“Yes.”
I put my hands over my face.
“This is insane.”
Rebecca touched my back.
I pulled away.
She looked hurt.
Good.
I was hurt too.
“You knew?”
“Hunter.”
“You knew Catherine was my mother.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe you gave birth to me.”
“I raised you.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I promised Catherine.”
“You came to the hospital when Ava was born.”
Her face collapsed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Nick called me before he died.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“He knew Marco was watching you.”
“You spoke to Nick?”
“Yes.”
“But you hated him.”
“I hated his last name.”
“You knew who he was?”
“The first moment I saw him.”
I remembered the dropped coffee cup.
The pale face.
My anger became exhaustion.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because every time the Rossi family entered our lives, somebody disappeared.”
Rosa flinched.
Rebecca continued.
“I thought if you never knew, you would be safe.”
“But you worked with Marco.”
“No.”
“Halpern said you introduced him.”
“I introduced Marco to Halpern years ago because he claimed Lorenzo wanted information about stolen adoption records.”
Lorenzo turned.
“I never did.”
“I know that now.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Marco used me.”
“When did you realize?”
“When Nick died.”
My chest hurt.
“He called you?”
“He left me a voicemail.”
“Everyone gets Nick’s voicemails except me?”
“He was trying to protect you.”
“I’m so tired of that sentence.”
Nobody answered.
I walked away several steps.
Protection.
Every lie had been called protection.
Every secret.
Every stolen choice.
My daughter had been taken because people decided I couldn't handle the truth.
I turned.
“No more.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“No more protecting me by lying.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don't.”
I pointed toward the mansion beyond the trees.
“My daughter is alive because I broke rules and walked into a room I wasn't allowed to enter. Leo is alive because I ignored what everybody told me was safe.”
I looked at Lorenzo.
“You want my trust?”
“Yes.”
“Then no more secrets.”
He nodded.
I looked at Rosa.
“You too.”
She didn't answer.
“Then you don't get near Ava.”
That landed.
Rosa had survived bullets without flinching.
The possibility of being kept from her granddaughter hurt her.
“Fine.”
“Tell me everything.”
She looked around the cemetery.
“This isn't the place.”
“It's perfect.”
Her husband’s name was behind her.
Her lies were beneath us.
Rosa slowly sat on the marble bench.
“When Catherine discovered Vincent’s network, she came to me.”
“Why you?”
“Because she knew I hated what he was becoming.”
Lorenzo stared.
“You stayed with him.”
“I had three children.”
“Two,” he said.
Rosa looked down.
“Nicholas wasn't Vincent’s son.”
Silence.
Lorenzo went still.
“What?”
I whispered, “Oh, come on.”
Even Rebecca looked surprised.
Rosa closed her eyes.
“I had an affair.”
“With whom?” Lorenzo asked.
“Catherine’s brother.”
I stared.
“Catherine had a brother?”
“Half-brother.”
Rosa rubbed her forehead.
“Antonio had several illegitimate children. Your family tree is... complicated.”
“That is one word for it.”
Lorenzo wasn't amused.
“Did Nicholas know?”
“Yes.”
My heart twisted.
Nick had carried more secrets than anyone should.
“That’s why Father hated him.”
“Yes.”
“And why Nick left.”
“Partly.”
Lorenzo walked away.
I understood suddenly.
Nick had spent his life feeling like an outsider inside his own family.
Then he had found me.
Another hidden Rossi descendant.
Maybe that had frightened him.
Maybe it had made him feel less alone.
Rebecca said, “Marco discovered the truth too.”
Rosa nodded.
“Which meant Ava connected two bloodlines Vincent had tried to erase.”
“And the trust?”
“Real.”
“Four hundred million?”
“Approximately.”
I laughed weakly.
“My daughter owns more money than I will see in ten lifetimes.”
Rosa looked at me.
“She owns a claim. Not the money.”
“I don't care about the money.”
“I know.”
“Does Marco?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca gripped her wound.
“He cares about the ledger more.”
“Where is it?”
Rosa looked toward the black box Lorenzo carried.
“On the drive.”
Lorenzo returned.
“You said it could destroy people.”
“Yes.”
“Us?”
“Possibly.”
“Then why keep it?”
“Because Catherine made me promise.”
My heart stopped.
“You've been in contact with her?”
“Not for twenty-three years.”
“But you kept her evidence.”
“Yes.”
Lorenzo held up the drive.
“What's on this?”
“Names. Payments. Crimes. Enough to expose Vincent’s network and everyone who inherited it.”
Lorenzo’s face darkened.
“Including my organization.”
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
He stared at the drive.
His entire empire might be inside that tiny piece of plastic.
Then he handed it to me.
I blinked.
“What?”
“It's yours.”
Rosa stood.
“Lorenzo.”
“It came from Hunter’s mother.”
“It affects the entire family.”
“So?”
“Don't be foolish.”
He looked at her.
“You've spent thirty years deciding what truths other people were allowed to know.”
Rosa went silent.
Lorenzo turned to me.
“You decide what happens with it.”
I took the drive.
For the first time since entering Rossi House, I understood why people followed him.
Not because he was fearless.
Because sometimes he could choose against himself.
A gunshot exploded from the cemetery gate.
One guard fell.
“DOWN!”
We dropped behind the mausoleum.
A black SUV crashed through the entrance.
Doors opened.
Armed men poured out.
Marco.
Again.
He stood behind them.
“You made this difficult,” he shouted.
Lorenzo fired back.
Rebecca grabbed my hand.
“There's another exit.”
“Where?”
“Inside the mausoleum.”
Of course there was.
We moved.
Rosa opened a hidden floor panel.
A tunnel descended.
Lorenzo covered us.
“Go!”
I entered with Rebecca.
Rosa followed.
Before Lorenzo could, an attacker rushed him.
They disappeared from view.
“Lorenzo!”
Rosa pulled me down.
“He'll come.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he's my son.”
We ran through darkness.
At the end of the tunnel was an old service road.
No vehicle.
No guards.
Rebecca leaned against a tree.
“We need to move.”
Then headlights appeared.
A car approached.
Rosa raised her gun.
The vehicle stopped.
The driver’s door opened.
A woman stepped out.
Late forties.
Tall.
Dark hair streaked with silver.
My breath stopped.
She looked at me.
Not Rosa.
Not Rebecca.
Me.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Hunter?”
Rebecca began crying.
I knew before anyone spoke.
The woman I had believed dead for twenty-four years walked toward me.
May you like
“My baby.”
Catherine Vale was alive.
