Chapter 4 - My Name Is Isabella
Sebastian had faced prosecutors, police raids, rival crews, and cameras waiting outside courthouses.
None of those things prepared him for his daughter.
He stood ten feet inside the abandoned church and couldn't speak.
Isabella wrapped her arms around herself.
“You were supposed to answer.”
Sebastian swallowed.
“I don't know how.”
Her mouth tightened.
“You always look like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like you're deciding whether to kill somebody.”
To my surprise, Sebastian almost laughed.
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
“People have told me.”
“Maybe listen to them.”
That time I did laugh.
Both Morettis looked at me.
The resemblance was suddenly impossible to miss.
Not just their eyes.
Their expressions.
Their stubbornness.
Even the way they tilted their heads when irritated.
Sebastian slowly lowered himself onto one of the old church pews.
It was a brilliant instinct.
Whether intentional or not, he made himself smaller.
Less threatening.
Isabella remained standing.
“Where's Margaret?” I asked.
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did she force you to leave the hospital?”
Isabella hesitated.
“No.”
Sebastian noticed.
“What did she tell you?”
Isabella stared at him.
“That you were coming.”
“How?”
“She saw your name on the volunteer schedule.”
Sebastian frowned.
“You knew I volunteered?”
“She did.”
“How long?”
“Years.”
That landed heavily.
Sebastian had believed his visits were private.
Apparently Margaret had been watching.
“Why didn't you come before?” I asked.
Isabella looked toward the boarded windows.
“Because I didn't believe her.”
“About Sebastian?”
“About everything.”
She sat three pews away.
“When I was little, she told me my parents died in an accident.”
Sebastian lowered his gaze.
“When I was twelve, I found newspaper clippings.”
“What kind?”
“About him.”
She nodded toward Sebastian.
“Murders. Investigations. Missing people.”
Sebastian's face didn't change.
Isabella continued.
“I asked Margaret why she had hundreds of articles about a man we'd never met.”
“What did she say?”
“That my mother worked for his family.”
Sebastian looked up.
“She changed the story?”
“All the time.”
Isabella nodded.
“Then when I got pregnant, she panicked.”
“Why?”
“She kept saying history was repeating.”
I sat beside Isabella, leaving space between us.
“Tell us about the baby.”
Her expression softened instantly.
“His name is Luca.”
Sebastian inhaled quietly.
So Baby Boy Miller finally had a name.
“Luca,” he repeated.
Isabella looked at him.
“My choice.”
“It's a good name.”
“Don't act like you get a vote.”
“I wasn't.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
“Who is Luca's father?” I asked.
“Noah.”
“Last name?”
“Reed.”
“Does he know about Luca?”
Her eyes filled with fear.
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“I don't know.”
Sebastian's posture changed.
“How long has he been missing?”
“Four days.”
“Did Margaret have anything to do with it?”
“No.”
“You're sure?”
“Noah came with me to the hospital.”
I remembered no young man.
“He wasn't allowed back,” Isabella continued. “Margaret called him and told him I changed my mind. Then she took his phone.”
“Why?”
“She said anyone close to me could be used against me.”
Sebastian stared at the floor.
That language clearly meant something to him.
“What else did Margaret say?”
Isabella reached into her sweatshirt pocket.
She removed a photograph.
The same image from the security footage.
Young Sebastian holding infant Isabella.
She handed it to him.
He accepted it with both hands.
The edges shook between his fingers.
“She gave me that when we left the hospital.”
“Where did she get it?”
“She said my mother gave it to her.”
Sebastian looked confused.
“That isn't possible.”
“Why?”
“The only copy outside the coffin was stolen after the funeral.”
Isabella stared at him.
“Maybe Margaret stole it.”
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe my mother gave it to her before she died.”
Sebastian shook his head.
“Elena believed you were dead.”
Isabella's eyes sharpened.
“How do you know?”
“Because she spent eleven months grieving you.”
“How do I know you're not lying?”
“You don't.”
The answer stopped her.
Sebastian handed the photograph back.
“But I can show you her journals. Her letters. The nursery we never touched.”
Pain moved across his face.
“I can show you the wall where she marked your name every June eighteenth because she couldn't bear to buy another birthday cake.”
Isabella's eyes filled.
Sebastian's voice grew rough.
“She loved you.”
“Then why did she let me go?”
“She didn't.”
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
He nodded slowly.
“I don't.”
The honesty seemed to unsettle Isabella more than denial would have.
I reached for the medical bag I'd brought from the hospital.
“Isabella, you gave birth recently. Have you been examined since leaving?”
“I'm fine.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
She gave me a look.
Then winced when shifting position.
Sebastian noticed instantly.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Rachel?”
“Stop.”
Isabella glared at him.
“You don't get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like my father because we have the same eyebrows.”
Sebastian went silent.
I stepped in.
“She's right.”
He looked at me.
“Thank you,” Isabella said.
“But he's also not wrong to worry.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I hate nurses.”
“You came to the wrong place for sympathy.”
That earned the first real smile I'd seen from her.
Then the church's side door opened.
Sebastian stood so quickly the pew scraped.
A thin man in his seventies entered.
“Relax,” he said.
Isabella shot to her feet.
“Father James.”
The priest looked at Sebastian.
“So you're the famous one.”
Sebastian's expression remained guarded.
“You know who I am?”
“Everyone does.”
“Then you know this meeting puts you at risk.”
Father James shrugged.
“I've survived forty-three years of church committees. Criminals don't frighten me.”
I liked him immediately.
He handed Isabella an envelope.
“This came for you.”
Her face changed.
“From Margaret?”
“No idea. It was under the office door.”
Sebastian stepped closer.
“Don't open it.”
Isabella glared.
“Stop giving me orders.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“It's paper.”
“Paper has killed more people in my world than guns.”
That silenced everyone.
Isabella handed it to me.
“You open it.”
I did.
Inside were three things.
A birth certificate.
A hospital photograph.
And a flash drive.
The birth certificate named the child:
ISABELLA ELENA MORETTI
Mother:
ELENA MARIA MORETTI
Father:
SEBASTIAN ANTONIO MORETTI
Isabella stared.
Sebastian didn't breathe.
Then she picked up the hospital photograph.
It showed a tiny infant lying under warming lights.
A handwritten number appeared beneath it.
9
Bed nine.
On the back was a message.
Bella, if you are reading this, I failed to tell you the truth before it became dangerous.
Sebastian Moretti is your father.
But your father is not the man you should fear most.
Isabella's hands began shaking.
There was more.
Do not trust anyone from Pine Valley who was working the night you were born.
Especially Dr. Vale.
Sebastian's eyes hardened.
I took the flash drive.
“We need to give this to Detective Morrison.”
“No,” Isabella said.
“Yes.”
“It was sent to me.”
“And if it contains evidence, mishandling it could destroy a case.”
She looked at Sebastian.
“What do you think?”
The question surprised him.
He answered carefully.
“Rachel's right.”
Isabella studied him.
“You agree with people a lot more than the news says.”
“The news doesn't follow me around hospitals.”
“Maybe they should.”
Father James coughed to hide a smile.
Then Sebastian's phone rang.
He checked the number.
Detective Morrison.
Sebastian answered.
“Morrison.”
The detective's voice was loud enough for me to hear.
“Where are you?”
“Busy.”
“I told you not to go into that church without—”
“What happened?”
A pause.
Then Morrison said, “We found Margaret Miller's car.”
Isabella stepped closer.
“Where?”
Sebastian put the call on speaker.
Morrison continued.
“Abandoned near the river.”
Isabella went pale.
“Was she inside?”
“No.”
She exhaled.
“But there was blood in the front seat.”
Sebastian's face darkened.
“How much?”
“Enough that I'm concerned.”
Isabella sank onto the pew.
“Margaret…”
Sebastian crouched several feet in front of her.
“Listen to me.”
She looked at him.
“We don't know she's hurt.”
“She raised me.”
“I know.”
“I yelled at her.”
“Isabella—”
“I told her I hated her.”
Sebastian's face softened.
“People we love usually hear things we don't mean.”
She stared at him.
“You know that?”
“Elena told me she hated me the morning Isabella died.”
The girl flinched at hearing her own name as a separate person.
Sebastian continued.
“She was hurting. I knew that.”
“Did you forgive her?”
“There was nothing to forgive.”
Isabella looked down.
For the first time, the distance between them seemed smaller.
Then Morrison's voice came through the phone again.
“Moretti.”
“Yes?”
“We found something else in Margaret's car.”
“What?”
“A hospital ID card.”
“That isn't surprising.”
“It isn't hers.”
Sebastian's eyes narrowed.
“Whose?”
Morrison hesitated.
“Evan Vale's.”
The room went still.
Then Isabella whispered:
“He knows I'm alive.”
Nobody answered.
She looked toward the church windows.
“He knows about Luca.”
Sebastian's expression changed completely.
“Your son is protected.”
“You can't know that.”
“He's inside a locked NICU with hospital security.”
“In Dr. Vale's hospital.”
That sentence hit me like ice water.
Sebastian and I looked at each other.
Then we both moved.
My phone was already in my hand.
I called the unit.
No answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
Sebastian called Marco.
“Get inside Pine Valley. Now.”
I dialed Nurse Jenkins directly.
She answered on the fifth ring.
“Rachel?”
“Is Luca okay?”
Silence.
“Jenkins?”
Her voice lowered.
“Rachel, something strange is happening.”
“What?”
“Administration just sent a transport team.”
My stomach dropped.
“For Luca?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they taking him?”
“Vale Children's Research Center.”
“There is no transfer order.”
“They have one.”
“Do not let them touch that baby.”
“Rachel—”
“Listen to me. Lock bed nine. Call security. Right now.”
Behind me, Sebastian had gone frighteningly calm.
Jenkins whispered, “The transport team is already inside.”
Then I heard a man's voice near her.
The call disconnected.
Isabella stood.
“My baby.”
Sebastian turned toward her.
“I'll bring him back.”
“No.”
She walked straight toward him.
“We bring him back.”
He looked at his daughter.
Seventeen years ago, someone had taken her out of bed nine.
Now someone appeared to be trying the same thing with her son.
Sebastian slowly nodded.
May you like
“Together.”
And for the first time, Isabella Moretti followed her father out the door.
