Chapter 4
The other child.
Those three words emptied the room.
My mother grabbed the back of a chair.
Valentina whispered, “No.”
Rachel held the photo under the desk lamp, her face tight.
“What does that mean?”
I could not answer.
I was staring at Leo’s face in the picture.
My son walking out of school with his dinosaur backpack.
Unaware.
Unprotected.
Watched by men who had already taken his mother.
Then my mind caught up.
Other child.
I turned to my mother.
“Did Sofia lose a pregnancy before Leo?”
Lucia shook her head too fast.
“No.”
“Ma.”
Her lips trembled.
“No, Dante.”
That was not an answer.
It was a prayer.
Valentina stood.
“What are you not saying?”
My mother covered her mouth.
I had seen her strong through funerals, raids, betrayals, wars between men who smiled at weddings and sent bullets before dawn.
But now she looked terrified.
“After the accident,” she whispered, “the doctor said Sofia had delivered.”
The study went silent.
My heartbeat roared.
“What?”
“She was dead when they brought her in. He said there was trauma. Emergency delivery. He said the baby did not survive.”
I gripped the desk.
“There was another baby?”
Lucia cried.
“A girl.”
The floor shifted under me.
A daughter.
I had a daughter.
Or I had lost one.
And my mother had buried that truth with Sofia because some doctor told her grief would destroy me.
I could barely hear my own voice.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“They said you would start a war.”
“I should have.”
Leo woke on the sofa.
“A sister?” he whispered.
I turned to him, and the pain in his eyes nearly killed me.
Rachel stepped closer.
“Dante, we need the doctor’s name.”
“Dr. Enzo Marchetti.”
Nico cursed under his breath.
“He’s gone.”
Rachel looked at him.
“What?”
Nico held up his phone.
“His house is empty. Security cameras wiped. His clinic closed early.”
Javier started laughing from the hallway.
Soft at first.
Then louder.
I walked to him.
“Where is she?”
He smiled through split lips.
“Who?”
I hit the wall beside his head.
He flinched.
Rachel shouted my name.
I forced my hand open.
“Where is my daughter?”
Javier’s smile returned slowly.
“You think Sofia was the only woman in this family who knew how to hide things?”
My mother made a wounded sound.
I turned.
She was white.
“What does he mean?”
Javier looked at her.
“Tell him, Aunt Lucia.”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
Valentina grabbed her arm.
“Tell him what?”
Lucia looked at me with tears streaming down her face.
“Your father had a daughter before me.”
I froze.
“My father?”
“With another woman. He sent the child away. Sofia found out before she died. She believed the charity was being used to hide children from families connected to us.”
Rachel’s eyes sharpened.
“Not just your daughter.”
“No,” I whispered.
A whole operation.
Babies declared dead.
Children moved through charity networks.
Names changed.
Families silenced by grief.
My daughter might be alive somewhere because my wife died trying to expose it.
Leo stood on shaky legs.
“Dad.”
I turned.
He held the rosary from the box.
“There’s a name on it.”
I took it from him.
Etched on the back of the tiny cross was one word.
MILA.
My daughter’s name.
I had never heard it before.
Sofia had named her without me.
Because I had not been there.
Because I had been listening to men who told me business mattered more than the fear in my wife’s voice.
Rachel’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, then looked at me.
“We found Father Bellini’s driver.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. He says Bellini took a girl from a private foster house four years ago.”
My hands went cold.
“How old?”
May you like
Rachel swallowed.
“Newborn.”
