Chapter 2 - LORENZO TOLD ME MY BABY MIGHT NEVER HAVE DIED
For several seconds, I could hear nothing except Leo swallowing.
Not the rain.
Not the monitor.
Not my own terrified breathing.
Only the tiny, steady rhythm of a starving infant finally taking food his body did not reject.
Lorenzo Rossi stood less than six feet away from me, staring at the hospital bracelet around my wrist as though it had just resurrected a ghost.
“Whose baby did you lose at St. Jude three weeks ago?”
His voice was almost unrecognizable.
I tightened my hold around Leo instinctively.
“My son.”
“What was his name?”
I did not answer.
Lorenzo took another step.
I immediately shifted away.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
That mattered.
The most feared man I had ever met stopped because a maid told him to.
“My son’s name was Noah,” I whispered. “Noah Ellis.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“His father?”
My grief turned instantly defensive.
“That is none of your business.”
“It may be.”
“Why?”
He stared at my bracelet again.
“What date was Noah born?”
“September twenty-third.”
The color disappeared from Lorenzo’s face.
“What time?”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Hunter.”
“What time?”
I hated that he knew my name in that moment. I hated the command inside his voice even though it was shaken by something close to terror.
“Six fourteen in the morning.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
One of the guards behind him muttered something beneath his breath.
“What?” I demanded.
Lorenzo opened his eyes.
“Did Noah’s father call himself Matthew Rose?”
The room vanished beneath me.
Leo slipped slightly against my arm, and I immediately tightened my hold.
“How do you know that name?”
Lorenzo did not answer fast enough.
I felt cold.
“Who told you?”
“Hunter—”
“Who told you?”
Leo startled at my raised voice.
I lowered it immediately, rubbing his back.
Lorenzo looked at his son.
Then at me.
“Matthew Rose wasn’t his real name.”
My heart stopped.
“No.”
“His name was Matteo Rossi.”
I stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“He was my younger brother.”
“No.”
I actually laughed.
A broken, ugly sound.
“No. Matt restored antique furniture. He lived in a rented apartment in Huntington. He drove a twelve-year-old pickup truck that broke down every other week.”
“He left the family.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“He hated men like you.”
That struck him.
Good.
“He told me people who needed armed guards everywhere had usually done something to deserve being afraid.”
One of the guards looked away.
Lorenzo did not.
“That sounds like Matteo.”
I felt my eyes burning.
“No.”
“He left us two years ago.”
Lorenzo’s voice softened.
“He changed his name. Refused family money. Worked restoration jobs under Matthew Rose because our mother used Rose as her maiden name.”
My breath became shallow.
Images rushed back.
Matt laughing while fixing the loose door on my kitchen cabinet.
Matt refusing to let me pay for dinner because he had “finally finished a ridiculous walnut table for a lawyer.”
Matt disappearing for three days once and returning with a cut on his forehead he claimed came from slipping in a workshop.
Matt telling me he had brothers but that “family was complicated.”
Matt crying when I showed him the positive pregnancy test.
Not fear.
Joy.
Then four months later, the police officer at my apartment door telling me he had been killed in a hit-and-run outside Newark.
I had identified his body only through photographs because the damage was severe.
Or I thought I had.
“You knew he was dead?”
Lorenzo nodded.
“For seven months.”
My knees weakened.
“You knew where I was?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know my name?”
Lorenzo looked toward the guards.
“Leave.”
They hesitated.
“Now.”
The door closed.
Only Lorenzo, Leo, the sleeping private nurse, and I remained.
He pulled a chair several feet away and sat rather than loom over me.
“Three weeks before Matteo died, he called me.”
I said nothing.
“He told me he was going to be a father.”
My eyes filled.
“He wouldn’t tell me the mother’s name.”
“Why?”
“He said I couldn’t protect something I didn’t know existed.”
“That sounds paranoid.”
“In my family, it was practical.”
I looked down at Leo.
His sucking slowed.
His eyelids fluttered.
Lorenzo continued.
“After Matteo died, I searched.”
“For me?”
“For whoever was carrying his child.”
“Why?”
“Because Matteo left a sealed trust instruction with our attorney.”
My entire body tightened.
“What instruction?”
“If he died before his child was born, the child would inherit his legitimate Rossi Holdings shares.”
I looked up.
“How much?”
Lorenzo hesitated.
“Approximately four hundred million dollars at current valuation.”
I almost dropped Leo.
“What?”
“Matteo owned seventeen percent of the legitimate family holding company.”
“Matt lived above a laundromat.”
“He wanted nothing from us.”
“This is insane.”
“Yes.”
“You think Noah was worth four hundred million dollars?”
“No.”
Lorenzo’s expression hardened.
“I think somebody else may have.”
I stared.
Then remembered his first question.
The hospital.
The date.
The bracelet.
“What does St. Jude have to do with this?”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
“Two days after Matteo’s death, someone accessed his private estate file.”
“Who?”
“We never proved it.”
“What was in it?”
“The trust provision. A note saying his child was expected in September.”
My blood became ice.
“I found a hospital trace three weeks ago.”
My heartbeat stopped.
“What trace?”
“A private security investigator located a maternity admission at St. Jude under a woman identified only as H. Ellis. Admission date September twenty-second.”
I stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I didn’t know H. Ellis was you.”
“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?”
“We tried.”
My chest tightened.
“Your people?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“By the time they arrived, the file had been sealed.”
“Because my baby died.”
“No.”
Lorenzo’s voice was quiet.
“Because someone filed a private security restriction using a Rossi family authorization code.”
I stopped breathing.
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I.”
“Who can use that code?”
“Me.”
A pause.
“My late wife.”
Another.
“My uncle Carlo.”
There.
A name.
“And Matteo, before he left.”
My fingers trembled against Leo’s back.
Lorenzo continued.
“When my attorney challenged the restriction, St. Jude reported the baby had been stillborn.”
“He was.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“How do you know?”
I felt as if he had slapped me.
“I gave birth to him.”
“Did you see him afterward?”
My mouth opened.
Closed.
I had seen something.
Hadn’t I?
The labor had been terrible.
Thirty hours.
Then sudden bleeding.
A mask over my face.
Doctors shouting.
I remembered someone saying, “We’re losing pressure.”
I remembered waking in recovery.
A nurse beside me.
Her eyes red.
She told me Noah had not survived delivery.
I screamed.
I begged.
They said I was too unstable to see him immediately.
Later, they gave me a tiny white blanket.
A footprint card.
They told me his body had been transferred to a funeral home contracted through the hospital.
The funeral director strongly advised a closed casket because of “birth trauma.”
I had touched the wood.
Kissed it.
Buried it.
But I had never seen my son’s face after delivery.
The room seemed to tilt.
“No.”
Lorenzo watched me carefully.
“Hunter.”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“Don’t do this to me.”
“I’m not telling you he lived.”
“You just did.”
“No.”
He moved slightly forward, then stopped himself.
“I’m telling you there are things I cannot explain.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
Leo had fallen asleep against me, warm and full for the first time anyone had seen in days.
I stared at him.
“What things?”
Lorenzo answered with terrible precision.
“There is no neonatal pathology report in the St. Jude archive.”
My chest tightened.
“No signed body-release form.”
Another.
“The funeral home listed on your discharge paperwork has no transport record for an infant on September twenty-third.”
I made a sound I did not recognize.
“And the Rossi security authorization sealing your medical record was entered forty-one minutes after Noah’s reported time of death.”
“No.”
“There’s more.”
“I don’t want more.”
Lorenzo stopped.
Good.
For ten seconds, he said nothing.
Then I whispered:
“Tell me.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“When Matteo told me about the baby, he said you were carrying a boy.”
I stared.
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“He was so happy.”
“I know.”
My throat closed.
Lorenzo reached into his jacket slowly.
I stiffened.
He removed a phone.
Opened a photograph.
Placed it on the table between us rather than bringing it toward me.
I looked.
Matt.
My Matt.
Standing beside Lorenzo outside what looked like a restaurant.
Same crooked smile.
Same deep brown eyes.
Same tiny scar above his left eyebrow.
Matteo Rossi.
I began sobbing.
Not quietly.
Leo stirred.
I forced myself to breathe.
Lorenzo looked away, giving me privacy inside a room that contained none.
Then the sleeping nurse at the desk moved.
Her head lifted slowly.
“What…”
She blinked in confusion.
Her eyes found me nursing Leo.
Then Lorenzo.
She stood so quickly the chair fell.
“Mr. Rossi?”
Lorenzo’s face changed instantly.
“Why were you asleep?”
She stared.
“I—I don’t know.”
“You were assigned to my son.”
“I know.”
“I had coffee at one-thirty.”
Her expression shifted.
“I suddenly felt dizzy.”
Lorenzo went still.
I looked at the cup on the desk.
A terrible thought entered.
“Don’t touch it.”
He looked at me.
“The coffee.”
The nurse did too.
Lorenzo pressed a button on his phone.
Security entered.
“Seal the room. Nobody drinks or removes anything. Get Dr. Bell.”
The nurse looked terrified.
“I swear I didn’t abandon him.”
Lorenzo believed her enough not to shout.
He looked toward Leo.
Then me.
“Hunter.”
“What?”
“My son is alive right now because you broke my rules.”
I could barely hear.
He continued.
“I’m not going to punish you.”
I laughed bitterly through tears.
“How generous.”
His face tightened.
“You’re right.”
I looked at him.
“That was wrong.”
A mafia boss apologizing beside his son’s crib should have felt stranger.
It didn’t.
“Leo needs medical supervision,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“And I’m not going to keep feeding him because you order me.”
His gaze held mine.
“I won’t.”
“If doctors say it’s unsafe—”
“We stop.”
“If I say stop—”
“We stop.”
“If you think because my baby died my body somehow belongs to your son—”
“No.”
His answer came immediately.
“No, Hunter.”
For the first time, I believed he understood what question actually meant.
Then Dr. Aaron Bell rushed inside with two nurses.
He stopped dead at sight.
Leo sleeping peacefully.
Monitors stable.
My undone uniform.
Lorenzo.
The cup.
Everything.
“What happened?”
Lorenzo answered:
“My son ate.”
Dr. Bell stared.
“How?”
His eyes moved to me.
Understanding.
“Dear God.”
I tightened my shirt over myself.
Dr. Bell immediately looked away.
“Hunter, we need to evaluate both of you before any further feeding.”
“Fine.”
“Blood screening, medication history, infectious screening—”
“Yes.”
“No one blames you for what happened.”
I almost laughed.
That was not true yet.
But maybe.
He examined Leo.
Then his expression changed from surprise to disbelief.
“His heart rate is stable.”
Another.
“Abdominal tension is reduced.”
Another.
“No rash.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
For the first time, I saw hope enter his face.
It frightened him more than rage.
Dr. Bell ordered labs.
Security bagged the nurse’s coffee.
The room became controlled chaos.
I sat in the center holding someone else’s child while my dead lover’s brother stood nearby and told me my buried son might never have been inside the casket.
At 4:11 a.m., Lorenzo’s head of security returned with a preliminary result from a rapid test on the nurse’s coffee.
He leaned close.
“We found a sedative.”
Lorenzo’s eyes turned black.
Dr. Bell looked at Leo.
Then at the untouched bottles lined beside the bassinet.
I saw the same thought spread across his face.
Maybe Leo had not rejected everything.
Maybe someone had made sure everything rejected him.
Lorenzo looked at me.
Two infants.
Two mysteries.
May you like
One family name.
And somewhere inside the Rossi empire, someone had already tried to erase them both.
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