Chapter 2 - The Blood Test I Never Expected to Order
For several seconds after seeing Gabriel Santoro in the photograph, I forgot Isabella existed.
That should have been impossible.
Only an hour earlier, I had learned the woman I intended to marry was carrying another man’s child.
Any sane man would have considered that enough betrayal for one evening.
Then Emma handed me the past.
Gabriel stood between Sophia and Isabella in the photograph, one hand inside the pocket of a dark coat, the other resting protectively behind Sophia’s shoulder.
I remembered that coat.
Seven years earlier, Gabriel wore it almost every winter.
He had been more than one of my men.
He had been my brother Matteo’s closest friend.
And after Matteo died, I became convinced Gabriel had sold information that led to the ambush.
I had ordered him killed.
The men sent after him reported the job completed forty-eight hours later.
No body had ever been recovered.
The vehicle supposedly burned beyond recognition.
At the time, I had not questioned it.
Anger makes poor evidence look complete.
I looked at Sophia.
“Tell me why Gabriel was with you.”
She held Emma tighter.
“Not here.”
“You work in my house.”
Her eyes hardened slightly.
“Yes.”
“Isabella is standing six feet away.”
“I noticed.”
“And that photograph says I wasn’t supposed to know something.”
Sophia swallowed.
“Emma.”
The child looked up.
“Can you go with Mrs. Alvarez for a few minutes?”
Emma immediately protested.
“But Mr. Alessandro is sad.”
Despite everything, my chest tightened.
“I’ll survive.”
She studied me suspiciously.
“You promise?”
Nobody had asked me for that kind of promise in years.
“Yes.”
Emma reluctantly allowed Sophia to call one of the senior house staff.
When Emma left, Isabella moved toward the photograph.
“Give me that.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
“Alessandro, you don’t understand what you’re holding.”
“That has become the theme of my evening.”
Sophia whispered:
“Please lock the doors.”
I turned.
“What?”
“The estate.”
“Why?”
“Because if Isabella came here tonight with that photograph, someone else may know she brought it.”
Isabella’s face sharpened.
“Stop.”
Sophia ignored her.
“Mr. Moretti—Alessandro—please.”
I called Dante Russo, my security director.
“Close the estate.”
He did not ask why.
“Visitors?”
“No one in or out without my approval.”
Isabella laughed bitterly.
“Now I’m a prisoner?”
“You’re free to call an attorney.”
“I want to leave.”
“Sophia just told me someone may be waiting for you.”
That stopped her.
Interesting.
I put the photograph on the table.
“Start talking.”
Sophia sat slowly.
Seven years earlier, she had not been a housekeeper.
She worked as an administrative coordinator at Saint Gabriel Women’s Clinic in Brooklyn.
The clinic no longer existed.
I remembered the name only because the Moretti Foundation had donated medical equipment there years ago.
Matteo had visited during one of the foundation events.
That was how he met Sophia.
My brother had been thirty-one.
Sophia twenty-six.
They began seeing each other privately.
I stared at her.
“Matteo?”
“Yes.”
“Why privately?”
Sophia looked toward Isabella.
“Because your family did not want Matteo involved with anyone they couldn’t control.”
My uncle Vittorio.
I felt his name before anyone spoke it.
Vittorio Moretti had been my father’s younger brother.
Old-school.
Traditional.
Brilliant.
Dangerous in ways he described as necessary.
After my father died, Vittorio became the closest thing our organization had to an elder statesman.
He adored bloodlines.
Inheritance.
Family alliances.
Matteo hated every part of it.
“You were carrying Matteo’s child.”
Sophia’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
I looked toward the hallway Emma had disappeared through.
“No.”
Sophia said nothing.
My pulse hammered.
“Emma is Matteo’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
The room became completely silent.
My knees almost failed.
I sat.
Six years old.
Matteo died seven years earlier.
The arithmetic fit.
Everything suddenly fit.
My mother’s brown eyes.
Matteo’s dimple.
The way Emma tilted her head when challenging an adult.
I had seen my brother make that exact expression a thousand times.
“You knew?” I asked Isabella.
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Sophia answered.
“Isabella and I were friends.”
I looked between them.
Sophia explained they grew up in the same neighborhood.
Isabella worked briefly for a Moretti Foundation subcontractor.
She helped Sophia hide appointments after the pregnancy became known to Gabriel.
“Why Gabriel?”
“Matteo trusted him.”
My voice became colder.
“Gabriel betrayed Matteo.”
Sophia looked directly at me.
“No.”
The word struck.
I stood.
“Be very careful.”
“I’ve been careful for seven years.”
She did not raise her voice.
“That’s why my daughter is alive.”
I stared.
“Explain.”
Sophia’s hands trembled.
“Matteo knew someone inside the Moretti organization was watching him.”
“Who?”
“He never told me.”
“Convenient.”
“He was trying to get proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“Money being moved through the family companies. Payments he didn’t understand. Contracts tied to people your uncle controlled.”
Vittorio.
Again.
“Matteo planned to tell you,” Sophia continued. “Then he died.”
I remembered the ambush.
A warehouse district in Queens.
Matteo’s SUV.
Three shooters.
Gabriel supposedly changed the route twelve minutes before departure.
Evidence later showed a phone linked to Gabriel sent the update.
I never questioned whether the phone was actually in his hand.
I had been holding Matteo while he bled.
My brother looked at me once.
Tried to say something.
I thought he said:
“Gabe.”
For seven years, I believed he had been naming his betrayer.
What if he had been asking me to find him?
My stomach twisted.
“After Matteo died?”
“Gabriel came to me the same night.”
Sophia was crying now.
“He told me I had to disappear.”
“Why?”
“Because Matteo had told someone about the pregnancy.”
“Who?”
Sophia looked at Isabella.
Isabella’s face went pale.
“No.”
I turned toward her.
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t know what would happen.”
“WHAT DID YOU DO?”
My voice shook the room.
Sophia flinched.
I immediately lowered it.
Emma was still somewhere upstairs.
No child needed to hear this.
Isabella whispered:
“I told Lorenzo.”
The name hit like another test result.
Lorenzo Moretti.
Vittorio’s only son.
My cousin.
A man who sat on the Moretti Holdings board.
A man scheduled to stand beside me at tomorrow’s wedding rehearsal.
“Why?”
“I was twenty-five.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I was stupid.”
“Still not an answer.”
“He paid my brother’s medical debt.”
There.
Money.
Always money somewhere.
“Lorenzo asked whether Sophia was actually seeing Matteo. I told him yes.”
“And the pregnancy?”
Isabella cried.
“I told him.”
Sophia looked at her with a kind of exhausted hatred.
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“What happened next?” I asked.
Sophia answered.
“Matteo died six days later.”
My blood turned cold.
Then Gabriel arrived.
He had one instruction from Matteo:
If anything happened, protect Sophia and the baby.
Gabriel moved her between safe apartments.
Helped change her records.
The photograph had been taken outside the clinic during the last appointment before Sophia disappeared from New York.
“Who wrote the words on the back?”
“Gabriel.”
Alessandro can’t know.
I felt rage rise.
“Why?”
Sophia’s eyes broke.
“Because Gabriel believed you would tell Vittorio.”
I stared.
“He believed I was part of it?”
“He believed you trusted your uncle more than anyone.”
At the time, I did.
I had just inherited control.
Vittorio guided me through Matteo’s funeral.
Held my mother while she collapsed.
Sat beside me when evidence against Gabriel arrived.
Encouraged me to act quickly.
“A traitor survives by using grief against you,” Vittorio had told me.
I had listened.
“What happened to Gabriel?”
Sophia looked down.
“I don’t know.”
“You said he protected you.”
“For five weeks.”
“Then?”
“He disappeared.”
“Because I ordered his death.”
“Yes.”
I sat again.
For the first time in twenty years, power felt useless.
Sophia continued.
She gave birth under her mother’s surname.
Rossi.
Emma’s birth certificate listed no father.
She moved to Pennsylvania for four years.
Returned to New York after her mother became ill.
Two years ago, she applied for household work through an agency.
“Why here?”
I asked.
That mattered.
She could have worked anywhere.
Sophia took a long time.
“Because I wanted Emma close enough to know her family without putting her inside it.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“You put her under my roof without telling me she was my niece?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because by then I thought Gabriel was dead. Matteo was dead. I had no proof except old messages.”
“You had DNA.”
She stiffened.
“You think I was going to walk into Moretti headquarters with a little girl and announce she was Matteo’s daughter?”
Fair.
“And then Isabella appeared?”
Sophia nodded.
Three months earlier, Isabella recognized her.
Neither said anything.
Until tonight.
“What were you arguing about downstairs?”
Sophia looked at Isabella.
Isabella answered this time.
“I wanted the photograph.”
“Why?”
“Because someone else knows Sophia has it.”
“Lorenzo?”
She did not answer.
That was answer enough.
I stared at Isabella’s stomach.
Then at her.
“Who is the father?”
Her lips trembled.
“Alessandro—”
“Who?”
She started crying.
Sophia looked away.
And something in that gesture told me Sophia already knew.
My stomach turned.
“Isabella.”
She whispered:
“Lorenzo.”
I did not move.
My cousin.
Vittorio’s son.
The child Isabella had tried to place in my nursery belonged to Lorenzo Moretti.
Suddenly tomorrow’s wedding became something more than a personal betrayal.
Isabella carrying Lorenzo’s child.
Marrying me.
Sophia hiding Matteo’s daughter.
A family trust built around blood.
Seven years of silence.
I looked toward Sophia.
“I want a DNA test for Emma.”
Her face hardened immediately.
“No.”
“I need certainty.”
“She is not evidence.”
Correct.
The sentence stopped me.
I lowered my voice.
“You’re right.”
Sophia looked surprised.
“I’m asking.”
Not ordering.
“If you agree, independent laboratory. Your attorney. Your choice of doctor. Nothing through Moretti systems.”
Sophia considered.
Then:
“Only if the result belongs to Emma first.”
“Yes.”
“And it does not go to the family trust without my approval.”
“Yes.”
“And you do not use her to punish Vittorio.”
My jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
She studied me.
Then nodded.
Two days later, under independent legal supervision, samples were taken.
Not to determine whether Emma was mine.
To establish whether she belonged to the Moretti paternal line and specifically whether she was consistent with being Matteo’s child using preserved genetic material from my brother’s medical records.
The results came forty-eight hours later.
Sophia read them first.
Then handed them to me.
Probability of parent-child relationship between Matteo Moretti and Emma Rossi:
99.997%.
My vision blurred.
I sat in the same east drawing room where Emma had hugged me.
The nursery upstairs still waited for a baby that was not mine.
But downstairs, a child I barely knew had just become the last living piece of my brother.
Then Dante entered.
He held an envelope.
“No return address.”
“What is it?”
“Delivered by courier.”
Inside was another old photograph.
Gabriel Santoro.
Older.
Gray at the temples.
Alive.
Written beneath it:
May you like
YOU KILLED THE WRONG MAN, ALESSANDRO.
And on the back was a phone number.
