Chapter 9 - The Third Baby
Gabriel Mercer slammed the photograph onto the table and shouted, "One of these three children was never supposed to exist!"
Mara stared at the image.
Three newborn babies lay beneath a single white hospital blanket. Each wore a silver bracelet marked with a tiny star. The photograph was grainy, but the faces of the infants were clear enough to reveal that they had been born within minutes of one another.
Lucian stood beside Mara, his expression hardening as he studied the picture.
Vittorio Moretti looked as though someone had struck him.
Sophia covered her mouth.
"No," she whispered. "That photograph was destroyed."
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
"You were told it was destroyed. There's a difference."
He stepped into the room, his gray coat hanging open, rain glistening on his shoulders. Two security guards appeared behind him, but he raised one hand to stop them.
"I came for the truth," he said. "And I'm leaving with it."
Lucian moved between Gabriel and Mara.
"You aren't taking anyone anywhere."
Gabriel looked at him with undisguised contempt.
"Still playing the protector, Lucian? You don't even know which child you were supposed to protect."
Mara forced herself to look at the photograph again.
Three babies.
Three bracelets.
Three lives connected to a hospital record that someone had tried to erase.
She pointed to the infant on the left.
"Who is that?"
Gabriel's expression changed.
For the first time since entering the room, he looked uncertain.
"I don't know."
Vittorio suddenly grabbed the edge of the table.
"You're lying."
Gabriel turned toward him.
"Then tell us who it is."
Vittorio said nothing.
Gabriel leaned forward.
"Go ahead. Tell them what happened after the second baby was taken. Tell them why the hospital register listed three births but only two children were ever accounted for."
Sophia began sobbing.
Lucian looked at his father.
"Answer him."
Vittorio's lips parted, but no words came.
Mara felt something cold settle in her stomach.
"Mr. Moretti," she said quietly, "who was the third baby?"
Vittorio finally raised his eyes.
And the name he whispered changed everything.
"Your sister."
Mara couldn't move.
Her sister.
She had spent her entire life believing she had one sibling: Sophie, the girl she had protected through childhood, the woman whose wedding had brought this nightmare into the open.
Now an old photograph suggested another child had been born that night.
Another daughter.
Another person who might have grown up somewhere, unaware of the family she had lost.
"Where is she?" Mara asked.
Vittorio lowered his head.
"I don't know."
Gabriel slammed his palm against the table.
"That's convenient."
Lucian caught his wrist before he could strike again.
"Touch that table one more time, and you'll be escorted out."
Gabriel pulled free.
"You think I came here to threaten you? I've spent my entire life being told that my mother gave me away. That my father wanted nothing to do with me. That my name was a mistake."
His voice cracked.
"Then I found this photograph. I found records showing that three babies were born, and suddenly every person who knew the truth started disappearing."
He turned toward Mara.
"You think Adrian married you because of money? He was looking for something far more valuable than a ledger."
Mara's heart pounded.
"What?"
Gabriel pointed to the photograph.
"The identity of the third child."
Lucian's eyes narrowed.
"Why would that matter to Charles Mercer?"
"Because the third child was born with a condition that made her the legal heir to an estate Charles had been trying to acquire for years."
Vittorio shook his head.
"That's not the whole story."
"Then finish it!" Gabriel shouted.
Sophia rose unsteadily from the bed.
"Stop. Both of you."
The men fell silent.
She looked at the photograph with tears running down her cheeks.
"The third baby wasn't supposed to inherit anything."
Gabriel turned toward her.
"Then why was she hidden?"
Sophia swallowed.
"Because she was the only child who could expose what Charles had done."
Mara stared.
"How?"
Sophia reached into the pocket of her hospital gown and withdrew a small folded paper.
"I kept this for twelve years."
She handed it to Mara.
The paper contained a series of numbers and a handwritten note.
Three children. Three names. One original record.
Beneath it was an address.
Mara recognized the street immediately.
It was the location of her childhood home.
By the time Mara finished reading the note, the room had fallen silent again.
Lucian took the paper from her.
"Is the house still standing?"
Mara nodded slowly.
"Yes. Adrian made me sell it to a property company three years ago, but the company never demolished it."
"Why not?"
"I don't know."
Gabriel let out a short laugh.
"Because the property wasn't the real purchase. Someone bought the house to search it."
Mara looked at him.
"Who?"
"Charles Mercer."
Vittorio's face tightened.
Gabriel continued.
"He believed Thomas Bennett hid the original birth register beneath that property. He paid Adrian to get close to you because he thought you could lead him to it."
Mara shook her head.
"My father never told me about a birth register."
"He wouldn't have," Gabriel replied. "Not if he wanted you to survive."
Lucian folded the note.
"Then we go to the house."
Daniel immediately objected.
"Boss, that location could be compromised."
"Everything is compromised."
"That's not a reason to walk into a trap."
Lucian looked at him.
"Do you have a better idea?"
Daniel hesitated.
Gabriel stepped forward.
"I know a way in that doesn't appear on the property plans."
Lucian regarded him suspiciously.
"How?"
"Because I was there three months ago."
Mara felt her stomach tighten.
"You've been inside my childhood home?"
Gabriel nodded.
"I found a sealed room beneath the basement. It contained boxes of financial records, photographs, and a locked metal case."
"What was inside?"
"I couldn't open it."
He paused.
"But I found a photograph taped to the lid."
Mara swallowed.
"What photograph?"
Gabriel looked directly at her.
"One of you. Standing beside a woman I've never seen before."
They left the annex shortly after sunrise.
Lucian insisted that Mara travel in his vehicle, accompanied by Daniel and two trusted security officers. Gabriel followed in a separate car.
Mara watched the city pass through the window.
Chicago was waking up around them. Delivery trucks moved through intersections. Coffee shops opened their doors. People hurried to work, unaware that the past twelve years of her life were unraveling one secret at a time.
She envied them.
For a few hours, she wanted to be an ordinary woman going somewhere ordinary.
Instead, she was heading toward the house where she had grown up, carrying a note that suggested she had another sister and a father whose identity might never have been what she believed.
Lucian glanced at her.
"You can stay in the car if you don't want to go inside."
Mara shook her head.
"I need to see it."
He nodded.
"Then we'll go together."
She studied him.
"Do you think your father is telling the truth?"
Lucian remained silent for several seconds.
"I think he knows more than he's admitting."
"Do you hate him?"
He looked out the window.
"I don't know what I feel."
Mara understood.
Sometimes betrayal didn't arrive as a single terrible act. Sometimes it arrived in pieces, each one small enough to excuse until the whole truth became impossible to ignore.
She reached for his hand.
He took it.
Neither of them spoke again until the car stopped outside her childhood home.
The house looked smaller than she remembered.
The white paint had peeled near the porch. The garden had become overgrown, and the wooden fence leaned toward the sidewalk. A faded basketball hoop still hung above the garage.
Mara stared at it.
Her father had installed that hoop when she was nine.
She remembered him standing beneath it, holding the ball while she practiced her shots.
She remembered Sophie laughing from the porch.
For a moment, the memories were so vivid that she could almost hear her father's voice.
Then she saw the new lock on the front door.
Someone had been inside recently.
Lucian noticed it too.
"Stay close."
Gabriel approached from the second vehicle.
"There's another entrance."
He led them around the side of the house to a narrow door hidden behind the garage.
The lock had been forced.
Gabriel pushed it open.
Inside, a flight of concrete steps descended into darkness.
Mara stared at the opening.
"My father never told me there was a basement beneath the garage."
Gabriel looked at her.
"That's because it wasn't built for storage."
He switched on his flashlight.
"It was built to hide something."
The stairs led to a narrow corridor with exposed pipes and unfinished walls.
At the end stood a metal door.
Gabriel knelt beside the lock.
"This is where I found the sealed room."
Daniel examined the hinges.
"Someone has been here recently."
Lucian glanced at the dust on the floor.
"How can you tell?"
"Look at the footprints."
Several sets of shoe prints crossed the concrete. Some were old and faded. Others were fresh.
Mara recognized the tread pattern from the shoes Adrian used to wear.
Her chest tightened.
"He's been here."
Lucian turned toward her.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded.
"I bought those shoes for his birthday last year."
Gabriel's expression darkened.
"Then he found something."
He forced the metal door open.
Beyond it was a small room lined with shelves. Cardboard boxes covered the floor. A desk stood against the far wall, its drawers pulled open.
Someone had searched the room thoroughly.
Mara stepped inside.
On the desk lay an old wooden jewelry box.
She recognized it immediately.
It had belonged to her father.
She approached slowly and opened the lid.
Inside were several photographs, a broken wristwatch, and a folded piece of paper.
Mara picked up the paper.
It was a letter addressed to her.
The handwriting was Thomas Bennett's.
Her hands began to tremble.
"Lucian."
He moved beside her.
She unfolded the letter.
My dearest Mara,
If you are reading this, then someone has finally found the records I tried to hide.
I am sorry I couldn't tell you the truth while I was alive. I wanted you to have a childhood free from fear, even if that meant keeping you away from the people who wanted to use you.
There were three babies that night. I promised their mother I would protect them all.
I failed one.
Mara stopped reading.
Tears blurred the page.
Lucian placed a hand on her shoulder.
She continued.
The child you never knew had a name. It was written in the original register, beneath the hospital's official seal.
If you find her, tell her that I never stopped looking.
Tell her that the fault was mine.
And tell her that her mother was innocent.
Mara lowered the letter.
"Her mother?"
Gabriel stepped closer.
"Keep reading."
At the bottom of the page was a final sentence.
The original record is hidden where your mother kept the things she could never bear to throw away.
Mara looked up.
"My mother?"
Daniel frowned.
"Eleanor?"
Mara shook her head.
"No. My father's letter says my mother. But he means someone else."
Gabriel's expression changed.
He slowly removed the photograph he had found three months earlier.
He placed it beside the letter.
The woman in the photograph wore a red coat.
Helena Ward.
But she wasn't holding a baby.
She was standing beside Thomas Bennett.
And between them was a young woman with dark hair and a small crescent-shaped birthmark beneath her ear.
Mara stared at the woman.
She had seen that face before.
Not in a photograph.
In the mirror.
For several seconds, Mara couldn't speak.
The woman in the photograph looked almost exactly like her.
The same eyes.
The same shape of the mouth.
The same small crescent-shaped mark.
Lucian leaned closer.
"Who is she?"
Mara shook her head.
"I don't know."
Gabriel examined the picture.
"Her name is written on the back."
He turned it over.
The handwriting was faded, but still readable.
Elena Bennett — November 14.
Mara felt the floor shift beneath her.
"Elena?"
Daniel looked toward her.
"Does that name mean anything to you?"
She closed her eyes.
A memory surfaced.
Her father sitting beside her bed when she was little.
His voice had been quiet, almost a whisper.
If you ever meet a girl named Elena, you must listen to her.
Mara had asked him who Elena was.
He had kissed her forehead and told her it was a story for when she was older.
He had never mentioned it again.
Mara opened her eyes.
"My father told me that name when I was a child."
Lucian studied her.
"What exactly did he say?"
She repeated the words.
Gabriel stared at the photograph.
Then he looked toward the back wall of the sealed room.
"There's something behind that panel."
He moved toward it and ran his fingers along the edges.
A faint click sounded.
The panel shifted.
Behind it was a narrow compartment containing a small metal case.
Gabriel pulled it free.
The case was locked.
A silver keyhole sat beneath the handle.
Mara immediately thought of the key Helena wore around her neck.
"That key," she whispered. "Helena's key."
Lucian turned.
"What about it?"
"She was wearing a silver key when she came to the wedding."
Gabriel examined the lock.
"Then we need to find her."
Daniel's phone rang.
He answered, listened, and went pale.
Lucian turned sharply.
"What?"
Daniel slowly lowered the phone.
"Eleanor has disappeared."
Mara felt her blood run cold.
"What do you mean, disappeared?"
"She left the apartment twenty minutes ago. Her security detail found the door open."
Lucian stepped toward him.
"Did they find any signs of a struggle?"
Daniel swallowed.
"Only one thing."
"What?"
Daniel held up his phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
A red coat lay on the floor beside Eleanor's front door.
Beneath it was a silver key.
And pinned to the fabric was a handwritten note.
Bring Mara to the church where the three babies were baptized. Come alone.
Mara stared at the message.
Lucian's face hardened.
"Which church?"
Daniel looked up.
"St. Agnes."
Mara recognized the name.
Her father had taken her there every Sunday when she was young.
She remembered the stained-glass windows.
The marble altar.
The small baptismal chapel where he had once knelt beside her and whispered a prayer she had never understood.
Gabriel stepped closer.
"That's where the original records were supposed to be kept."
Mara turned toward him.
"What records?"
He looked at the metal case.
"The baptismal register."
Lucian's expression changed.
"If the original register still exists, it could prove who all three children were."
Gabriel nodded.
"And it could identify the person who ordered the records changed."
Mara looked down at the letter from her father.
I promised their mother I would protect them all.
She read the sentence again.
Three babies.
Three names.
One original record.
And a woman named Elena Bennett who looked exactly like her.
She felt a strange certainty settle in her chest.
Elena wasn't just another name in the conspiracy.
She was the missing piece.
They left the house with the metal case and Thomas's letter.
Lucian insisted that Mara remain between him and Daniel as they approached the vehicles.
Gabriel walked behind them, carrying the photograph.
The morning had grown brighter, but Mara felt as though she were moving deeper into darkness.
She kept thinking about the third baby.
The missing sister.
The woman who looked like her.
And Eleanor, who had vanished with a red coat left behind.
At the car, Lucian turned toward her.
"We can wait for backup."
Mara shook her head.
"If Eleanor is in danger, we can't wait."
"Then we go carefully."
She nodded.
He opened the passenger door.
Before she could climb inside, Gabriel spoke.
"Mara."
She turned.
He held out the photograph of Elena.
"There's something I didn't tell you."
Lucian's expression hardened.
"What?"
Gabriel looked at Mara.
"When I found the sealed room three months ago, I discovered another document beneath the floorboards."
"What document?" Mara asked.
"A hospital transfer order."
He swallowed.
"It listed three babies. But the names had been crossed out and replaced."
Mara felt her pulse quicken.
"Who replaced them?"
Gabriel turned the paper over.
A signature appeared at the bottom.
Vittorio Moretti.
Lucian stared.
"My father?"
Gabriel nodded.
"And beside his signature was the name of the doctor who approved the transfer."
Mara looked at the paper.
The name was familiar.
She had seen it on the forged marriage certificate.
She had seen it in the hospital records.
And she had seen it in the documents Adrian kept hidden in his office.
Dr. Samuel Cross.
Gabriel's voice dropped.
"He's still alive."
Lucian took the document.
"Where is he?"
Gabriel looked toward the street.
Then he answered.
"At St. Agnes Church."
Mara stopped breathing.
Because from across the road, a church bell began to ring.
And standing beneath the stone archway of St. Agnes was a woman in a red coat, holding Eleanor Bennett by the arm.
The woman turned toward them.
She lifted her free hand.
May you like
And called out:
"Mara, don't come inside. Your sister is already here."
