For the first time since he had entered the diner, the feared man everyone whispered about looked powerless. “They never do this,” he said. I lifted my head. “What?” “With strangers.” His eyes were on the children. “Grace cries when unfamiliar women pick her up. Luca screams if someone touches his hair. Eli won’t let anyone hold him when he’s tired.” Eli was currently half asleep against my shoulder. Damian looked at me. “They knew you.” “That’s impossible.” “I agree.” “But babies don’t remember someone they never met.” “No.”
The answer hung there. Unless I had met them. Unless the hospital had lied about more than their deaths. My blood ran cold. “I was unconscious after surgery.” Damian’s eyes narrowed. “How long?” “Almost a day. Maybe more.” “Could someone have brought them to you?” “I don’t know.” A thought struck me. “I woke up once.” The memory came in fragments. Low lights. A machine beeping. A weight beside my arm. A baby crying. I had always believed it was a dream. I gripped Grace more tightly. “I thought I dreamed it.”
Damian leaned closer.
“What?”
“I remember hearing babies.”
Vincent returned from the kitchen doorway.
“Boss.”
One word.
Damian looked up.
Vincent’s expression had changed.
That scared me more than anything.
“What did you find?”
Vincent glanced at me.
“Claire Moretti called a number registered to Patricia Carter seventeen times during the six weeks before Emily delivered.”
My body went numb.
Patricia Carter.
My mother.
“No.”
Vincent continued.
“Four calls on the day of the delivery. Two afterward.”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Damian stood.
“Where is Patricia now?”
I answered automatically.
“Florida.”
“Are you sure?”
I looked at him.
She had moved nine months ago.
Or said she had.
She had sold her furniture, packed her car and told me she needed distance from the city after everything that had happened.
She rarely called.
When she did, she always changed the subject if I mentioned the babies.
At the time, I thought grief made her uncomfortable.
Now every conversation replayed differently.
I handed Grace to Damian carefully.
“I need my phone.”
Denny remained near the counter.
My purse was still beneath the register.
I moved toward it.
Denny stepped in my path.
“Emily.”
I stopped.
His voice had lost all its earlier cruelty.
“I didn’t know.”
I stared at him.
“You fired me in the rain ten minutes after three children called me Mama.”
His face reddened.
“I thought you were having some kind of episode.”
“And that made what you said okay?”
“No.”
I walked past him.
He caught my arm.
Damian moved so quickly I barely saw him.
One second he stood several feet away.
The next, his hand was around Denny’s wrist.
“Take your hand off her.”
His voice was almost conversational.
That made it worse.
Denny released me instantly.
I retrieved my phone.
There were three missed calls from my mother.
I froze.
She almost never called me more than once.
Then a text appeared.
Emily, please call me before you believe anything anyone tells you.
My hands turned cold.
I showed Damian.
He read it once.
Then again.
Vincent swore quietly.
“How does she know?” I whispered.
Damian’s gaze moved toward the windows.
“She’s been warned.”
“By who?”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
Claire.
I called my mother.
She answered on the first ring.
“Emily.”
Her voice sounded breathless.
“Where are you?”
“Why?”
“Just tell me.”
I looked at Damian.
“At work.”
A pause.
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
Another pause.
Longer.
“Is Damian Marchetti there?”
Every hair on my arms rose.
“How do you know that name?”
Silence.
“Mom?”
“Emily, listen to me carefully.”
My knees weakened.
I gripped the counter.
“Are those children mine?”
She began crying.
Not loudly.
One sharp, broken sound.
That was all I needed.
“Oh my God.”
“Emily—”
“You knew.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
I could barely hear her over the blood pounding in my ears.
“What wasn’t supposed to happen?”
“Your babies were in danger.”
“From who?”
“I can explain.”
“Were they alive?”
She cried harder.
“Were they alive when you told me they were dead?”
“I never told you that.”
The answer stunned me.
“What?”
“The hospital did.”
“You stood beside my bed!”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“By letting me bury three empty coffins?”
The diner reacted around me.
Several customers gasped.
Damian’s face became absolutely still.
My mother whispered, “You weren’t supposed to know.”
I shut my eyes.
“Why?”
“Because their father would have found them.”
Everything stopped.
I opened my eyes.
“What did you say?”
Her breathing changed.
“Emily, please.”
“Their father?”
I had told everyone I didn’t know where the babies’ father was.
That was true in the simplest sense.
I had dated a man named Michael for six months.
He disappeared two weeks after learning I was pregnant.
Phone disconnected.
Apartment empty.
No explanation.
I had hated him for abandoning me.
“What about Michael?”
My mother didn’t answer.
“Mom.”
“His name wasn’t Michael.”
Damian stared at me.
A sick feeling opened inside my stomach.
“What was his name?”
“Emily, I need you to leave the diner.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Tell me.”
A sound came through the phone.
A door closing.
Then my mother’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Michael was working for people connected to the Marchetti family.”
Damian’s expression sharpened.
“What people?” I asked.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
“I found out he had lied to you. I confronted him. He admitted the pregnancy wasn’t an accident.”
My free hand went to my mouth.
The room blurred.
Damian stepped closer.
I put the call on speaker.
My mother didn’t realize.
“He said someone wanted a child connected to a specific bloodline.”
Damian went pale.
Actually pale.
Vincent looked at him.
“Boss?”
My mother continued.
“When the ultrasound showed triplets, everything changed. People started asking questions. Claire contacted me. She said she could make you disappear from their attention.”
“And I trusted her?”
“No,” my mother whispered. “I did.”
My heart cracked in a new place.
“You gave her my children.”
“I thought I was saving them.”
“By giving them to Damian?”
“No.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
I whispered, “What?”
My mother sounded confused.
“What did you say?”
“You said you gave them to someone.”
“I did.”
“To who?”
“I don’t know.”
Damian took the phone from me.
“This is Damian Marchetti.”
My mother stopped breathing.
“I adopted three children fourteen months ago through documentation connected to St. Matthew’s Hospital.”
“No.”
Her voice was immediate.
“No, that wasn’t the arrangement.”
“What arrangement?”
“The babies were supposed to go to a private family overseas.”
Damian and Vincent exchanged a look.
I felt dizzy.
Damian asked, “Who arranged it?”
“Claire.”
“Why?”
“To hide them.”
“From whom?”
My mother began sobbing.
“From your father.”
Damian’s face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
He stepped away from me.
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
He ignored me.
“Patricia, where are you?”
“Damian—”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You already have.”
Vincent was typing rapidly.
My mother’s voice sharpened.
“You don’t understand. If he knows Emily found the children, all of them are in danger.”
Damian looked at me.
“Who?”
The line went silent.
Then my mother whispered one name.
“Vittorio.”
Damian closed his eyes.
Vincent stopped typing.
I had never heard the name before.
But everyone else in the room seemed to sense something had changed.
Damian asked, “How long has my father known?”
My mother whispered, “Since before the pregnancy.”
The call disconnected.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
I stared at Damian.
“Your father?”
He handed me my phone.
“My father is supposed to be dead.”
Vincent said quietly, “Eight years.”
Damian looked toward the rain-darkened street.
“No body was ever recovered.”
I felt suddenly cold.
“What does your father have to do with me?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
His gaze snapped back to mine.
“I said I don’t know.”
For the first time, anger broke through his control.
The children reacted immediately.
Grace began crying.
Damian stopped.
His expression softened at once.
He lowered his voice.
“I’m sorry.”
I went to Grace automatically.
She reached for me.
Again.
No hesitation.
Damian handed her over.
My hands still shook.
“What happens now?”
“DNA test.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
I stared at him.
“You can arrange that?”
“Yes.”
Of course he could.
He was Damian Marchetti.
The man who entered restaurants and silenced rooms.
The man who apparently had enough influence to get private medical testing in the middle of a storm.
I looked at the toddlers.
“And until then?”
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