“You stay with us.” “No.” His eyebrows lifted. “I don’t know you.” “The children know you.” “That doesn’t mean I move into your house.” “My father may be alive.” “Your problem.” “He may have arranged your pregnancy.” My answer died. Damian stepped closer. “If Patricia is telling the truth, someone manipulated you before conception, monitored your pregnancy, falsified deaths, transferred three infants through illegal channels and erased records.”
Each word tightened something around my chest. “And now,” he continued, “someone knows you and I are standing in the same room with those children.” I looked toward the diner windows. Every shadow outside suddenly seemed dangerous. Damian lowered his voice. “You’re not going home alone.” I hated that he was right. An hour later, I sat in the back seat of a black SUV with three toddlers piled around me. Grace had fallen asleep with her hand wrapped around one of my fingers. Luca leaned against my side. Eli played with the edge of my sleeve.
Damian sat opposite me.
He had removed his suit jacket.
Without it, he looked less like the terrifying figure the city whispered about and more like an exhausted father who had been hit by the same impossible truth as me.
“Tell me about them,” I said.
His gaze moved to the children.
“Grace likes strawberries but hates bananas.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
He continued.
“Luca climbs everything.”
Luca looked up as if proud.
“And Eli?”
“Eli pretends he doesn’t understand instructions when he doesn’t want to follow them.”
Eli smiled.
Damian almost smiled back.
“How long have they been with you?”
“Since they were six weeks old.”
Six weeks.
I swallowed.
“Who had them before?”
“I was told a foster placement.”
“Did you ever meet the foster parents?”
“No.”
“Didn’t that seem strange?”
“At the time, no.”
His voice grew quieter.
“My wife was dying.”
I looked at him.
He stared out the window.
“She had cancer. She couldn’t have children. She arranged everything. I thought she wanted to leave me something good before she was gone.”
My anger softened despite myself.
“When did she die?”
“Eleven months ago.”
So she had known the children for three months.
“Did she love them?”
Damian looked at me.
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation.
That mattered.
I nodded.
“Then whatever else happened, I won’t hate her without knowing why.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Respect, maybe.
Or surprise.
The SUV turned through enormous iron gates.
I stared.
Damian’s home wasn’t a house.
It was practically an estate.
Stone walls.
Tall windows.
Security lights.
Men positioned near the driveway.
“This is ridiculous.”
He glanced at me.
“What is?”
“Your house.”
“It’s functional.”
“It has turrets.”
“They’re decorative.”
That almost made me laugh again.
Inside, the children were immediately surrounded by familiar staff.
A gray-haired woman named Mrs. Bell took one look at me and froze.
Then she looked at Grace.
Then back at me.
“Oh.”
Just that.
Oh.
I suddenly wondered how many people had noticed the resemblance before today.
“Did you know?” I asked.
Mrs. Bell looked horrified.
“No.”
“But you see it.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
That frightened me more than denial would have.
The DNA technician arrived before midnight.
Buccal swabs.
Paperwork.
Photographs.
Chain-of-custody seals.
I watched every movement.
Damian did too.
No shortcuts.
No whispered instructions.
No intimidation.
For someone with his reputation, he was almost obsessively careful.
Results would take several hours.
“Several hours?” I asked.
The technician nodded.
“Expedited sequencing.”
I decided not to ask how much Damian had paid.
The children refused to sleep without me.
That was how I ended up sitting in a nursery I had never seen, holding Grace while Luca and Eli slept beside me on an enormous rug.
The room was filled with toys.
Books.
Tiny shoes lined neatly near a bench.
Photographs covered one wall.
I stood and walked closer.
The first image showed Damian holding all three babies.
He looked terrified.
I touched the frame.
“You didn’t know what you were doing.”
His voice came from the doorway.
“I still don’t.”
I turned.
He leaned against the frame, arms folded.
Another photograph caught my attention.
A woman with dark hair sat on a sofa holding Grace.
Sofia.
Damian’s wife.
I studied her face.
She looked sick.
Thin.
But happy.
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever mention Claire?”
His expression darkened.
“Rarely.”
“Were they close?”
“No.”
“Then why would Claire arrange the adoption?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
I looked again at Sofia’s photograph.
Something bothered me.
I leaned closer.
Around her neck was a silver pendant.
A small oval.
I knew that pendant.
My heart began pounding.
I reached up to touch the photograph.
“Where did she get this?”
Damian stepped beside me.
“The necklace?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
“My mother has one exactly like it.”
He became still.
“Exactly?”
“My grandmother gave it to her.”
I stared at Sofia’s photograph.
“There were two.”
Damian looked at me.
“What?”
“My grandmother used to say there were two matching necklaces. One for each daughter.”
Silence.
“But my mother was an only child,” I whispered.
Damian’s phone rang.
Vincent.
He answered.
“Yes.”
His face changed.
“When?”
A pause.
“Send it.”
He lowered the phone.
“What?” I asked.
“Vincent found Patricia.”
My heart jumped.
“Where?”
“Not Florida.”
I knew it.
“Where is she?”
“Three miles from St. Matthew’s Hospital.”
A message arrived.
Damian opened it.
A property record.
Small house.
Purchased eleven months ago under another name.
I stared at the owner field.
My knees nearly gave way.
Sofia Marchetti.
Damian read it twice.
“My wife bought your mother a house.”
The room suddenly felt too small.
Then another message appeared.
An image.
Old photograph.
Two young women standing beside each other.
One was my mother.
I recognized her immediately.
The other was a younger version of Sofia’s mother.
They looked almost identical.
I whispered, “No.”
Damian zoomed in.
There was handwriting on the back.
Patricia and Elena, age sixteen.
My mother wasn’t an only child.
She had a twin.
Damian stared at me.
“If Elena was your aunt…”
His sentence died.
I finished it.
“Then Sofia was my cousin.”
The implication hit both of us at the same time.
Sofia had adopted my children.
Not randomly.
Not through chance.
Family had been involved from the beginning.
A soft cry came from behind us.
Grace had awakened.
I picked her up.
The intercom sounded downstairs.
Vincent’s voice.
“Boss. Results are here.”
My legs nearly failed on the staircase.
Damian stayed beside me.
In the library, the technician waited with two sealed envelopes.
She opened the first.
“Maternal probability exceeds 99.99 percent.”
I stopped breathing.
The words barely sounded real.
“You are the biological mother of all three children.”
A sound came out of me that I didn’t recognize.
I covered my face.
Damian turned away.
Maybe to give me privacy.
Maybe because he needed some himself.
I cried until there was nothing graceful left in me.
Luca.
Eli.
Grace.
Alive.
Mine.
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