Chapter 13
About me.
Without me.
Exactly the kind of decision I had made for others my entire life.
The irony was almost unbearable.
Then my father said something that changed everything again.
“If Carlo ever discovers the boy survived, Northstar will begin again.”
The recording ended.
I stared at the machine.
“What boy?” Viktor asked.
I already knew the answer I feared.
“Luca.”
“But Carlo died nine years ago.”
“Yes.”
At least, that was what we believed.
I was beginning to hate that phrase.
My phone rang.
Sophia.
I answered immediately.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Dom, Rachel came back.”
I stood.
“She’s at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“What does she want?”
“She wants to talk to both of us.”
“About Gabriel?”
A pause.
“Yes. But there’s something else.”
“What?”
“Dom, come back.”
“Sophia—”
“Please.”
Her voice shook.
Not with panic.
With disbelief.
“We found something in the baby’s records.”
My stomach dropped.
“What records?”
“Elena’s bloodwork.”
I gripped the desk.
“Is she sick?”
“No. She’s healthy.”
“Then what?”
Sophia went silent for several seconds.
When she spoke again, her voice was almost a whisper.
“The hospital ran a family medical screening because of complications during delivery.”
I waited.
“They found a genetic match in an archived pediatric record.”
I didn’t understand.
“What pediatric record?”
“Gabriel’s.”
I stared into the dark warehouse.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Elena and Gabriel are related.”
“Of course they are. If Luca is Gabriel’s father, they’re cousins.”
“No.”
Her voice broke slightly.
“Dom, not cousins.”
Every thought in my mind stopped.
I heard movement behind Sophia.
Another woman speaking.
Rachel.
Then Sophia returned to the phone.
“Come back to the hospital.”
I could barely get the words out.
“What kind of relation?”
Sophia took one unsteady breath.
“The preliminary report says they may be half-siblings.”
I said nothing.
Couldn’t.
Then Rachel’s voice came through the phone.
“Dominic?”
I had never heard it before.
But there was something familiar in it.
Something that made the back of my neck prickle.
“My name is Rachel Martin,” she said. “And before you decide Luca lied to you, there’s something you need to know about Gabriel.”
I gripped the phone harder.
“What?”
Rachel began crying quietly.
Not dramatically.
Like someone who had held the same secret too long.
“Luca isn’t Gabriel’s biological father.”
The warehouse seemed to disappear around me.
“Then who is?”
Rachel did not answer immediately.
When she finally spoke, her next words were soft enough that I almost missed them.