Chapter 3 - Twenty Doctors and One Forgotten Truth
Elena stared at the photograph.
“My mother knew Sofia?”
Rosa closed the door.
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“When was this taken?”
“Seven weeks ago,” Rosa said.
Elena shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“My mother died eight months ago.”
Silence.
Lorenzo took the photograph.
The woman beside Sofia was older than Elena remembered her mother, but unmistakable.
Margaret Carter.
Same narrow eyes.
Same silver-blonde hair.
Same small scar beside her chin.
On the back was a date.
Seven weeks earlier.
Elena checked it twice.
“No.”
Rosa whispered, “I found it in Sofia’s sewing box.”
“My mother is dead.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“You saw the body?”
Elena’s mouth opened.
She hated the question.
“No.”
“Why?”
“She died overseas.”
“Where?”
“Switzerland. She was working as a private nurse.”
“Who told you?”
Elena remembered the call.
A hospital administrator.
Documents.
An urn shipped home.
Everything official.
Everything distant.
“I received her ashes.”
Lorenzo’s face remained unreadable.
“That isn't what I asked.”
Elena sat down.
For the first time since entering the Rossi house, she felt truly frightened.
Her mother had spent thirty years as a neonatal nurse.
Elena had grown up around stories of premature babies, exhausted mothers, and frightened fathers.
That was why Elena knew how to hold Matteo.
Not because of formal training.
Because Margaret Carter had taught her.
Support the neck.
Don't rush.
Babies feel your heartbeat.
When they panic, make the world smaller.
Elena had heard those sentences a thousand times.
Lorenzo looked at the photograph again.
“Why would Sofia meet your mother?”
“I don't know.”
Rosa hesitated.
“There’s more.”
She produced a small envelope.
Inside was a hospital visitor badge.
MARGARET CARTER.
St. Catherine’s Hospital.
Elena recognized the institution immediately.
She had worked there briefly two years earlier as a patient-care assistant.
“Why was Sofia there?” Lorenzo asked.
Elena looked at him.
“You tell me.”
His face darkened.
“She told me she was visiting a friend.”
“Was she?”
“I never checked.”
For a man who checked everything, the admission carried weight.
Because Sofia had been the one person he trusted without verification.
Lorenzo ordered his security chief, Marco Bellini, to investigate Margaret Carter.
Then he returned to Matteo.
The baby had awakened.
Elena lifted him.
Lorenzo watched.
“Teach me.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“How to hold him.”
The request was so quiet she nearly missed it.
Elena stood.
“Come here.”
Lorenzo did.
His confidence disappeared the moment she offered him his son.
His hands looked enormous beside Matteo.
“Support his head.”
“I know.”
“Then stop looking like I handed you explosives.”
Lorenzo glared at her.
She almost laughed.
“Relax your shoulders.”
“I am relaxed.”
“You look like a statue.”
“Elena.”
“Matteo can feel it.”
That silenced him.
Lorenzo adjusted his arms.
Elena slowly transferred the baby.
Matteo stirred.
Lorenzo froze.
“Don't stop breathing.”
“I’m breathing.”
“Barely.”
Matteo opened his eyes.
Father and son looked at each other.
Something passed through Lorenzo’s face.
Fear first.
Then grief.
Then an emotion Elena could not name.
Matteo made a small sound.
Lorenzo nearly handed him back.
“No,” Elena said.
“He wants you.”
“How do you know?”
“He isn't crying.”
Matteo’s hand opened against Lorenzo’s shirt.
Lorenzo stared at the tiny fingers.
Then the baby gripped his tie.
Elena smiled.
“He has expensive taste.”
Lorenzo gave a breath that was almost a laugh.
He sat.
For ten minutes, he held his son.
When Elena offered the bottle, Lorenzo shook his head.
“You do it.”
“No.”
His gaze sharpened.
“You wanted to learn.”
“I didn't say feed him.”
“You’re learning that too.”
Lorenzo looked at Matteo.
Then took the bottle.
His first attempt was too fast.
Matteo turned away.
Lorenzo immediately panicked.
“He doesn't want it.”
“Wait.”
Elena placed her hand lightly over Lorenzo’s wrist.
“Don't chase his mouth.”
They waited.
Matteo turned back himself.
The bottle touched his lips.
He drank.
Lorenzo did not move.
One swallow.
Two.
Three.
His eyes filled.
He looked away before Elena could acknowledge it.
Matteo drank almost three ounces.
It was the most he had consumed at one feeding since Sofia’s death.
When Kaplan heard, he smiled.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
But the investigation was moving too.
Marco returned that afternoon.
Margaret Carter had not died in Switzerland.
At least, no Swiss death certificate existed under that name.
The facility where she supposedly worked had never employed her.
The phone number used to notify Elena of the death had been disconnected within forty-eight hours.
Elena sat in Lorenzo’s office listening.
“My mother disappeared.”
Marco nodded.
“It appears so.”
“Why?”
“We don't know.”
“And Sofia?”
Marco placed documents on the desk.
“Sofia made four visits to St. Catherine’s Hospital during the month before she died.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“She wasn't sick.”
“No medical appointments appear under her name.”
“Then why?”
“She visited neonatal records.”
Elena looked up.
“Records?”
Marco nodded.
“Specifically, infant feeding research and maternal-infant attachment studies.”
Lorenzo turned toward Elena.
Her mother had specialized in neonatal feeding.
The connection was becoming impossible to ignore.
“What about the supplements?” Lorenzo asked.
“Purchased through a shell account.”
“Whose?”
Marco hesitated.
“Dr. Kaplan’s clinic.”
Lorenzo stood.
Elena did too.
“Wait.”
“There is nothing to wait for.”
“You don't know he ordered them.”
“My son was being given something that made him sick, and the purchase traces to his doctor.”
Marco raised a hand.
“The account was accessed using an employee credential.”
“Whose?”
“Claire Benson.”
The night nurse.
Lorenzo called security.
Claire was gone.
Her room had been emptied.
Her phone was found beside the staff entrance.
The cameras showed her leaving at 4:12 a.m.
But she had not left alone.
A dark sedan had collected her.
Its license plate was stolen.
Lorenzo became ice.
Every exit was secured.
Every employee questioned again.
Elena stayed with Matteo.
By evening, the mansion felt like a fortress under siege.
Yet something inside the nursery was changing.
Matteo ate.
Not perfectly.
Not every time.
But steadily.
And Lorenzo returned for every feeding.
At first he stood.
Then sat.
Then held Matteo.
He learned the lullaby again.
He learned how to recognize the difference between Matteo’s hungry cry and tired cry.
He learned his son liked having one hand free.
He learned Matteo hated cold bottle nipples.
Each discovery seemed to hurt him.
Because Sofia had known all of it.
And Lorenzo had not.
“You weren't supposed to know everything,” Elena told him.
They sat together after midnight.
Matteo slept against Lorenzo’s chest.
“I should have.”
“Why?”
“I’m his father.”
“That doesn't make you psychic.”
“It should make me present.”
Elena heard the self-accusation.
“You lost your wife.”
“So did he.”
“Yes.”
“And I left him with strangers because every time I looked at him, I saw her.”
There it was.
The truth.
Lorenzo looked down.
“The night Sofia died, I was holding Matteo.”
Elena remained silent.
“She called me.”
His voice tightened.
“I didn't answer.”
“Why?”
“We had argued.”
“About what?”
“Leaving.”
Elena frowned.
“Leaving whom?”
“Me.”
The room became very quiet.
“Sofia wanted to take Matteo and disappear.”
“Why?”
Lorenzo’s eyes lifted.
“She said someone inside my organization was using my family to control me.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn't tell me over the phone.”
He swallowed.
“She said she had proof.”
“What happened?”
“She drove toward the house.”
Lorenzo looked at his sleeping son.
“She never arrived.”
Elena understood the guilt now.
The missed call.
The unanswered warning.
The dead wife.
The infant he could not bear to hold.
His phone vibrated.
Lorenzo checked it.
A message.
Unknown number.
He read it once.
Then stood.
“What?”
Elena asked.
He handed her the phone.
There were six words.
ASK ELENA WHAT HER MOTHER STOLE.
Beneath them was a photograph.
May you like
Margaret Carter was alive.
And she was holding today’s newspaper.
