Chapter 3 - ROOM 214I had Marco wheel me out of the hospital before the police could arrive.
Grace came with us.
Vanessa tried to follow.
I stopped her.
“You stay here.”
Her eyes hardened.
“Dominic.”
“That's an order.”
The elevator doors closed between us.
For the first time in six months, Vanessa Bellini looked like a woman who couldn't control the room.
Good.
I needed her uncomfortable.
The old maternity ward was located beneath the east wing, behind a corridor that had been sealed since a structural fire years ago.
Marco broke the lock.
The smell hit us first.
Dust.
Mold.
Something metallic.
Blood.
Grace stopped.
“Dominic…”
I saw it too.
A trail of tiny footprints.
Bare feet.
Peter.
We followed them.
Room 214 was at the end of the corridor.
The door was open.
Inside was an old examination room.
A rusted bed.
A broken sink.
A wall clock that had stopped at 2:14.
And a photograph.
Pinned to the wall.
I walked closer.
It showed my father.
My mother.
Me.
And Nicholas.
But there was someone else in the photograph.
A little boy.
Maybe three years old.
Standing between my father and Nicholas.
I stared.
“Who is that?”
Grace shook her head.
Marco stepped closer.
Then he whispered something I've never heard him say before.
“Boss…”
“What?”
“That boy is Peter.”
I turned.
“No.”
Marco held up the photograph.
“Look at the eyes.”
I did.
The child was unmistakable.
Peter.
Only younger.
Much younger.
My mind rejected it.
Peter couldn't have known Nicholas.
Not like that.
He had been too young.
I grabbed the photograph.
On the back was a date.
Twenty-one years ago.
And one sentence.
HE IS THE SECOND SON.
My breathing stopped.
Grace stared at me.
“You have a brother?”
“I had one.”
She looked at the photograph.
“Then who is Peter?”
Before I could answer, footsteps sounded above us.
Marco raised his gun.
We waited.
A man's voice echoed down the corridor.
“Dominic.”
I knew it immediately.
Samuel Reed.
“Stay where you are,” he called.
Marco shouted back.
“Come alone.”
Samuel appeared at the doorway.
He wasn't carrying a weapon.
He looked exhausted.
“Peter is not a hostage.”
“Then where is he?”
Samuel looked at me.
“He took the boy.”
“Who?”
“Nicholas.”
My chest tightened.
“Stop playing games.”
“I've spent twenty years doing exactly that.”
Samuel looked at Grace.
“You need to leave.”
Grace refused.
“No.”
Samuel lowered his voice.
“The reason Nicholas was declared dead was because your father wanted him erased.”
I stepped toward him.
“Why?”
“Because Nicholas discovered what your family had done.”
“What had we done?”
Samuel looked at the photograph.
“That child was not supposed to exist.”
A sound came from behind the wall.
Knocking.
Three times.
Grace spun around.
“Did you hear that?”
Again.
Three knocks.
Marco searched the room.
Nothing.
Then Grace noticed the clock.
2:14.
She touched the wall.
The sound came again.
Behind it.
Marco pulled a heavy cabinet away.
There was a hidden door.
He forced it open.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
I looked at Samuel.
“What is down there?”
His expression changed.
“The place where Nicholas learned the truth.”
We descended.
The basement wasn't a basement.
It was an archive.
Shelves filled with boxes.
Medical files.
Birth certificates.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Black folders with the Moretti family crest.
Grace opened one.
Her eyes widened.
“These aren't hospital records.”
“What are they?”
“Payments.”
“To doctors.”
“Judges.”
“Police officers.”
“Politicians.”
Marco looked at me.
“This goes back decades.”
Then I found Nicholas's file.
The first page had one sentence stamped across it:
SUBJECT DEAD. DO NOT REOPEN.
I opened the next page.
There was a photograph.
Nicholas.
Alive.
Taken seven years ago.
The date was three days after the funeral I'd attended.
I stared at the picture until the edges blurred.
“He was alive.”
Samuel nodded.
“Seven years ago.”
“Why didn't he come back?”
“Because he wasn't allowed to.”
“By whom?”
Samuel didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The answer was written on the final page.
A signature.
Lucia Bellini.
Vanessa's mother.
My future mother-in-law.
I heard footsteps overhead.
Marco turned.
“Someone followed us.”
Then the basement doors slammed shut.
Locks clicked into place.
We were trapped.
And from somewhere in the darkness came Peter's voice.
“Uncle Dominic…”
I ran toward it.
But another voice answered first.
A man's voice.
Older.
Calm.
Familiar.
“You should have stayed dead, Dominic.”
I froze.
The darkness seemed to breathe.
Then the lights came on.
Nicholas Moretti stood at the end of the corridor.
Alive.
Older.
Scarred.
May you like
Holding a gun.
And pointed directly at me.
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