Chapter 5 - The woman stepped into the light.She was elderly.
Thin.
Her hair was white.
She wore a nurse's uniform stained with blood.
Grace backed into me.
I raised my gun.
“Who are you?”
The woman smiled faintly.
“My name is Miriam.”
She pointed toward the photographs.
“I delivered your father's first child.”
I stared at her.
“My father only had two sons.”
Miriam shook her head.
“No.”
Grace whispered:
“Luca…”
Miriam walked toward the wall.
“Your father had three.”
She touched a photograph.
“Your mother killed the first one.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Your older brother.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“My brother?”
“His name was Adrian.”
I had never heard the name.
Not once.
Miriam continued.
“He was born twelve years before you.”
“Why hide him?”
“Because your father wanted to leave the mafia.”
My mother had always told me my father was killed by rivals.
Miriam shook her head.
“He wasn't.”
“He was betrayed from inside.”
“By Elena.”
The truth felt like a blade sliding beneath my ribs.
Grace stepped forward.
“Where is Adrian?”
Miriam looked at me.
“Alive.”
I couldn't speak.
She pointed toward the nursery.
“The man in the prison.”
My father.
“No.”
Miriam nodded.
“Your father wasn't alone when he was captured.”
I suddenly remembered the second figure standing behind the bars.
I had assumed it was a shadow.
A hallucination.
But now I understood.
There had been someone else.
Someone breathing.
My brother.
A crash echoed above us.
My mother had entered the cabin.
Miriam's expression changed.
“She found the tunnel.”
We rushed through the nursery.
A hidden passage opened behind the wall.
We ran.
Grace stumbled.
I caught her.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded.
Then she suddenly cried out.
Pain.
Real pain.
Her hand gripped her stomach.
“Luca…”
I panicked.
“Your baby?”
“I think…”
Water began dripping onto the floor.
Her eyes widened.
“My water broke.”
Everything stopped.
“She's going into labor.”
Evelyn swore under her breath.
“We need a hospital.”
“No hospitals,” Miriam said.
“My mother owns half the police force.”
“Then where?”
Miriam pointed toward an old tunnel.
“There is a clinic beneath the estate.”
I stared at her.
“Beneath my house?”
She nodded.
“Your family has been hiding things underground for generations.”
Grace leaned against me.
Another contraction hit.
“We need to go.”
We moved.
Behind us, gunshots echoed through the tunnel.
My mother had found the entrance.
We ran faster.
The tunnel opened into a hidden medical facility.
Doctors rushed toward Grace.
One of them froze when he saw me.
“Mr. Ferraro.”
“Help my wife.”
They carried Grace inside.
I followed.
Then a nurse suddenly screamed.
“The baby's heart rate is dropping.”
Grace looked at me.
Fear filled her eyes.
“Luca…”
I grabbed her hand.
“You're not losing him.”
She squeezed mine.
The doctor prepared an emergency delivery.
Then the lights flickered.
The entire facility went dark.
A moment later, every monitor turned on simultaneously.
One image appeared.
My mother.
She looked directly into the camera.
“You should never have opened that prison.”
Then she smiled.
“And you should have asked yourself why your father stayed alive for eleven years.”
The screen changed.
A photograph appeared.
My father.
Standing beside another man.
The other man was me.
Except the photograph had been taken twenty years ago.
I stared.
My face went cold.
The date beneath it read:
1989.
I was born in 2006.
Grace whispered:
May you like
“Luca…”
The baby monitor flatlined.
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