Chapter 6 - “Doctor!”Everyone moved at once.
The room became chaos.
Alarms screamed.
Grace cried out.
I stood beside her, frozen as the doctor worked.
“Push.”
Grace screamed.
My hands trembled around hers.
Then the monitor suddenly produced a heartbeat.
One beat.
Two.
Three.
Strong.
The doctor shouted:
“We've got him!”
A newborn cry filled the room.
I almost collapsed.
Our son was alive.
The nurse wrapped him in a blanket.
Grace started crying.
I kissed her forehead.
“You did it.”
She looked at our son.
“He's beautiful.”
I stared at him.
Small.
Red-faced.
Furious at the world already.
Then the doctor frowned.
“What?”
He looked at the baby's wrist.
There was a tiny red mark.
A circle.
Inside it, a black line.
I had seen the symbol before.
In my father's files.
The Ferraro crest.
But this version was different.
There was a second circle beneath it.
The doctor slowly stepped back.
“What is it?”
He didn't answer.
I grabbed his arm.
“Tell me.”
He looked terrified.
“Your son has the blood marker.”
“What blood marker?”
“The same one your father's family carried.”
Grace stared.
“So?”
The doctor shook his head.
“It's not supposed to exist anymore.”
Before I could ask, the clinic doors exploded inward.
Gunmen stormed inside.
My soldiers returned fire.
I grabbed Grace and shielded the baby.
Then I saw my mother.
She walked through the smoke.
No weapon.
No fear.
She looked at Grace.
Then at the baby.
For the first time since I had known her, Elena looked genuinely frightened.
“Give me the child.”
“No.”
“He is not yours.”
My blood went cold.
“What did you say?”
She stepped forward.
“That child belongs to the Ferraro bloodline.”
“He is my son.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain.”
She stared at the baby.
“The bloodline was supposed to end with your father.”
My father entered behind her.
The room went silent.
Elena turned.
“You.”
My father held a pistol.
“I warned you.”
She smiled.
“You're too late.”
My father looked at the baby.
Then at me.
“Luca, we have to leave.”
“Not until she tells me the truth.”
My mother laughed.
“You want the truth?”
She pointed toward my father.
“Ask him why he chose you.”
I stared at my father.
“Chose me for what?”
He didn't answer.
My mother continued.
“Ask him why every man in this family dies before his thirty-fifth birthday.”
Silence.
My father's face changed.
Grace whispered:
“Luca…”
I remembered something.
My father had died when he was thirty-four.
My grandfather died at thirty-four.
His father had died at thirty-five.
I was twenty-nine.
My mother smiled.
“Now you understand.”
A gunshot cracked.
My mother dropped to the floor.
For a second, I thought she had been shot.
Then she laughed.
Blood trickled from her shoulder.
The shooter was standing behind her.
A man in a black coat.
He lowered his weapon.
I knew him.
My mother's most trusted bodyguard.
He said:
“She told me to kill everyone if the child was born.”
My father stared at him.
“Who told you?”
The bodyguard smiled.
“Adrian.”
Then he shot himself.
The room fell silent.
I looked at my father.
“Where is my brother?”
He whispered:
May you like
“He has been running this family for eleven years.”
And then the clinic doors locked from the outside.
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