Chapter 7 - The Nurse Who Would Not DieCarla Reyes woke at 3:17 in the morning.
By then Sophie had not slept for nearly twenty-two hours.
She sat beside Matteo’s crib with the baby curled carefully against her chest while Dominic stood by the window, watching the hospital parking lot below as if enemies might rise from the pavement. His men had taken positions at the elevators, stairwell, and nurses’ station. They did it quietly enough that hospital security pretended not to notice, which meant someone had already explained Dominic Moretti to them.
Matteo slept in small bursts.
Every time he stirred, Sophie felt his scar beneath the fabric of his hospital gown.
Every time she felt it, a door opened inside her that she could not close.
Leo might be alive.
The words were unbearable.
So she did not say them.
She did not even think them directly.
She let them circle at the edge of her mind like wolves.
Dominic’s phone vibrated.
He answered without greeting.
Listened.
Then looked at Sophie.
“She’s awake.”
Sophie stood too fast. Matteo startled.
Dominic crossed the room in two strides and placed one steadying hand beneath the baby’s head before Sophie could lose her hold.
For a second their hands touched.
Neither spoke.
The night nurse entered and took Matteo gently.
“I’ll stay with him,” she promised.
Dominic looked at her badge.
“Nurse Kim, if anyone enters this room without Dr. Ellison, Ms. Lane, Mr. Voss, or me approving it, you press that red button and then you get under the bed.”
Nurse Kim blinked.
Sophie glared at him.
He added, “Please.”
The nurse nodded quickly.
Sophie followed Dominic out.
Carla Reyes had been placed two floors down under a false name. The hallway outside her room was empty except for Gabriel Voss and the eyebrow-scar guard, whose name Sophie finally learned was Enzo.
Enzo opened the door.
The woman in the bed looked smaller than Sophie expected.
Carla Reyes was maybe forty, with olive skin gone gray from whatever had nearly killed her. Tubes ran into her arm. A bruise darkened one cheekbone. Her lips were cracked. Her eyes, when they found Sophie, filled instantly with tears.
“You,” Carla whispered.
Sophie stopped at the foot of the bed.
“You know me?”
Carla swallowed painfully.
“I knew your baby.”
The sentence hit Sophie like a hand around the throat.
Dominic closed the door behind them.
Gabriel placed his phone on the bedside table. “Carla, I’m Gabriel Voss. I represent Dominic Moretti. This conversation is being recorded with your consent. Do you understand?”
Carla gave the smallest nod.
Dominic’s voice was controlled.
“Who tried to kill you?”
Carla’s eyes darted to him, then away.
“Not him.”
“Who?”
“The woman.”
Sophie stiffened.
“What woman?”
Carla’s gaze returned to her.
“I’m sorry.”
Sophie moved closer.
“No. You do not get to start there. You tell me what happened.”
Carla cried silently.
“I wanted to tell you. I swear. After Leo, I wanted to find you, but Marlowe said you had signed. He said you knew.”
“Knew what?”
Carla closed her eyes.
“That Leo was being transferred.”
Sophie gripped the bedrail so hard pain shot through her fingers.
“I signed nothing.”
“I know that now.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Where was Leo transferred?”
Carla’s breathing quickened. Machines beeped.
Gabriel leaned in. “Slowly.”
Carla opened her eyes.
“To a private recovery site first. Then out of state.”
Sophie’s ears rang.
“Alive?”
Carla wept harder.
“Yes.”
Sophie made a sound she did not recognize.
Dominic moved beside her but did not touch her.
She appreciated that.
Hated that.
Needed that.
“My son was alive?”
Carla nodded, tears sliding into her hair.
“They told us he wouldn’t survive without the next stage. Marlowe said the foundation had a donor family who could pay for everything. He said you were young, broke, alone, and that you had agreed to relinquish him so he could live.”
Sophie could not speak.
The cruelty of it was too precise.
They had taken every vulnerable fact about her life and turned it into a signature.
“I would have died before giving him away.”
“I know,” Carla whispered.
Dominic’s voice cut in.
“Who took him?”
Carla looked terrified.
“Belladonna.”
Dominic’s face went white with rage.
“Isabella’s family?”
Carla nodded.
“Not Isabella at first. Her mother. Serafina Belladonna. The trust wasn’t charity. It was inventory.”
Sophie’s knees weakened again, but this time she did not fall.
Dominic’s hand closed around the back of a chair until wood cracked.
Gabriel said, “Careful.”
Dominic released it.
Carla continued in a shaking voice. “They had families waiting. Rich families. Powerful families. Some wanted children. Some wanted compatible donors. Some wanted experimental treatments hidden from regulators.”
Sophie felt sick.
“Leo?”
“He was special,” Carla said.
Sophie recoiled. “Do not call him that.”
“I’m sorry. That’s what Marlowe said. His anatomy was rare, but his repair response was better than expected. He thought Leo could survive staged surgery if funded privately.”
“Where is he?”
Carla’s face crumpled.
“I don’t know.”
Sophie lunged closer. “You said he was alive.”
“He was when he left. I swear to God. He was breathing on his own. He had a blue blanket with stars. You used to sing to him.”
Sophie covered her mouth.
She had sung the same song every night.
You are my moon, my little light.
No hospital chart would say that.
Carla knew.
Dominic asked, “What does Matteo have to do with this?”
Carla looked at him, terror returning.
“Matteo is not Isabella’s baby.”
Silence.
Dominic stared at her.
“What?”
“She couldn’t have children. Not after the accident years ago. The pregnancy was fake.”
Sophie turned toward Dominic.
He looked as if something inside him had been struck with a hammer.
“No.”
Carla flinched.
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“I saw her stomach.”
“Padding. Prosthetics later. She controlled who touched her. She controlled every doctor. Marlowe certified everything.”
Dominic stepped back.
For once, he looked less like a dangerous man than a betrayed one.
“Then whose child is he?”
Carla’s lips trembled.
“I don’t know for sure.”
Dominic leaned over the bed.
“Guess.”
Carla shut her eyes.
“Marlowe said the baby came from the old program. A child owed to Belladonna blood. He had cardiac markers from the same line as Leo.”
Sophie whispered, “Same line?”
Carla looked at her with devastation.
“They used stored genetic material. Blood samples. Tissue. Sometimes embryos from fertility cases. Sometimes babies taken under false death records.”
Gabriel’s face had gone grim.
“This is bigger than adoption fraud.”
Dominic’s voice was dead calm.
“It is human trafficking.”
Carla nodded weakly.
Sophie felt reality slipping.
Leo alive.
Matteo stolen.
Isabella fake pregnant.
A charity as a marketplace.
A surgeon as a thief.
Dominic turned away, one hand over his mouth. He stood like that for several seconds. When he faced them again, the grief had disappeared behind something far more frightening.
“Who killed Isabella?”
Carla shook her head. “She found out Matteo was sick. Really sick. Marlowe wanted to move him again. Serafina wanted him gone. Isabella refused.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“She refused?”
“She loved him,” Carla whispered. “Maybe not at first. But after he came to the house, she changed. She was going to tell you. She recorded everything.”
Dominic took one step closer.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. She said if anything happened to her, the moon would find the mother.”
Sophie froze.
“What did you say?”
Carla looked at her.
“The moon would find the mother.”
Sophie’s breath stopped.
Leo’s song.
You are my moon.
Dominic turned to her. “What does that mean?”
Sophie could barely answer.
“I used to call Leo my moon.”
Carla nodded.
“Isabella knew.”
“How?”
“She watched the old tapes.”
Sophie’s blood went cold.
“What tapes?”
Carla looked ashamed.
“Marlowe recorded the mothers. The babies. Everything.”
Dominic’s phone began ringing.
He ignored it.
Then Enzo knocked once and opened the door.
“Boss. Matteo’s room.”
Dominic turned so sharply Sophie’s heart stopped.
“What?”
“Someone tried to enter dressed as hospital staff.”
The room emptied in a rush.
Sophie ran faster than she thought grief had left her able to run.
By the time they reached the pediatric floor, the hallway was chaos. A nurse cried near the station. Enzo’s men had someone pinned face-down against the floor. Dr. Ellison stood in front of Matteo’s door like a shield in a white coat.
Sophie pushed past everyone.
Matteo was inside.
Alive.
Crying.
Nurse Kim was under the bed.
Dominic looked at the man on the floor.
The fake hospital badge had fallen beside his face.
Dominic crouched.
His voice was soft.
“Who sent you?”
The man said nothing.
Dominic reached for him.
Sophie grabbed Dominic’s wrist.
“Don’t.”
His eyes burned into hers.
“He came for my son.”
“And if you kill him, we lose who sent him.”
Dominic breathed hard.
The hallway waited.
Finally he released the man and stood.
“Call the police,” Sophie said.
Dominic looked at Enzo.
“Call the right police.”
Sophie did not ask what that meant.
Inside the room, Matteo cried harder.
She went to him.
This time Dominic followed.
May you like
Not as a king.
As a father who had just learned fatherhood itself might have been built on a lie, and still loved the child enough for the lie not to matter.
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