Chapter 8 - The Dead Wife’s RoomDominic took Sophie to the Moretti estate at dawn.
She should have refused.
Mercy General had transferred Matteo to a secured cardiac unit, with Dr. Ellison overseeing every test and two uniformed officers posted outside after Gabriel Voss made calls that sounded polite and ended careers. The man dressed as hospital staff was in custody. Carla Reyes had been moved again. Marlowe was still missing.
Matteo was stable.
For now.
Those two words again.
For now had become the ledge on which everyone stood.
Sophie had planned to remain at the hospital, but then Dominic returned from a phone call with a face carved from stone.
“We’re going to my house,” he said.
“No, we’re not.”
“Isabella left something.”
That stopped her.
“The moon would find the mother,” he said.
Sophie’s throat tightened.
“What’s in your house?”
“My wife’s locked room.”
Of course a mansion had locked rooms.
The Moretti estate sat behind iron gates on Lake Michigan, not in the city but north where money hid behind old trees and security cameras. The house was not a house. It was a limestone accusation, three stories high, with black shutters and windows reflecting the gray morning sky.
Sophie stepped out of the SUV and immediately felt underdressed, underpaid, and underarmed.
Dominic noticed.
“Stay close.”
“Do women usually find that comforting?”
“No.”
At least he knew.
Inside, the mansion smelled faintly of cedar, polished stone, and flowers arranged by someone who had never picked one from dirt. Staff appeared and vanished silently. No one asked why a waitress in a black uniform and borrowed coat walked beside Dominic Moretti at dawn.
They were too afraid.
Sophie understood them.
Dominic led her up a sweeping staircase, down a hallway lined with portraits of unsmiling ancestors, and stopped before a white door.
Unlike the rest of the house, this door had no visible handle.
“Isabella’s private suite,” he said.
“You didn’t have access?”
“It was part of our agreement.”
“You had an agreement about rooms?”
“Our marriage had many agreements.”
“That sounds lonely.”
He looked at her.
“It was useful.”
“Those are not the same thing.”
“No,” he said after a moment. “They are not.”
Enzo arrived with a small device and a man Sophie assumed could open anything except maybe his own emotions. Within three minutes, the hidden lock clicked.
Dominic entered first.
Then stopped.
Sophie stepped beside him.
Isabella’s room was not what she expected.
No vanity covered in diamonds. No champagne. No silk sheets tossed carelessly across a bed.
It was a nursery.
Not Matteo’s nursery.
An older one.
The walls were painted deep blue, scattered with silver moons and hand-painted stars. A white crib stood near the window. Shelves held children’s books, plush animals, small folded clothes labeled by size. On the rocking chair lay a blue blanket embroidered with yellow stars.
Sophie’s body went numb.
She crossed the room without feeling her feet.
Her hands hovered over the blanket.
Blue.
Stars.
Leo’s blanket had been cheaper, softer, worn at the corners from washing.
This was not the same blanket.
It was a copy.
A rich woman’s copy of a poor mother’s love.
Sophie turned to Dominic.
His face was unreadable.
“Did you know about this room?”
“No.”
Her anger flashed.
“You lived here.”
“My wife had entire wings I did not enter.”
“That is insane.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m discovering that.”
Sophie looked around.
On the wall above the crib, painted in silver script, were words that made her stop breathing.
My little moon.
Dominic read them too.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
Sophie could not answer.
She moved to the bookshelf. Baby books. Medical binders. Photo albums. Her fingers landed on a small silver frame turned face down behind a stuffed rabbit.
She lifted it.
The photograph inside showed Isabella Moretti sitting in this room, thinner than Sophie remembered from society pages, her face bare of makeup. In her arms was a baby with dark hair.
Not Matteo.
The baby was older.
Maybe six months.
Sophie gripped the frame.
Dominic came beside her.
His voice lowered.
“Is that Leo?”
Sophie could not tell.
That was the cruelty.
Babies changed. Memory blurred when sharpened too often by grief. The child had Leo’s mouth. Or maybe Sophie wanted him to. The eyes were closed. A blue blanket covered most of his face.
On the back of the frame was a date.
Three years and eight months ago.
Four months after Leo died.
Sophie’s knees weakened.
Dominic took the frame from her before it fell.
“There are more,” he said.
A drawer beneath the crib held dozens of photographs.
Isabella holding the same baby. Isabella with a toddler’s handprint in paint. Isabella watching through glass as a small boy slept in what looked like a hospital crib. In one photo, the boy sat on a rug, dark curls falling over his forehead, reaching toward a wooden moon toy.
Sophie sank onto the floor.
The photo slipped from her fingers.
She knew that face.
Older, yes.
Changed, yes.
But a mother’s body recognized what the mind feared to claim.
“Leo,” she whispered.
Dominic crouched beside her, photo in hand.
“Sophie.”
“My son.”
The room became too small.
She could not breathe. She pressed both hands to her chest as if her ribs could hold her heart in place.
Alive.
Not in theory.
Not rumor.
Not paperwork.
A face.
Her baby had grown teeth somewhere without her. Taken first steps somewhere without her. Cried for her somewhere inside a world that had told her he was underground.
Dominic placed a hand near her shoulder, not touching.
“Where is he now?”
Sophie looked at the photos again, panic cutting through wonder.
The most recent picture showed the boy older, maybe three, standing near a window with a woman’s hand on his shoulder. The woman’s face was cut out of the frame.
On the back: L.B. safe until transfer.
L.B.
Leo Belladonna?
Leo stolen.
Safe until transfer.
Dominic stood abruptly.
“Search everything.”
Enzo and the security specialist began opening drawers, removing panels, photographing documents.
Sophie stayed on the floor with the picture of her son.
Alive.
Her grief had been a locked room.
Someone had been living inside it.
Dominic opened a white cabinet and froze.
“Sophie.”
She looked up.
Inside were small labeled boxes.
Hospital bracelets.
Infant ID bands.
Locks of hair.
USB drives.
Dominic lifted one drive.
A silver moon charm dangled from it.
The same symbol painted on the wall.
Gabriel entered minutes later with a laptop.
No one spoke while he connected the drive.
A folder opened.
Videos.
Hundreds of them.
Dominic clicked the most recent file.
The screen went black, then flickered.
Isabella appeared, pale and trembling, sitting in the nursery Sophie now sat inside.
“If you are watching this,” Isabella said, “then my mother won.”
Dominic did not move.
On-screen Isabella looked straight into the camera.
“Dominic, Matteo is not mine. But he is yours now if you choose to love him. And Sophie Lane, if this reaches you, your son did not die at St. Agnes. His name is Leo. I tried to protect him. God forgive me, I tried too late.”
Sophie stopped breathing.
The video glitched slightly.
Isabella leaned closer.
“My mother is moving the children again. Leo is with Serafina at the lake house until the final transfer. The password is the song you sang.”
Then came a sound from the hallway.
Not footsteps.
A soft click.
Dominic looked up.
May you like
Enzo drew his weapon.
The window behind the crib shattered.
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