Chapter 10 - Belladonna HouseBelladonna House was older than the Moretti estate and far colder.
It stood behind iron gates south of Lake Forest, all gray stone and ivy, the kind of mansion built by people who believed guilt could be inherited if carved into architecture. The driveway curved through bare trees dripping rain. Statues watched from the lawn with blind marble eyes.
Sophie sat beside Dominic in the back of the SUV and held the fake drive in her fist.
Gabriel had built it in less than an hour. It contained enough real files to look valuable, enough corrupted folders to explain missing data, and enough hidden trackers to satisfy Dominic’s appetite for vengeance. The real evidence had already been duplicated, encrypted, and sent to three people Dominic said he did not control: a federal prosecutor in Milwaukee, an investigative journalist in New York, and a retired judge who had once hated Dominic enough to be trustworthy.
Sophie had not slept.
Her body had passed exhaustion and entered something sharper.
On Dominic’s left arm, a clean bandage disappeared beneath his sleeve. He had allowed a doctor at Mercy to treat the graze only after Sophie threatened to tell Dr. Ellison he was being “medically dramatic.”
He had not enjoyed that.
She had.
Briefly.
Now all humor was gone.
“Whatever she says,” Dominic told her, “do not react.”
Sophie stared at the mansion.
“She stole my child.”
“I know.”
“No, you know as information. I know in my bones.”
Dominic was silent.
Then he said, “She raised my wife.”
Sophie looked at him.
His face revealed nothing, but his hand rested open on his knee, not clenched. She had begun noticing those things against her will.
“Was Isabella like her?”
“At the end? No.”
“And before?”
His mouth tightened.
“She was what that house made her.”
The gates opened.
Enzo’s voice came through Dominic’s earpiece. “Perimeter has eight visible. Probably more inside.”
Dominic tapped once in response.
Sophie looked at him.
“You really think I can just walk in there?”
“No.”
“That was not comforting.”
“You will walk in because your son may be inside.”
She nodded once.
That was enough.
At the front entrance, two men in dark suits searched Dominic’s men and took visible weapons. They did not search Sophie thoroughly. People like them underestimated waitresses.
They missed the small recorder taped beneath her collar.
They missed the second tracker inside her shoe.
They missed grief completely.
A butler led them through a marble hall into a sunroom filled with white orchids.
Serafina Belladonna waited at a glass table.
She was in her seventies, slim and elegant, with silver hair pinned flawlessly and pearls at her throat. She looked less like a criminal mastermind than a woman who would correct a child’s posture at dinner.
Her eyes landed on Sophie and brightened.
“Leo’s mother.”
Sophie’s nails cut into her palm.
“Where is he?”
Serafina smiled. “Still direct. Poverty leaves so little room for manners.”
Dominic stepped forward.
Serafina lifted one hand.
“Ah. Let her speak. I have waited years to meet the woman whose lullaby ruined my daughter.”
Sophie’s breath caught.
“What does that mean?”
“Isabella watched the recordings after Leo was placed with us. Marlowe used them for developmental continuity. Familiar sounds soothe infants, you understand. Your voice was useful.”
Sophie felt bile rise.
“You played my voice to him?”
“Of course. He cried otherwise.”
Dominic’s voice was deadly. “Enough.”
Serafina turned to him. “You always disliked efficiency because you confused it with cruelty.”
“No,” he said. “I confused you with family.”
That struck something.
Serafina’s eyes cooled.
“Give me the drive.”
“Leo first,” Sophie said.
Serafina laughed softly.
“You brought a waitress to negotiate, Dominic?”
“No,” he said. “I brought a mother.”
For the first time, Serafina looked displeased.
She gestured toward the butler.
A side door opened.
Sophie stopped breathing.
A little boy entered holding the hand of a young woman in a gray uniform.
He was four years old.
Dark curls. Serious eyes. A small mouth she had kissed in another lifetime. He wore navy pants, a white sweater, and tiny leather shoes too formal for a child. He looked healthy. Pale, but healthy. A faint scar curved beneath his collar where the sweater shifted.
Sophie made no sound.
If she moved too quickly, he might vanish.
The boy looked at Dominic first with suspicion.
Then at Sophie.
His little brow furrowed.
Serafina watched with cruel delight.
“Leonardo,” she said. “Say hello.”
Sophie flinched at the name.
Leo stared at her.
Something passed through his face, not recognition exactly, but disturbance. A memory too young to be language.
Sophie lowered herself slowly to her knees.
Dominic shifted beside her, ready to catch her if she broke.
She did not.
“Hi, Leo,” she whispered.
The boy’s fingers tightened around the nanny’s hand.
“My name is Luca,” he said.
Sophie’s heart cracked.
Serafina smiled.
“We found Leo too soft. Luca suited him better.”
Sophie wanted to scream.
Instead, she forced breath into her lungs.
“That’s a beautiful name,” she said, because the child had not stolen anything. Adults had stolen everything from him. “Do you like moons?”
Leo blinked.
His eyes moved to her face.
“I have a moon light.”
“I know.”
Serafina’s smile thinned.
Leo tilted his head.
“How do you know?”
Sophie almost sobbed.
“Because when you were a baby, I used to call you my little moon.”
The boy’s lips parted.
The nanny’s eyes filled with tears. She looked away quickly.
Serafina tapped one pearl with a fingernail.
“Touching. Now give me the drive.”
Dominic held out his hand.
Sophie placed the fake drive in his palm.
But before he could pass it to Serafina, Leo spoke again.
“You sing wrong.”
Everyone froze.
Sophie looked at him.
“What?”
His small face tightened in concentration. “The lady on the speaker sings wrong. She cries.”
Sophie’s throat closed.
“That was me.”
Leo stared.
“You’re the crying song?”
Serafina stood. “Enough.”
The boy stepped back at her tone.
Sophie saw it.
Fear.
Not dramatic. Not visible to men who looked only for wounds.
But she saw the flinch.
Dominic saw her see it.
His face changed.
Serafina extended her hand. “The drive.”
Dominic placed it on the glass table.
Serafina picked it up.
“Now let him go,” Sophie said.
Serafina laughed.
“My dear, I said you could see him.”
Dominic’s men shifted.
The Belladonna guards did too.
The sunroom filled with the quiet before blood.
Serafina slipped the drive into her pocket.
“Leonardo belongs to a buyer who has waited a long time. His final transfer is tonight. You may take comfort in knowing he will be well funded.”
Sophie stood slowly.
“No.”
Serafina’s gaze hardened. “You have no claim. His death certificate is legal. His burial is documented. His adoption chain is sealed internationally. You are a ghost mother.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“And I am?”
“A gangster who married my daughter for legitimacy and failed to notice she was dying in front of him.”
The words hit.
Dominic did not show it.
But Sophie felt them land.
Then a sound came from outside.
Not thunder.
Helicopter blades.
Serafina’s eyes flicked upward.
Gabriel’s voice came through the tiny earpiece hidden in Sophie’s hair.
“Federal units at gate. State police behind. Warrant executed.”
Dominic smiled.
Serafina looked at him.
“What did you do?”
Sophie answered.
“We did it clean.”
Serafina’s face twisted for the first time.
“Take the boy,” she snapped.
The nanny grabbed Leo and ran toward Sophie instead.
Chaos erupted.
A guard reached for the child. Dominic intercepted him with such violence Sophie barely saw the movement. Glass shattered. Men shouted. Serafina screamed orders in Italian and English.
Sophie dropped to her knees and opened her arms.
The nanny shoved Leo toward her.
“Run,” the young woman cried. “Please!”
Leo collided with Sophie’s chest.
For one impossible second, she held her son.
He was bigger. Warmer. Real.
He struggled in confusion.
“Let me go!”
“I know, baby,” she sobbed. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Dominic grabbed Sophie’s arm.
They ran as federal agents stormed the sunroom from the terrace.
Behind them, Serafina’s voice rose above everything.
“You cannot keep him! He does not know you!”
Sophie held Leo tighter.
“No,” she whispered into his hair.
May you like
Not yet.
But he would.
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