Chapter 3 - THE CARUSO HOUSEDamian’s car was not a car.
It was a moving fortress.
Black, silent, and armored, it slid through Manhattan like the streets had been cleared for it. Maybe they had. Two SUVs followed behind us. Another led in front. No sirens. No flashing lights. Just quiet power arranged around a two-year-old child who had fallen asleep with her fist still tangled in my blouse.
I sat in the back seat beside Leah, afraid to breathe too hard.
Damian sat across from us.
He had not taken his eyes off his daughter since we left the restaurant.
The city lights moved across his face, cutting him into pieces: father, criminal, son, enemy, stranger.
I did not know which one I was supposed to fear most.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“My house.”
“You mean your mansion.”
His gaze lifted to mine.
“You’ve heard of it.”
“Everyone has.”
The Caruso estate sat behind iron gates at the edge of the Hudson, an old stone mansion that looked less like a home and more like a warning. I had passed it once in a taxi years ago and remembered thinking that no one could live happily behind walls that tall.
Now I was headed inside with a child who might be mine sleeping against my chest.
“Why there?” I asked.
“Because my doctor will meet us there. Because every record Leah has is there. Because if anyone tries to touch you before morning, they will have to get through me.”
I looked out the window.
“You say that like it should make me feel safe.”
“It should make you feel safer than you were.”
I gave a humorless laugh.
“Tonight I learned your aunt may have stolen my baby, your restaurant manager was reporting on your daughter, and some stranger threatened me on the phone. Forgive me if safety feels far away.”
Damian looked at me for a long moment.
“You have a right to be angry.”
“I’m past angry.”
“What are you, then?”
I looked down at Leah.
Her mouth was slightly open. A tear had dried at the corner of her eye. The velvet rabbit rested between us, worn nearly bald at one ear.
“I don’t know yet,” I whispered. “But I know I’m not letting anyone take her from me until I know the truth.”
Damian’s face shifted.
“Good.”
That surprised me.
“You expected me to run?”
“I expected you to want to.”
“I do.”
“But you won’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
I looked at Leah again.
“Because she held on first.”
The mansion appeared through the trees like something carved from darkness.
Floodlights shone across stone pillars. Men in black coats stood at the gates. Cameras turned as we approached. The gate opened before the car stopped.
I told myself not to be impressed.
Then we drove past a fountain larger than my entire apartment.
The front doors opened before Damian touched them.
A woman in a navy uniform stood inside. She looked about sixty, with gray hair pinned back and eyes that had seen too many secrets.
When she saw Leah in my arms, her face changed.
Not shock.
Not fear.
Grief.
“Mr. Caruso,” she said.
“Mrs. Bellamy.”
The woman’s eyes moved to me.
“Who is she?”
“That is what we are going to find out.”
Leah stirred at the sound of voices.
Her eyes opened.
For half a second, she looked confused.
Then she saw me and relaxed.
The housekeeper’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Madonna,” she whispered.
Damian turned sharply.
“What?”
Mrs. Bellamy lowered her hand.
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
She hesitated.
Then her eyes filled with tears.
“She used to do that.”
“Who?”
“Sofia.”
The name hit the room like a ghost entering.
Damian went still.
I had heard the name before. Sofia Caruso. Damian’s late wife. Beautiful, charitable, beloved by the press. Dead in a car accident shortly after Leah came home from Europe.
His wife had died two years ago.
My baby had died two years ago.
Leah had stopped—or never started—speaking two years ago.
Every path led back to the same year.
“What do you mean?” Damian asked.
Mrs. Bellamy looked terrified of answering.
“When Leah would wake frightened, Mrs. Sofia used to hold her exactly that way. Against the left shoulder. She would rub her back in circles.”
I realized my hand was moving.
Small circles.
Slow and steady.
A motion I had never learned.
A motion my body knew.
Damian stared at my hand.
I stopped.
Leah whimpered.
Without thinking, I began again.
Mrs. Bellamy started crying silently.
Damian turned away, but not before I saw the pain in his face.
“Where is Dr. Vale?” he asked.
“In the east study. He arrived ten minutes ago.”
“Bring the files.”
“All of them?”
“All.”
Mrs. Bellamy nodded and left quickly.
I shifted Leah on my hip.
“Who was Sofia?”
Damian looked toward the grand staircase.
“My wife.”
“She was Leah’s mother?”
“That is what I was told.”
The words chilled me.
“What do you mean, told?”
He did not answer right away.
“When Sofia was eight months pregnant, there were complications. She went to Zurich for treatment. I was supposed to join her. Then my father died. There was a war inside my family. I stayed behind for three days to prevent bloodshed.”
He swallowed hard.
“When I arrived, the doctor said the baby had been delivered early. Sofia was weak. Leah was in an incubator. I saw a child with my name on her bracelet.”
“And Sofia?”
“She came home with us. She loved Leah.”
His voice broke on the word loved, almost invisibly.
“Three months later, Sofia’s car went off a bridge.”
I felt the house close around me.
“Accident?”
“That is what I was told.”
I almost laughed.
That phrase again.
That awful little doorway to hell.
“What do you believe now?”
Damian looked at Leah.
“I believe I have been surrounded by lies.”
A man entered the foyer.
He was tall, with white hair and a doctor’s bag in one hand. His eyes went directly to Leah, then to me.
“I’m Dr. Adrian Vale,” he said. “I’ve cared for Leah since she came to New York.”
I held Leah tighter.
“I’m not handing her to anyone.”
He lifted both hands.
“I won’t touch her without permission.”
Damian stepped closer.
“We need DNA tests. Mine, Ava’s, Leah’s.”
Dr. Vale nodded.
“I brought everything.”
“How fast?”
“Preliminary results within hours if I use the private lab downstairs.”
I blinked.
“You have a lab downstairs?”
Damian looked at me.
“I have enemies.”
“Apparently you also have a hospital.”
Dr. Vale’s expression darkened.
“You have no idea.”
Before I could ask what that meant, Mrs. Bellamy returned carrying a leather file box.
She placed it on the table near the staircase.
Damian opened it.
Inside were hospital records, birth certificates, medical summaries, photographs, and sealed envelopes.
He picked up the top document.
Leah Sofia Caruso.
Mother: Sofia Elena Caruso.
Father: Damian Luca Caruso.
Place of birth: Zurich, Switzerland.
Clinic: St. Orsola Maternal Center.
Attending physician: Dr. Klaus Reinhardt.
My hands began to shake.
“That’s the same clinic.”
Dr. Vale’s face tightened.
Damian looked at him.
“You knew?”
“I suspected something was wrong when Leah’s early bloodwork didn’t match Sofia’s documented pregnancy history.”
Damian’s voice went deadly quiet.
“And you never told me?”
Dr. Vale held his ground, but barely.
“I tried.”
Damian took one step toward him.
“What does that mean?”
Dr. Vale opened his medical bag, removed an old envelope, and placed it on the table.
“Because Sofia told me not to tell you unless another woman named Ava Moretti appeared.”
My heart stopped.
Damian stared at the envelope.
May you like
On the front, written in careful feminine handwriting, were five words.
For Damian, when Ava returns.
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