Chapter 6 - The DNA Result“No.”
Each time, Ethan Carter delivered the same impossible sentence.
“I believe Adrian Moretti’s father knew who it was.”
Lily stood beside him holding Noah.
The baby’s fever had fallen slightly.
Adrian barely noticed.
His world had narrowed to a dead accountant’s face on a laptop screen.
Marco broke the silence.
“Your father hunted Sofia’s killers for years.”
“He killed six men.”
“Apparently none of them were responsible.”
Adrian turned sharply.
“Be careful.”
“I’m saying the evidence may have been wrong.”
“My father gave me the evidence.”
“Exactly.”
That hurt more than Marco intended.
Adrian walked outside.
Snow had begun falling.
Lily watched him through the window.
Then she handed Noah to Marco.
“Hold him.”
Marco looked alarmed.
“I don’t do babies.”
“You have arms.”
“I have weapons.”
“Congratulations. Hold him.”
She placed Noah against his chest.
Marco froze.
Noah grabbed his tie.
“Boss!” Marco called.
Adrian ignored him.
Lily stepped outside.
Adrian stood at the lake.
“You shouldn’t follow angry men into forests.”
“I didn’t.”
“This is a forest.”
“I followed a stubborn idiot twenty feet from a cabin.”
Adrian turned.
She crossed her arms against the cold.
“What do you want?”
“To make sure you don’t do something dramatic.”
“I’m not dramatic.”
“You entered a warehouse while multiple people pointed guns at you.”
“That was tactical.”
“You got shot.”
“That happens.”
“To you, maybe.”
Snow gathered in his dark hair.
For a moment he looked less like a feared billionaire and more like a man who had received devastating news before breakfast.
“My father wouldn’t have protected Sofia’s killer.”
“Maybe Ethan was wrong.”
“He usually wasn’t.”
“You said you barely knew him.”
“He was my brother.”
She looked toward the cabin.
“He could be annoyingly obsessive. If he believed something, he researched until four in the morning.”
“What did he find?”
“I don’t know yet.”
They returned inside.
The rest of Ethan’s recording provided clues.
Not answers.
He described discovering an old account used to pay someone code-named Belladonna.
Transactions began twenty years earlier.
Payments increased after Sofia’s death.
Then abruptly stopped when Adrian’s father died five years ago.
Marco searched the files.
“No identity.”
“What about the bank?”
“Offshore.”
Adrian rubbed his jaw.
Lily noticed another folder.
“What’s that?”
A.M. PRIVATE.
Marco opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Adrian’s father meeting someone outside a church.
Adrian leaned closer.
The person was female.
White hair.
Elegant posture.
Seventy, perhaps older.
Lily looked at him.
“You know her?”
Adrian’s face had become pale.
“My aunt.”
“Your father’s sister?”
“No.”
“My mother’s.”
“Name?”
“Isabella Romano.”
Marco swore.
Lily frowned.
“What?”
“Isabella disappeared after Sofia died,” Marco explained.
“Why?”
Adrian answered.
“Because everyone believed she was devastated.”
He stared at the photograph.
“My aunt loved Sofia.”
“Then why would Ethan investigate her?”
Marco opened another image.
Isabella entering Victor Crane’s office.
Date stamped two years earlier.
Lily’s stomach dropped.
Adrian immediately called one of his older contacts.
An hour later, they had the answer.
Isabella Romano was alive.
Living under another name in Montreal.
Daniel had visited her fourteen times in eighteen months.
Adrian’s phone buzzed.
A secure message.
From Daniel.
Found the family album yet?
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“He knows we opened the files.”
“How?” Lily asked.
Marco examined the laptop.
“Maybe Ethan’s encryption triggers a notification.”
Daniel sent another message.
A photograph.
Adrian’s Manhattan estate.
Federal vehicles crowded the driveway.
Then another.
His company headquarters being searched.
Then another.
A headline announcing the Moretti board would hold an emergency vote to remove Adrian as CEO.
Lily looked at him.
“He’s trying to make you react.”
“It’s working.”
“What happens if you lose the company?”
“Daniel controls billions.”
“And?”
“He buys protection.”
“For Crane?”
“For himself.”
Adrian looked at Marco.
“We go to Montreal.”
“No.”
The word came from Lily.
He turned.
“You and Noah stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
“It is when the people you’re chasing kidnapped my son and murdered my brother.”
“You have a baby.”
“Exactly.”
“Which is why you stay.”
“You think hiding is protecting him?”
“Yes.”
“I hid him in a laundromat. They found him.”
“That isn’t your fault.”
“And hiding at this cabin won’t make us invisible forever.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“What are you suggesting?”
“Take us somewhere secure while you investigate.”
“My safest places are compromised.”
“Then improvise.”
Marco cleared his throat.
“I might have one.”
They looked at him.
“My mother.”
Adrian almost laughed.
Lily blinked.
“Your mother?”
“Teresa owns a vineyard outside Burlington.”
“You have a mother?”
Marco looked offended.
“Everyone has a mother.”
“You don’t act like someone with a mother.”
“What does that mean?”
Adrian interrupted.
“Teresa hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“She called me Satan in Italian.”
“She calls everyone Satan.”
Lily smiled despite herself.
Three hours later, they arrived at Teresa Bellini’s vineyard.
A five-foot-two Italian woman opened the door holding a wooden spoon.
She looked at Marco.
Then Adrian.
Then Lily.
Then Noah.
Her eyes widened.
“Madonna.”
Marco raised one hand.
“Mama—”
“You bring a starving woman and a baby into my house looking like criminals?”
“We are criminals,” Marco muttered.
Teresa slapped his arm.
“Not in front of the baby.”
Lily laughed.
Adrian stared.
He hadn’t heard her laugh before.
Something in his chest shifted.
Teresa immediately took over.
She fed Lily pasta.
Insisted Adrian eat.
Wrapped Noah in three blankets despite everyone telling her he had a fever.
Then cornered Adrian in the kitchen.
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Lily.”
“I have eyes.”
“Then why ask?”
Teresa hit him with the spoon.
Adrian stared.
Nobody hit Adrian Moretti.
Teresa had done it since he was eight.
“She looks at you differently.”
Adrian frowned.
“She barely tolerates me.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Women who want your money smile.”
“And women who don’t?”
“Argue.”
He looked toward the dining room.
Lily was feeding Noah.
Teresa’s voice softened.
“You look at the boy like Sofia.”
Adrian turned away.
“Don’t.”
“I knew your sister.”
“Teresa.”
“She would be twenty-six now.”
“I know.”
“She would hate what you became.”
Adrian looked at her sharply.
Teresa did not retreat.
“But she would love what I saw you do tonight.”
“What?”
“Protect someone.”
Adrian said nothing.
Lily appeared in the doorway.
“We have a problem.”
Marco came behind her holding the laptop.
“Big one.”
He placed it on the table.
Ethan had hidden another video.
This one was recorded the night before his death.
He looked terrified.
“If anything happens to me, Lily needs to know Noah’s father isn’t who she thinks he is.”
Lily went still.
“What?”
Adrian slowly looked at her.
Ethan continued.
“I ran Noah’s DNA after finding something in our mother’s medical files. Lily was lied to.”
Her hands began shaking.
“No.”
“Who does she think the father is?” Adrian asked.
Lily’s voice barely worked.
“A man named Ryan Blake.”
Ethan looked toward the camera.
“Ryan Blake cannot be Noah’s biological father.”
Lily backed away.
“That’s impossible.”
Then Ethan said the sentence that changed everything.
“Noah’s paternal DNA matches the Moretti family line.”
Silence consumed the room.
Marco stared at Adrian.
Teresa crossed herself.
Lily slowly turned.
May you like
Her eyes locked on Adrian.
And for the first time since they met, the most feared man in New York looked genuinely stunned.
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