Chapter 2 - THE COFFIN WITH NOTHING INSIDEDamian Caruso had spent most of his adult life learning that fear was useful.
People lied when they believed they were safe.
They made mistakes when they were frightened.
But when Elena Moretti stood across from him inside Belladonna's private dining room, he realized terror didn't always expose guilt.
Sometimes it exposed grief.
“No,” Elena whispered.
Damian had dismissed the customers from the restaurant after recording their contact information. The staff had been sent into the employee lounge. Only Damian, Elena, Sofia, Marco, and Damian's attorney, Julian Cross, remained.
Sofia sat on Elena's lap.
That alone made Damian uncomfortable.
For two years, Sofia resisted nearly everyone except him and her nanny.
Yet she had climbed into Elena's arms without hesitation.
Now her tiny fingers were tangled in Elena's hair.
Elena hadn't stopped crying.
“My mother wouldn't steal a child.”
“Nobody said she did,” Damian replied.
“You locked a restaurant because my daughter called me Mama.”
“My daughter.”
Elena looked up sharply.
The words hit both of them.
Damian corrected himself.
“The child I've raised.”
“Who gave her to you?”
Damian's eyes darkened.
“My wife.”
Elena froze.
“You were married?”
“Her name was Victoria.”
“Was?”
“She died three months after Sofia was born.”
Elena looked at the toddler asleep against her chest.
“What happened?”
“Car accident.”
Damian didn't explain further.
He had never trusted the official story.
Victoria had been driving toward Connecticut at two in the morning when her brakes supposedly failed.
The car burned before emergency crews arrived.
Damian had spent eighteen months investigating it privately.
Nothing.
No witness.
No surviving security footage.
No convincing motive.
Only death.
Elena carefully shifted Sofia.
“Where was your wife during the pregnancy?”
“Mostly Europe.”
“You weren't with her?”
“Our marriage wasn't…” Damian paused. “Simple.”
Marco glanced away.
Elena understood.
“You didn't know she was pregnant.”
“Not until the seventh month.”
“And you believed her?”
“I had no reason not to.”
Elena gave a bitter laugh.
“Apparently both of us believed a lot of things.”
Damian didn't react.
“Tell me about November fourteenth.”
Elena stared through him.
“My mother brought me to St. Agnes around eleven that night.”
“How far along?”
“Thirty-eight weeks.”
“Father?”
Elena's face changed.
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“I don't know.”
Damian immediately noticed the lie.
But he let it pass.
Elena continued.
“My labor became complicated. They gave me something. I remember becoming dizzy.”
“Anesthesia?”
“I thought so.”
“Did you sign consent forms?”
“I don't remember.”
“What happened next?”
“I woke up the next morning.”
She looked down.
“My mother was crying.”
Elena's voice broke.
“She said my daughter had stopped breathing.”
Sofia shifted in her lap.
Elena swallowed hard.
“They told me there was nothing anyone could have done.”
“Did you ask to see her?”
“I begged.”
“And?”
“My mother said it would be better if I remembered her alive.”
Damian's expression tightened.
“You'd never seen her alive.”
Elena looked at him.
“I saw her for maybe ten seconds.”
Damian leaned forward.
“Explain.”
“Before I lost consciousness, somebody put a baby on my chest.”
Her breathing became uneven.
“Dark hair. Hazel eyes. Little birthmark near her right shoulder.”
Damian went completely still.
Elena noticed.
“What?”
He walked toward Sofia.
Carefully, Damian moved the collar of her pink dress.
Beneath the fabric was a tiny crescent-shaped birthmark.
Elena made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob.
She reached toward it.
Her finger stopped inches away.
“Oh, God.”
Damian caught her wrist.
Not violently.
But firmly.
“We don't know anything yet.”
“She has the mark.”
“Coincidence.”
“You don't believe that.”
“No.”
Damian released her.
Julian placed a leather folder on the table.
“DNA test.”
Elena looked at him.
Damian continued.
“Tonight.”
“You have somebody who can do that?”
“I have somebody who owes me favors.”
“I don't care who owes you what.”
Elena stood carefully, holding Sofia.
“If she's mine, I want the truth.”
“So do I.”
Elena's stare sharpened.
“And if she is mine?”
That was the question Damian had refused to consider.
Sofia had slept against his chest during fevers.
She had held his finger while learning to walk.
When nightmares woke her, she climbed into his bed.
He had chosen her clothes.
Read books she couldn't yet understand.
Sat through medical appointments.
Cancelled meetings when she was sick.
She was his daughter.
DNA couldn't erase two years.
But neither could love erase Elena.
“If you're her biological mother,” Damian finally said, “we deal with that when we know.”
Elena almost smiled.
“That sounds like something a man says when he's used to controlling outcomes.”
“I am.”
“Not this one.”
Damian's phone rang.
Marco answered his own simultaneously.
Then both men became silent.
“What?” Elena asked.
Marco looked at Damian.
“We have a problem.”
“Say it.”
“I sent two men to Elena's mother's address.”
Elena stood.
“Why?”
“They found the front door open.”
Her face drained.
Damian asked, “Where is she?”
“Nobody knows.”
Elena grabbed her purse.
“I'm going home.”
Damian blocked the door.
“Move.”
“No.”
“That's my mother.”
“And somebody may have gotten there first.”
“I don't need protection.”
“You have no idea what you need.”
Elena shoved him.
It surprised everyone.
Damian didn't move.
“I spent two years believing my child was buried,” she hissed. “Don't stand between me and the only person who knows why.”
Damian's eyes narrowed.
Then he nodded.
“We go together.”
Twenty minutes later, three black SUVs pulled onto a quiet Brooklyn street.
Elena jumped out before Damian's vehicle completely stopped.
“Mom!”
The small brick house stood dark.
Front door open.
Kitchen light burning.
Damian followed with Marco.
Inside, nothing appeared stolen.
Television still on.
A mug of tea half-finished.
Elena rushed upstairs.
“Mom!”
No answer.
Damian entered the bedroom.
A dresser drawer had been emptied onto the floor.
Marco examined it.
“Someone searched this.”
Elena suddenly stopped.
A photograph lay beneath the bed.
She picked it up.
Her mother, Teresa Moretti, stood outside St. Agnes Hospital twenty-five years younger.
Beside her were three nurses and a doctor.
Damian recognized one person instantly.
Victoria Caruso.
His dead wife.
“What the hell?”
Elena looked at him.
“You know her?”
Damian pointed.
“That's Victoria.”
Elena's mother had known Damian's wife long before Sofia's birth.
Then Elena noticed writing on the back.
Four words.
KEEP THE BABY FROM HIM.
Below it were initials.
V.C.
Elena stared at Damian.
“Why would your wife write that?”
Damian didn't answer.
Marco called from downstairs.
“Boss!”
They ran down.
Marco stood beside the fireplace holding a metal cashbox.
Inside were hospital wristbands.
Birth records.
Photographs.
And a small brass key.
Elena picked up one document.
Her name appeared across the top.
ELENA MORETTI.
Patient ID.
November 14.
Female infant.
Healthy.
No respiratory distress.
No complications.
Elena read it twice.
Then a third time.
“My baby didn't die.”
“No,” Damian said.
She looked up, shaking.
“They knew.”
Before anyone could respond, a car engine roared outside.
Marco rushed toward the window.
A dark sedan sped away.
Damian's men ran after it.
Elena moved to the porch.
Something had been left on the doorstep.
A white envelope.
Her name written across it.
Inside was a photograph.
Teresa Moretti was sitting in a chair somewhere unfamiliar.
Alive.
Terrified.
Someone stood behind her holding a newspaper dated that morning.
On the back of the photograph was a message:
STOP DIGGING INTO THE GIRL'S BIRTH OR YOUR MOTHER GOES INTO THE GRAVE THAT WAS MEANT FOR HER GRANDDAUGHTER.
Elena's knees buckled.
Damian caught her.
For once, he didn't issue an order.
He simply held her.
Then Elena whispered something against his chest.
“They buried a coffin.”
Damian looked down.
“What?”
“My baby's funeral.”
She stared at him.
“There was a coffin.”
May you like
Her expression changed.
“We need to open it.”
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