Chapter 5 - THE FAMILY SECRETElena slapped her mother.
The sound cracked through Damian's penthouse.
Everyone froze.
Teresa didn't defend herself.
She touched her cheek and whispered, “I deserved that.”
“My brother?”
Elena's voice broke.
“You're telling me the man I lived with was my brother?”
“Half brother.”
“Oh, that's supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
Elena stumbled backward.
Damian ordered everyone except Teresa and Marco out of the room.
Sofia remained upstairs with her nanny.
Elena looked sick.
“Start talking.”
Teresa sat.
“Your father wasn't Michael Moretti.”
Elena stared.
Michael Moretti had died when Elena was nine.
She had worshipped him.
“He raised me.”
“Yes.”
“He was my father.”
“In every way that mattered.”
“But biologically?”
Teresa shook her head.
Elena closed her eyes.
“Who?”
“A man named Robert Vale.”
Damian recognized the surname.
Teresa continued.
“He was married. Powerful. I was twenty-two and stupid.”
“Adrian?”
“Robert had a son from his marriage. Adrian.”
Elena sank into a chair.
“Did Adrian know?”
“Not when you met.”
“Then when?”
Teresa looked down.
“When I recognized him.”
“You met him?”
“Once. You brought him home for dinner.”
Elena remembered.
Her mother had dropped a glass.
She'd claimed her hand slipped.
“You knew.”
“I recognized Robert in his face.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I panicked.”
“You let me keep dating him!”
“For three days.”
“Three days!”
“I contacted Robert.”
Damian's gaze sharpened.
“What happened?”
“He demanded Adrian end the relationship without explanation. Adrian discovered why.”
Elena went pale.
Teresa whispered.
“He became obsessed.”
“Why?”
“Power. Revenge. Humiliation.”
Teresa began crying.
“He blamed you for existing. Blamed me for Robert having another child.”
“What did Sofia have to do with it?”
“He knew you were pregnant.”
Elena looked confused.
“Pregnant by who?”
Teresa looked at Damian.
“That's the problem.”
Elena stood slowly.
“No.”
Damian felt something cold settle in his stomach.
Teresa continued.
“Adrian wasn't Sofia's father.”
“Then who was?”
Elena shook her head.
“I only—”
She stopped.
Memory shifted.
A night six weeks before she'd begun dating Adrian.
A wedding reception in Manhattan.
Too much champagne.
A stranger.
Dark eyes.
A private balcony.
A name she'd never forgotten.
Damon.
She stared at Damian.
“No.”
Damian stared back.
Two years earlier, before his marriage to Victoria became public, he'd attended a charity wedding under his middle name.
He remembered Elena.
Not her full name.
Just Elena.
They'd spent one night together.
He had left before sunrise after receiving an emergency call.
They'd never exchanged numbers.
Damian's face changed.
“March eighteenth.”
Elena's mouth opened.
“You remember?”
“I remember everything.”
Teresa whispered.
“Sofia was conceived around then.”
The room became silent.
Damian looked toward the ceiling.
Toward the floor above them.
Where Sofia slept.
Elena shook her head.
“This is impossible.”
Marco quietly spoke.
“A paternity test would settle it.”
Damian turned.
“Do it.”
The second DNA result arrived that evening.
Julian read it twice before entering the library.
He looked at Damian.
Then Elena.
“Damian is Sofia's biological father.”
Nobody moved.
Elena began laughing.
Not because it was funny.
Because reality had become too absurd to process any other way.
“So somebody stole our baby…”
“Yes,” Damian said.
“And accidentally gave her…”
“To her actual father.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“That's insane.”
“Yes.”
Teresa covered her face.
“I didn't know.”
Damian turned sharply.
“You gave Victoria a baby without knowing who the father was?”
“Victoria arranged the DNA test later.”
“What?”
Teresa looked at him.
“She discovered the truth after she took Sofia.”
Damian's fists tightened.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of Adrian.”
Damian laughed darkly.
“Victoria was afraid of Adrian Vale?”
“Not Adrian alone.”
Teresa looked toward the window.
“The organization behind him.”
Damian became very still.
“What organization?”
“Robert Vale spent decades laundering money through hospitals, adoption agencies, private fertility clinics.”
Elena's expression turned horrified.
“Babies?”
“Children.”
Teresa nodded.
“Illegal adoptions. Identity changes. Custody fraud. Wealthy clients who didn't want questions.”
Damian felt sick.
Teresa continued.
“Victoria was gathering evidence. She learned Adrian intended to take Sofia because he believed Elena's child would give him leverage over Robert.”
“Why?”
“Robert's estate.”
Elena stared.
“I don't want his money.”
“Robert named you in his will.”
“What?”
“Half his fortune.”
Damian whistled quietly.
“How much?”
“Close to nine hundred million.”
Elena almost laughed again.
“I serve pasta for tips.”
Teresa nodded sadly.
“And somewhere, your biological father left you almost half a billion dollars.”
Damian corrected her.
“Four hundred fifty million.”
Elena glared.
“Not helping.”
Teresa explained that Robert Vale died one month before Sofia's birth.
The will had been sealed while the estate remained contested.
If Elena died without heirs, Adrian inherited everything.
If Elena had a living biological child, that child inherited Elena's share.
Sofia had ruined Adrian's plan.
“So he wanted her dead?” Elena whispered.
“At first.”
Teresa nodded.
“Then he realized he could make her disappear instead.”
Damian understood.
“No body. No legal heir.”
“Yes.”
“Victoria intervened.”
“Yes.”
Teresa looked at him.
“She took Sofia intending to keep her hidden until she could expose Adrian.”
“But brought her to me.”
“She discovered you were the father.”
Damian's chest tightened.
“And decided the safest place for Sofia was with the Caruso family.”
Irony almost made him smile.
An FBI informant trusting a suspected crime boss to protect a baby.
“What happened to Victoria?”
Teresa looked down.
“I think Adrian killed her.”
Damian's face emptied of emotion.
“How?”
“I don't know.”
“Why didn't you come forward?”
“He had Elena watched.”
Teresa wiped tears away.
“He sent photographs. Her apartment. Her job. Her sleeping through a window.”
Elena looked horrified.
“I thought I was safe.”
“You were alive.”
Damian walked toward the bar but didn't pour anything.
“What evidence did Victoria collect?”
Teresa reached into her coat.
“The brass key.”
“The one from your house?”
“Yes.”
“She gave it to me before she died.”
“What does it open?”
“I don't know.”
Damian stared at her.
“Two years, and you never found out?”
“I tried.”
The phone rang.
Marco answered.
“Caruso residence.”
His expression changed.
He handed the phone to Damian.
“It's the district attorney.”
Damian listened.
Then his face hardened.
“What do you mean arrested?”
Elena stood.
“What happened?”
Damian hung up.
He looked at Teresa.
“Police just found evidence connecting you to three infant disappearances.”
Teresa went white.
“What?”
“One of them includes Sofia.”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
Damian continued.
“And they found a witness.”
“Who?”
The elevator opened.
Two detectives entered with Julian.
Behind them stood an older man wearing a hospital administrator's badge.
Elena recognized him immediately.
Dr. Peter Lang.
He had been there the night she delivered.
Lang pointed directly at Teresa.
“That woman ran the entire operation.”
Police moved forward.
Teresa whispered, “He's lying.”
Handcuffs closed around her wrists.
Then Lang looked at Elena.
“You want to know why your baby disappeared?”
Elena stared.
May you like
Lang smiled faintly.
“Ask your mother what she did with the other eleven.”
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