PART 4: THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ᴅᴇᴀᴅ

For several seconds, I couldn’t look away from Alejandro.

Eleven months ago.

The hospital.

Gabriel’s name written across Sofia’s paternity report.

And a message from someone who seemed determined to convince me that my husband had stolen something from his own brother.

“What did you do in that hospital?” I asked.

Alejandro didn’t answer.

I тιԍнтened my arms around Sofia.

“Look at me and tell me the truth.”

His eyes dropped to our daughter before returning to mine.

“I went there because I received a phone call.”

“From whom?”

“Gabriel.”

My heart lurched.

“You told me he was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”

“I believed he was.”

“Then why would a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ man call you?”

Alejandro dragged a hand across his face. For the first time since I had known him, he looked exhausted rather than powerful.

“The call came from an unknown number. The man on the other end knew things only Gabriel could have known. He told me that someone was going to take something precious from me.”

I stared at him.

“And you thought that meant Sofia?”

“No. I didn’t even know you had given birth.”

The words hung between us.

I wanted to believe him.

I also remembered every night he had come home late, every lie he had told, and every time he had insisted that my questions were dangerous.

“What happened at the hospital?” I demanded.

Alejandro looked toward Isabel.

She lowered her eyes.

That tiny gesture frightened me more than his silence.

“You both know something,” I said. “And I’m tired of being the only person in this room who doesn’t understand her own life.”

Isabel finally spoke.

“Elena, the night you disappeared, Alejandro received a package. It contained a pH๏τograph of a newborn baby and a note claiming that Gabriel’s child had survived.”

I looked at Sofia.

“Survived what?”

Isabel hesitated.

“The accident that supposedly killed Gabriel and his wife.”

Alejandro’s expression darkened.

“I went to the hospital to find out whether the claim was real. By the time I arrived, the records had been altered, and the woman who had delivered the baby was gone.”

I shook my head.

“But I was there. I gave birth to Sofia. I held her the moment she was born.”

“I know,” he said. “And I believe you.”

“Then what are you hiding?”

He looked as though he wanted to reach for my hand.

He didn’t.

“I’m hiding the fact that my brother may have been watching you long before you ever knew you were pregnant.”

A chill crept down my spine.

Before I could ask another question, Isabel’s phone rang again.

She answered, listened, and then looked directly at Alejandro.

“It’s the security team. They’ve found the vehicle.”

“Where?”

“Outside the old Moretti estate.”

Alejandro went completely still.

The old estate was a place I had heard about but never visited. It belonged to the family before Alejandro took control of the empire. According to him, it had been abandoned after Gabriel’s death.

“That’s impossible,” Alejandro murmured.

Isabel shook her head.

“They found someone inside.”

“Who?”

“A woman.”

I felt my pulse quicken.

Alejandro took the phone from Isabel.

“Describe her.”

The person on the other end spoke for several seconds.

Then Alejandro closed his eyes.

“No,” he whispered.

I had never heard that word sound like a prayer.

He ended the call.

“Who is she?” I asked.

He looked at me, and I saw something I had never seen in his face before.

Fear.

“Gabriel’s wife.”

I could barely breathe.

“But you said she was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”

“I watched them lower a coffin into the ground.”

“Was there a body inside?”

His silence answered me.

I stepped away from him.

“You buried an empty coffin?”

“I buried what I was told was my brother’s family.”

“And you never questioned it?”

“I did. The people who arranged the funeral showed me the medical records, the identification documents, and the pH๏τographs from the accident. Everything pointed to their deaths.”

“Everything except the truth.”

His jaw тιԍнтened.

“Yes.”

For a moment, I felt sorry for him.

Then I remembered Sofia’s pH๏τograph, the hidden report, and the woman who had apparently accessed my daughter’s medical records.

“I’m going to that estate,” I said.

Alejandro immediately shook his head.

“Absolutely not.”

“Then tell me everything you know.”

“I don’t know whether Gabriel is alive, Elena. But if his wife has returned, someone has spent six years making us believe a lie.”

“And Sofia is involved.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m going.”

He studied me for a long moment.

Finally, he nodded.

“But you stay beside me.”

“I’ll stay beside my daughter.”

He accepted the correction without argument.

For the first time that night, I wondered whether the man I had married was finally beginning to understand that I was no longer the frightened woman who had once followed three steps behind him.

We left through the rear entrance with two security guards accompanying us.

The drive took forty minutes.

Rain streaked the windows as the city lights disappeared behind us. Sofia slept in her carrier, unaware that the two people responsible for bringing her into the world were driving toward a past neither of them understood.

Alejandro sat opposite me.

He hadn’t looked away from our daughter for more than a few seconds.

“Did you ever think about us?” he asked suddenly.

I stared at him.

“What?”

“During the year you were gone. Did you ever think about coming back?”

I looked out the window.

“Every day.”

His eyes lifted.

“But I remembered how you looked at me when I discovered Valentina. You didn’t even try to deny it. You looked at me as though my pain was an inconvenience.”

“I was a coward.”

“Yes,” I said. “You were.”

He accepted that, too.

“I thought I could keep you safe without telling you anything. I thought if I controlled every part of your life, nothing could hurt you.”

“And now?”

He looked at Sofia.

“Now I understand that I might have lost both of you because I was too afraid to trust you.”

I wanted those words to matter.

Perhaps once, they would have.

But apologies could not erase what had happened, and whatever waited for us at the estate was bigger than our marriage.

The vehicle slowed as we approached an enormous iron gate.

Beyond it stood a mansion with darkened windows and ivy climbing its stone walls.

The gates opened automatically.

Someone was expecting us.

Inside the entrance hall, a single lamp illuminated a portrait hanging above the staircase.

Gabriel Moretti.

He looked remarkably like Alejandro, except for the faint scar cutting through his left eyebrow and the smile that seemed almost friendly.

I had seen that face only in old pH๏τographs.

Yet suddenly, I understood why Alejandro had been so terrified.

Someone had recently placed fresh flowers beneath the portrait.

A woman’s voice came from the darkness.

“You took your time, Álex.”

Alejandro stopped.

A woman stepped into the light.

She was perhaps in her early thirties, wearing a simple black dress. Her dark hair fell over one shoulder, and a pale scar ran along her jaw.

Her eyes moved from Alejandro to me.

Then to Sofia.

She went pale.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

I stepped protectively in front of the carrier.

“Who are you?”

The woman looked at Alejandro.

“You haven’t told her?”

“Told me what?” I demanded.

The woman gave a short, bitter laugh.

“Of course he hasn’t. He never tells anyone anything until the truth is standing in front of him with a knife at his throat.”

Alejandro took one step forward.

“Where is Gabriel?”

Her expression changed.

“You still think this is about your brother?”

She reached into her handbag and pulled out a small pH๏τograph.

It showed a newborn baby wrapped in a white hospital blanket.

On the back was a date.

The same date Sofia had been born.

My fingers went numb.

“Who is that baby?”

The woman looked at me with tears gathering in her eyes.

“My daughter.”

I stared at her.

“No. Sofia is my daughter.”

“I know who Sofia is.”

“Then explain why you have a pH๏τograph of a baby born on the same day!”

She held out the picture.

“Because the hospital delivered two girls that night.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Two girls.

I remembered the nurses moving around my bed, the brief moment when someone had taken Sofia away for examination, and the exhaustion that had made every minute blur together.

But I had never been told there was another baby.

The woman took a shaky breath.

“My name is Isabella De Luca. Gabriel was my husband. And the night our daughter was born, someone switched the hospital identification bracelets.”

Alejandro went rigid.

“That is impossible.”

“Is it?” Isabella challenged. “Then explain why your brother has spent the last eleven months searching for a little girl who isn’t where he believes she is.”

I looked at Sofia.

Then at the pH๏τograph.

My daughter stirred, opening her gray eyes.

Isabella stared at her as though she were looking at a ghost.

“No,” she whispered. “That’s not possible.”

Alejandro moved between us.

“Isabella, tell us where Gabriel is.”

She shook her head.

“You’re asking the wrong question.”

“Then what is the right one?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“Ask Elena what happened to the other baby.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“I never saw another baby.”

“I believe you,” Isabella said. “That’s why you need to understand that someone may have used your daughter to hide mine.”

Before anyone could speak, a loud click echoed through the entrance hall.

The front doors locked.

The lights went out.

Sofia began to cry.

Alejandro immediately pulled us behind a stone pillar as footsteps sounded above the staircase.

A man’s voice drifted down from the darkness.

“Hello, little brother.”

Alejandro went completely still.

I recognized the voice from the old recordings he had once played in his office.

Gabriel.

“It’s been a long time,” the voice continued. “And I see you’ve brought Elena home.”

A figure appeared on the landing.

He descended slowly, one hand resting on the railing.

The scar through his eyebrow was unmistakable.

Gabriel Moretti was alive.

But he wasn’t looking at Alejandro.

He was staring at Sofia.

Then he smiled.

“You have something that belongs to me, Elena.”

Alejandro stepped forward, placing himself between us.

“Touch my family, and you’ll regret it.”

Gabriel laughed softly.

“Your family?”

He pulled a folded document from his jacket and dropped it onto the floor.

“Read it, brother. Then tell me which one of us has been raising another man’s child.”

Alejandro picked up the paper.

I watched his eyes move across the page.

Once.

Twice.

Then all the color disappeared from his face.

“What is it?” I whispered.

He looked at me, unable to speak.

Gabriel answered for him.

“It’s the original hospital report. The one your beloved husband paid someone to bury.”

My heart hammered against my ribs.

“What does it say?”

Gabriel’s smile widened.

“That Sofia Moretti is not the only child Elena gave birth to that night.”

I stared at him.

“I had one baby.”

“That’s what they told you.”

He took another step toward us.

“And somewhere in this city, Elena, there’s a little girl who has your face, your blood, and your name.”

Then he looked directly at Alejandro.

“Unless, of course, you already found her.”

Alejandro’s phone suddenly vibrated.

He checked the screen.

A pH๏τograph appeared.

A little girl stood in front of a school, holding the hand of a woman whose face had been deliberately blurred.

Underneath it was a message:

“You have ten minutes to choose which daughter survives the night.”

Alejandro raised his eyes to Gabriel.

And Gabriel said the words that made me realize this nightmare had only just begun.

“Welcome to the family reunion, brother. Now let’s see which child you’re willing to lose.”

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 5…