Chapter 4 - THE HOSPITAL BRACELET
Matteo stared at the glowing screen of his phone.
It's burning.
He looked up at Abigail. She was leaning her head against the thick leather headrest, her eyes closed, one hand rhythmically stroking the curve of her belly. She had no idea her sanctuary, the tiny apartment she had spent months preparing for her baby, was currently going up in flames.
"Change of destination," Matteo commanded the driver, his voice low but tightly coiled. "Take us to the safehouse on the north shore. Call Vincenzo. Tell him to meet me there with a decryption laptop."
Isabella squeezed Abigail’s hand. "What’s wrong, Teo?"
"Sinclair," Matteo murmured, staring out the tinted windows as the city lights blurred past. "He didn't just throw a tantrum in the ballroom. He made a phone call."
When Abigail realized she had mentioned David’s name in front of the Sinclairs, she sat bolt upright. "My apartment. The nursery... all the baby's things are there!"
"I will replace everything," Matteo promised fiercely. "But right now, your life is the only thing that matters."
They arrived at the north shore estate—a brutalist fortress hidden behind wrought iron gates and acres of dense forest. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter.
Inside the massive living room, Matteo plugged the blood-stained flash drive into Vincenzo’s secure laptop. Abigail sat on a plush sofa, wrapped in a blanket, sipping warm tea Isabella had made for her.
The files on the drive were encrypted, but David had built the security system himself. He had left a backdoor for Abigail.
"It requires a passcode," Matteo said, turning the laptop toward her. "Did he ever give you a phrase? A number?"
Abigail stared at the screen. Her eyes filled with fresh tears. "Our baby's due date. And the name we picked."
She typed slowly: 1114-DAVID-JR.
The screen flashed green. Hundreds of spreadsheets, shipping manifests, and banking records flooded the screen.
Matteo leaned in, his eyes scanning the data with lethal precision. "These are the Romano shipping logs for the past three years. But they've been altered. Someone was piggybacking illegal weapons shipments onto our legitimate medical supply freighters."
"David told me the Romanos were doing it," Abigail said softly.
"No," Matteo corrected, pointing to a column of offshore accounts. "Look at the routing numbers. The money didn't go into our syndicate. It went into a shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands. A corporation owned by Richard Sinclair."
The truth slammed into the room. Sinclair had been using the Romano mafia reputation as a shield. He smuggled weapons through their ports, knowing that if the feds ever caught on, the Mafia would take the fall, not the philanthropic billionaire.
And when David found out, Sinclair killed him and planted evidence to make David think Matteo gave the order.
"He murdered David to protect his shipping routes," Abigail sobbed, her hands covering her face.
Isabella knelt beside her, wrapping her arms around the grieving woman. "I am so sorry, Abigail. We will make him pay. I promise you."
While comforting Abigail, Isabella’s eyes drifted toward Abigail’s tote bag, which had spilled open onto the rug when they arrived.
Among the cheap waitressing pens and prenatal vitamin bottles, a small, faded plastic strip had fallen out.
Isabella reached down and picked it up.
It was an old hospital admission bracelet. The plastic was yellowed with age.
"Abigail?" Isabella asked, her brow furrowing. "Why do you have a hospital bracelet from eight years ago?"
Abigail looked up, wiping her eyes. She saw what Isabella was holding, and her face went completely pale.
"That... that isn't mine," Abigail stammered, pulling the blanket tighter around herself.
Matteo stood up, sensing the sudden shift in the room's atmosphere. "Whose is it?"
Isabella turned the bracelet over, reading the faded black ink printed on the white plastic.
Her breath caught in her throat. She looked at her brother, her eyes wide with shock.
"Teo," Isabella whispered, holding the bracelet up. "The patient name is Vanessa Sinclair."
Matteo froze.
"Why do you have Vanessa Sinclair's hospital bracelet?" Matteo demanded, stepping toward Abigail.
Abigail looked away, her hands trembling violently. "Because eight years ago, I wasn't just a random blood donor in the waiting room."
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She looked back at Matteo, the heavy weight of an eight-year-old secret finally breaking her.
"I was a nursing student on rotation in the ER," Abigail confessed, her voice cracking. "I was the one who cut the bloody clothes off Vanessa Sinclair when they brought her in through the private loading dock. She was blind drunk, Matteo. And her car was covered in someone else's blood."
