Chapter 3 - THE GHOST IN THE NURSERY
"Your mother?" I repeated, instinctively tightening my hold on Leah as if the car doors might fly open and swallow her whole. "Why would your mother pretend to be a charity worker? Why would she pay for my hospital bills and steal my baby?"
"Because in my family, an heir isn't just a child—it's power," Damian said, his voice tight with a fury that made the air in the cabin feel thin. He slipped the gold signet ring back into his pocket and tapped the glass partition. "Marco. Take us to the estate. Use the service road."
The SUV surged forward into the rain. I looked down at Leah. Her long dark lashes rested against her flushed cheeks, and her thumb slipped from her mouth as she sighed in her sleep. For two years, I had stood over an empty grave in a public cemetery in Zurich, apologizing to a cold stone for not being strong enough to keep her alive.
"You didn't know," I said, watching Damian’s profile in the passing streetlights. It wasn't a question; I needed to believe the man sitting across from me wasn't a monster who had ripped an infant from a grieving widow's arms.
"Elena and I had an arranged marriage," Damian said, staring out at the wet asphalt. "Her father controlled the shipping ports in Genoa; mine controlled the banks in Milan. There was no love between us, Clara. By the end, we barely spoke. When she got pregnant, she insisted on spending her entire pregnancy secluded at our villa in Switzerland. Her mother—my mother, Livia—arranged everything. When I arrived in Zurich the night of the storm, Livia met me in the hallway. She told me Elena had died of a hemorrhage and put Leah in my arms."
"And you never questioned why your daughter looked nothing like your wife?"
"Elena had dark hair. I have dark hair," Damian replied, turning his head to look at me. His gaze dropped to my eyes, then to Leah’s sleeping face. "When her eyes turned amber at six months, Livia swore it was a trait from Elena’s great-grandmother. I had no reason to doubt my own blood."
Twenty minutes later, heavy iron gates swung open, and we drove up a winding cobblestone driveway lined with cypress trees. The Caruso estate looked less like a home and more like a fortress carved out of gray stone.
Damian didn't take me through the front entrance. Instead, he led me through a subterranean wine cellar and up a narrow spiral staircase used by the servants. I carried Leah the entire way. Even when she stirred, she simply patted my cheek with her warm palm, murmured, "Mama," and went right back to sleep. Every time she said it, a piece of my broken heart stitched itself back together.
We stepped out into a carpeted hallway on the third floor. Damian unlocked a heavy oak door at the end of the corridor and flipped on a low lamp.
"This was Elena’s suite," he said quietly. "No one has been allowed inside since she died. You and Leah will stay in the adjoining nursery tonight until I force the truth out of my mother."
I walked into the nursery first, laying Leah gently into a carved mahogany crib. I pulled the cashmere blanket up to her chin and stayed bent over the rail for a long moment, terrified that if I blinked, I would wake up back in my cramped apartment above the bakery.
When I finally stepped back into Elena’s bedroom, Damian was standing near the vanity, staring at the wall with a strange expression.
"Look at the closet," he said.
The double doors of the walk-in wardrobe stood open. Inside were dozens of designer dresses, silk gowns, and tailored coats—all size zero. Not a single maternity garment hung on the racks.
I walked over to the mahogany vanity table. A thick layer of dust covered the glass top, except for a small leather jewelry box pushed toward the back. Beside it sat a silver-framed photograph of a striking, sharp-featured blonde woman standing on a balcony overlooking Lake Geneva.
"I thought you said Elena had dark hair," I said, picking up the frame.
"She dyed it dark six months before the wedding," Damian muttered, stepping up behind me. "Wait. Look at the timestamp in the corner of that photo."
I squinted at the small orange numbers printed by the camera lens on the bottom right corner: 10 / 12 / 24.
"October twelfth," I breathed, my skin prickling with cold dread. "Six days before I gave birth."
In the photograph, Elena was wearing a tight silk slip dress, holding a glass of champagne against the railing of the Swiss villa. Her stomach was completely flat.
I dropped the frame back onto the vanity. "Damian... she wasn't pregnant. She was never pregnant at all."
Before he could answer, the toe of my shoe bumped against the bottom drawer of the vanity, which was slightly ajar. I knelt and pulled it open. Beneath a stack of silk scarves lay a red leather passport and a thick cream envelope embossed with the St. Jude Clinic logo.
Damian snatched the envelope and tore it open. Inside wasn't a birth certificate or a death certificate. It was an itemized wire transfer receipt for two million Swiss francs—paid to Dr. Henrik Lindqvist on October nineteenth.
And clipped to the receipt was a boarding pass for a private charter flight from Zurich to Buenos Aires, dated October twentieth—two days after Elena had supposedly died on the delivery table.
"She didn't die," Damian whispered, the blood draining from his face. "She faked her death and bought a child to leave behind so my father wouldn't hunt her down for breaking the marriage contract."
Suddenly, the heavy oak door of the bedroom clicked shut from the outside, followed by the unmistakable, metallic slide of a deadbolt locking us in.
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Smells of sharp French perfume drifted beneath the doorframe, followed by the calm, icy voice of an older woman on the other side:
"You never could leave dead things buried, Damian. And now this waitress is going to ruin us all."
