Chapter 3 - THE HOSPITAL BRACELET
The deafening roar of automatic gunfire shattered the crystal chandeliers, raining glass down on the panicked elite of Boston.
“Get down!” Dominic roared.
He didn’t hesitate. He dropped his weapon, lunged forward, and tackled Leo and me to the marble floor. His massive body covered us completely, acting as a human shield against the barrage of bullets tearing through the catering tables.
Screams filled the darkness, illuminated only by the strobe-light flashes of muzzle fire.
“Marcus!” Dominic shouted over the chaos.
A tall man in a tailored charcoal suit—Dominic’s head of security—slid across the slick marble, firing his weapon toward the ballroom doors. “I’ve got you, Boss! Move to the service corridor! Go!”
Dominic hauled me to my feet by my apron strings. He scooped Leo into his other arm, pressing the boy’s face into his shoulder so he wouldn’t see the blood pooling on the pristine floor.
“Don’t let go of me,” Dominic commanded, grabbing my hand.
His grip was like iron, hot and calloused. A sudden, violent flash of memory hit me behind my eyes—this exact hand holding mine in a hospital room, a gold ring on his finger.
I stumbled, my vision blurring, but Dominic dragged me forward.
We sprinted through the kitchen doors, the sounds of chefs screaming and pots clattering adding to the nightmare. We didn’t stop until we reached a private, steel-reinforced elevator hidden behind a pantry wall.
Dominic slammed his palm against a biometric scanner. The heavy doors hissed open. He shoved us inside and hit the button for the penthouse.
As the elevator shot upward, the silence inside the steel box was suffocating.
Leo was sobbing quietly into Dominic’s neck. Dominic was breathing heavily, his dark suit dusted with powdered sugar and shattered glass.
He looked at me. Really looked at me.
His gray eyes traced the line of my jaw, the shape of my nose, and finally rested on the crescent scar behind my left ear.
“You’re alive,” he whispered. It wasn’t a question. It was a prayer he had finally been given permission to say out loud. “Clara, it’s really you.”
“My name is Hannah,” I stammered, backing up until my spine hit the cold steel wall of the elevator. Panic was clawing at my throat. “I don’t know you. I don’t know this child. I just wanted to serve champagne and go home to my apartment.”
“Hannah is a ghost,” Dominic said gently, taking a slow step toward me. He didn’t want to spook me. “Dr. Vance gave you that name to hide you. My mother paid him to wipe your identity after she ran your car off the bridge.”
“Why would she do that?” I cried, clutching my chest. “Why would she want me dead?”
“Because of me,” Dominic said, his voice laced with absolute self-loathing. “I was going to take the family legitimate. I was walking away from the syndicate to build a safe life for you. Beatrice would rather see me a widower than lose control of the Boston port.”
The elevator dinged, opening directly into a massive, sprawling penthouse overlooking the stormy Boston skyline.
Armed guards were already waiting, sweeping the room.
Dominic set Leo down. “Go to your room, Leo. Lock the door. Uncle Marcus is coming up to sit with you.”
Leo shook his head violently. He ran to me, wrapping his arms around my legs again. “No! I’m not leaving Mommy. The bad men will take her away again.”
My heart shattered. I knelt on the hardwood floor, ignoring the glass in my own knees, and looked into the boy’s terrified gray eyes.
“Leo, sweetheart,” I whispered, wiping a tear from his cheek. “I promise you, I’m not going anywhere right now. But you have to listen to your dad.”
Your dad.
The words felt so natural in my mouth.
Leo sniffled, nodded bravely, and ran down the long hallway.
Dominic watched him go, a profound sadness in his posture. Then he turned to me.
“You really don’t remember anything?” Dominic asked softly.
“I remember waking up in a hospital bed in Portland,” I said, my voice trembling. “I remember Dr. Vance telling me I had severe head trauma. He gave me a Social Security card, a birth certificate, and a new life. He said I had no family to claim me.”
“He lied,” Dominic said, his jaw clenching. “I spent millions looking for you. They told me the car burned to ash. They gave me a closed casket.”
Dominic walked over to a heavy mahogany bookshelf. He reached behind a row of leather-bound books and pulled out a beautifully carved wooden box.
He walked back and set it on the glass coffee table between us.
“I kept everything,” Dominic said. “I couldn’t let you go.”
He opened the lid.
Inside lay a few simple items. A dried white rose. A silver wedding band. And a tarnished silver music box.
“Open it,” Dominic urged gently.
With shaking fingers, I reached out and lifted the heavy silver lid of the music box.
A tiny ballerina popped up, and a delicate, mechanical melody filled the quiet penthouse.
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream…
The boat song. The song Leo said I sang during thunderstorms.
The moment the notes hit my ears, a blinding pain pierced my skull. I gasped, dropping to my knees.
Flashes.
Lightning tearing across a dark sky.
A heavy pregnant belly.
Dominic’s voice, rough with panic. “Push, Clara, you have to push!”
The piercing cry of a newborn baby.
I gasped for air, tears streaming down my face. “I remember… I remember the storm. I remember giving birth.”
Dominic fell to his knees beside me, his hands hovering over me, afraid to touch me and break the fragile connection. “Yes. There was a hurricane. We couldn’t reach the hospital. You gave birth in the safe house.”
“I’m Clara,” I sobbed, looking at him, the truth finally settling into my bones. “I am your wife.”
Dominic pulled me into his arms. He buried his face in my neck, breathing in my scent like a starving man. “You’re home. I swear to God, I will burn this city to the ground before I let anyone touch you again.”
For a moment, wrapped in his strong arms, I felt entirely safe.
But then, my eyes drifted back to the wooden memory box on the table.
Sitting beneath the music box was a small, plastic hospital ID bracelet. The kind they put on newborns.
I pulled away from Dominic and reached into the box.
I picked up the tiny bracelet. It was stained with a single drop of dried blood.
I read the name printed on the plastic.
Baby Girl Varelli.
I frowned, my head spinning. “Dominic? Why does this say Baby Girl? Leo is a boy.”
Dominic looked at the bracelet in confusion. “I don’t know. The medics gave that to me after the crash. They said they found it in your purse.”
Before I could process the impossibility of the bracelet, small footsteps echoed in the hallway.
Leo walked back into the living room. He was holding a piece of wrinkled construction paper.
He walked up to me and handed it over.
“I found my picture, Mommy,” Leo whispered.
I took the drawing. It was done in messy crayons. It showed a tall man, a woman with dark hair, and a little boy.
But next to the little boy was a little girl with a pink bow in her hair.
“Leo,” I asked, my blood running cold. “Who is the girl in the picture?”
May you like
Leo looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes.
“That’s Mia,” Leo said. “My sister. Don’t you remember? You cried for days when the mean lady took her away.”
