Chapter 16 - THE MOTHER WHO CHOSE SILENCE|
Nadia arrived at the hospital before sunrise.
Rebecca was conscious but weak, with a bandage around her head and bruises across her arms. She had been found beside a highway several miles from the diner. Her attackers had taken her bag but failed to find the flash drive hidden inside the lining of her coat.
Theodore stood near the window while Nadia sat beside the bed.
“Who did you mean?” Nadia asked. “When you said the woman who raised me wasn't my real mother?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Your adoptive mother loved you. I never meant that she wasn't your mother in every way that mattered.”
“Then what did you mean?”
Rebecca looked toward Theodore.
“Your mother wasn't the woman on the hospital records.”
Nadia felt her stomach tighten.
“Margaret gave birth to me.”
“Yes. But the woman who arranged your adoption wasn't Richard's wife. It was someone else.”
Rebecca explained that the adoption agency had operated through a network of wealthy families. Babies were sometimes placed with couples who could not have children, but the agency also falsified records to hide births connected to powerful men.
Nadia's adoptive mother, Laura Warren, had worked as an accountant for a hospital foundation. She discovered irregular payments connected to the agency and threatened to expose them.
Instead of silencing Laura, Richard offered her a bargain.
She could adopt Nadia legally, raise her as her own, and receive financial support for the child's education. In exchange, she had to keep Nadia's origins secret.
“Your adoptive parents were not part of the original theft,” Rebecca said. “They were trying to save you from a system they didn't understand. But Laura knew Margaret was alive.”
Nadia's voice broke.
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“Because Margaret asked her not to. She believed the less you knew, the safer you would be.”
Nadia stood and walked to the window.
Her mother had searched for her. Her adoptive mother had protected her. Both women had made choices in the belief that silence could keep her alive.
And both had left her with questions that could never be answered directly.
Theodore approached.
“We can investigate the arrangement without assuming anyone's guilt.”
Nadia looked at him.
“What if every person who loved me decided what I was allowed to know?”
He had no easy answer.
After Rebecca was discharged, Helen Brooks began tracing the adoption payments. She discovered that Laura Warren had created a private file shortly before her death. The file had been stored in a safety deposit box under Nadia's birth date.
Nadia and Theodore traveled to the bank with the original adoption documents.
Inside the box were letters, photographs, and a small digital recorder. Laura had left a message addressed to Nadia.
“My beautiful girl,” she began, her voice wavering. “If you are hearing this, then the secret we tried to bury has finally found you.”
Nadia closed her eyes.
Laura explained that she and her husband had adopted Nadia because they wanted a child, but they had accepted the arrangement only after discovering that Margaret had been threatened. They believed they could give Nadia a safe childhood while helping Margaret disappear.
They had planned to tell Nadia the truth when she turned eighteen.
Then the threats began again.
“Your father and I were followed. Our home was searched. We were told that if we ever contacted Margaret, you would be taken away. We thought the danger would pass.”
The recording paused.
Then Laura whispered something that made Nadia grip the table.
“The man who killed us was not working for Victor.”
Theodore leaned forward.
“Who was it?”
Laura's voice became almost inaudible.
“It was someone who wanted you to inherit the Hawthorne fortune.”
The recording ended.
A second file began automatically.
It contained a name.
Dominic Hawthorne.
Theodore stared at the screen.
May you like
His father's younger brother had died in a boating accident fifteen years earlier.
Or so the family had been told.
