Chapter 17 - THE BROTHER WHO NEVER DIED|
Dominic did not answer immediately.
The voice on the phone sounded older than his own, calm and almost amused. It carried the faint echo of a man who had spent years imagining this conversation.
“Who is this?”
“You know who I am.”
“My brother is dead.”
“That is what Father wanted you to believe.”
Dominic looked at Laura. She was standing beside the altar, one hand resting protectively over her stomach even though the pregnancy was long over.
“Prove it.”
A short laugh came through the speaker.
“Ask your mother about the blue blanket. Ask her why she never kept photographs of the first nursery.”
Dominic's throat tightened.
His mother had died when he was twenty. He remembered her as a quiet woman who rarely spoke about the past. When he had asked about childhood photographs, she had always said they were lost in a move.
“What do you want?”
“To meet my niece.”
“You're not going near her.”
“Then we'll have to discuss this without her.”
The call ended.
Dominic handed the phone to the agent.
“Trace it.”
“We're trying.”
“Try harder.”
Laura approached him.
“Do you believe him?”
“I don't know.”
“Did your father have another son?”
“Not according to anything I was told.”
She studied his face.
“You've spent your life believing the people around you were telling the truth.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I thought I could control what they knew.”
“And you thought that would keep us safe.”
He nodded.
“It didn't.”
“No.”
They returned to the hospital before dawn. Grace was asleep in Margaret's room, her rabbit tucked beneath one arm. Dominic stood at the doorway for several minutes.
Laura came beside him.
“She looks like you when she sleeps.”
He looked at his daughter.
“She has your stubbornness.”
“She gets that from both of us.”
A faint smile crossed his face.
Then it disappeared.
“Laura, I need to tell you something.”
She waited.
“When you disappeared, I searched for you. But after Marco showed me the letter, I stopped looking in the right places. I wanted to believe you had left because the alternative meant I had failed you.”
“You did fail me.”
“I know.”
“You failed our daughter too.”
“I know.”
Laura looked at him for a long moment.
“I'm not ready to forgive you.”
“I won't ask you to.”
“Good. Because I don't know what I feel when I look at you.”
Dominic nodded.
“I'll accept that.”
He reached into his pocket and removed the wedding ring. He had kept it with him since the night she left.
“I should return this.”
Laura looked at the ring.
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to you.”
She did not take it.
“Keep it for now.”
He closed his hand around it.
“Okay.”
The next morning, the federal agents located the phone call. It had come from a private clinic near Fort Lauderdale, a place registered under a company connected to Dominic's father.
Dominic went there with the agents.
The clinic had been closed for years. Its windows were boarded, and the front desk was covered in dust. In a locked office, they found a wall of old photographs.
One showed Dominic as a child beside his father.
Another showed a newborn wrapped in a blue blanket.
On the back, someone had written:
Adrian. First son. Born before the marriage.
Dominic stared at the name.
A door opened behind him.
A man stepped into the room. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had Dominic's eyes.
“I wondered whether you'd recognize me,” he said.
Dominic raised his weapon.
“Adrian?”
The man nodded.
“Your older brother.”
“Why did Father hide you?”
Adrian's expression darkened.
“Because I was the one who was supposed to inherit everything.”
He glanced at the photograph of Grace.
“And now your daughter has it.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Stay away from my family.”
Adrian smiled.
“That's exactly what I've come to discuss.”
He placed a folder on the desk.
Inside was a photograph of Laura entering the hospital after her escape.
On the back was a date from three years earlier.
Dominic looked up.
“Where did you get this?”
Adrian's smile disappeared.
“From the person who brought her to the tunnel in the first place.”
May you like
He leaned closer.
“And that person wasn't Marco.”
