Chapter 2 - THE NAME ON SOPHIE'S BRACELET
I had spent six months believing Sophie’s father wanted nothing to do with her.
Now a stranger was telling me someone believed she was a Callahan.
We were moved through a private corridor beneath O’Hare.
I held Sophie so tightly she stirred.
“Easy,” Ethan said.
“Don’t tell me easy.”
He nodded once.
“Fair.”
A black SUV waited outside.
I stopped.
“No.”
“Rachel.”
“You want me in that car? Explain first.”
Ethan studied me.
Then he looked at his men.
“Give us a minute.”
They stepped away.
He reached slowly into his coat.
My entire body tensed.
He pulled out a photograph.
Not of me.
Of a young man.
Dark hair.
Blue-gray eyes.
Crooked smile.
My throat closed.
“Where did you get that?”
Ethan watched me carefully.
“You know him.”
I knew him.
Michael.
Michael Brennan.
The man who had disappeared eight months before Sophie was born.
The man who left one voicemail saying he had made a mistake and needed time.
The man I had hated every night Sophie woke screaming while I worked double shifts to pay for formula.
“That’s Sophie’s father.”
Ethan’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What name did he give you?”
“Michael Brennan.”
“That wasn’t his name.”
My pulse pounded.
“Then what was it?”
Ethan looked at Sophie.
“Michael Callahan.”
The world tilted.
I leaned against the SUV.
“No.”
“He was my younger brother.”
I stared at him.
Everything inside me rejected it.
Michael had been funny.
Quiet.
He fixed old motorcycles behind the diner.
He wore thrift-store jackets and tipped too much.
Nothing about him said crime family.
Nothing said Callahan.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
I remembered Michael disappearing for days and claiming family problems.
The scar beneath his ribs he never explained.
The way he once froze when a black sedan parked outside my apartment.
“How long did you know?”
“That he was in L.A.? Not until recently.”
“What happened to him?”
Ethan went silent.
That silence told me before words could.
“No.”
“He died seven months ago.”
My knees weakened.
Sophie made a tiny sound against my chest.
“How?”
“That’s complicated.”
“Make it simple.”
“Someone killed him.”
The air vanished from my lungs.
Before I could speak, Sophie grabbed my necklace.
Her sleeve slid back.
Ethan’s eyes went to the hospital bracelet I still kept tied around the diaper bag handle.
SOPHIE MORALES.
Underneath was a faded identification code.
Ethan took one look at it and went pale.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
“What?”
“That code.”
“What about it?”
He turned toward his security chief.
“Who processed the birth records?”
The man frowned.
“I’ll check.”
Ethan looked at me.
“Rachel, Sophie wasn’t born under that identification number.”
“Yes, she was.”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“That number belongs to another baby.”
My blood froze.
“What baby?”
Ethan answered quietly.
“My niece.”
Then his security chief looked up from his phone.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“The hospital record was altered twelve hours after Sophie was born.”
“By who?”
May you like
The man hesitated.
“Your mother.”
