Chapter 7 - THE TEST THAT SHOULDN'T HAVE EXISTED
For twenty-four hours, I barely slept.
The idea was ridiculous.
Leo Caruso was thirty-six.
I was twenty-six.
We'd grown up in completely different worlds.
He'd inherited power, wealth, and an organization people feared.
I'd inherited overdue bills, a diner uniform, and the responsibility of keeping my brother alive.
We had nothing in common.
Except AB-negative blood.
And apparently a secret someone wanted to uncover.
Rebecca arranged for an independent laboratory to review the suspicious DNA-test request.
The original sample records were incomplete.
But the request form identified both Leo and me.
I stared at the names.
"Why would someone test us?"
Leo sat across from me.
His expression was unreadable.
"I don't know."
"Do you have missing relatives?"
He hesitated.
"My father had a brother."
"What happened to him?"
"He disappeared before I was born."
My heart tightened.
"Was his name Daniel?"
Leo looked up sharply.
"How did you know that?"
I swallowed.
"Because my mother's maiden name was Caruso."
The room went silent.
Leo stared at me.
"What?"
I looked down.
"I never thought it mattered. She changed her name when she married my father."
Leo leaned forward.
"Your mother's name?"
"Anna."
His face went white.
"Anna Caruso?"
My breath caught.
"Yes."
Leo stood so abruptly his chair scraped against the floor.
"My father used to talk about an Anna."
I stared.
"Who?"
"His younger cousin."
Silence.
The truth arrived slowly.
Painfully.
Like pieces of a broken photograph finally fitting together.
Leo looked at me.
"Clara, my father believed Anna died twenty-five years ago."
I shook my head.
"She died seven years ago."
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, he looked as though someone had struck him.
"Where was she living?"
"Chicago. South Side."
"With your father?"
"Until he left."
Leo's jaw tightened.
"Did she ever talk about the family?"
"Not much."
I thought back.
Mom had always avoided questions about her childhood.
She'd said the past was complicated.
She'd told me family wasn't about shared blood.
It was about the people who stayed.
Now I wondered what she'd been running from.
Leo sat again.
He looked genuinely shaken.
"Clara, if Anna was who I think she was..."
He stopped.
"What?"
He swallowed.
"Then you may be my cousin."
I stared at him.
The most feared mafia boss in Chicago.
The stranger I'd saved.
The man who'd appeared outside my apartment and helped stop Graham.
He might be family.
A strange laugh escaped me.
"You're kidding."
Leo didn't smile.
"No."
Before I could say another word, Rebecca's phone rang.
She listened carefully.
Then turned toward us.
"The independent genetic analysis is complete."
My stomach twisted.
"And?"
Rebecca hesitated.
"It supports a close biological relationship."
Leo gripped the edge of the table.
"How close?"
She looked at him.
Then at me.
"Closer than ordinary cousins."
The room went silent.
Rebecca took a breath.
"The results are consistent with a half-sibling relationship."
I stared.
Half-sibling.
May you like
Not cousin.
And suddenly the stranger whose life I'd saved might be my brother.
