Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN EVERYONE SAID WAS DEAD
Gabriel read the message three times.
Then he ordered everyone except Luca and me out of the nursery.
“Who was Sofia?”
I knew the answer.
“Your wife.”
“My wife died eleven weeks ago.”
The way he said it sounded like a warning.
I held Mateo closer.
“Then why would someone tell me to ask what happened to her?”
Gabriel’s eyes hardened.
“Because someone wants you frightened.”
“I’m already frightened.”
“That makes you useful.”
I almost laughed.
“You think I planned this?”
“I think you entered my house using a false surname.”
“To hide from Ryan.”
“And Ryan appears on my property.”
“I didn’t bring him here.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
Mateo shifted against me.
Immediately, Gabriel stopped.
That told me something.
Whatever else Gabriel Falcone was, his son mattered more than his anger.
Luca interrupted.
“Boss, Marianne’s personnel records are fake.”
Gabriel turned.
“How fake?”
“Social Security number belongs to a dead woman.”
Marianne Vale had worked inside the Falcone estate for four years.
She supervised domestic staff.
Managed deliveries.
Approved nursery purchases.
And she did not legally exist.
Gabriel ordered a complete audit.
Then he asked Luca to pull Sofia’s medical records.
“Why?”
“Because someone wants me looking at her death.”
Gabriel finally told me what happened.
Sofia Falcone had suffered severe complications after Mateo’s birth.
She hemorrhaged.
Doctors stabilized her temporarily.
Then her condition deteriorated overnight.
She died before sunrise.
Gabriel had been removed from the hospital briefly because of a security emergency involving one of his businesses.
“When I came back, she was gone.”
“You didn’t see her?”
“I saw her.”
His voice became quiet.
“I held her hand after she died.”
“Did anyone investigate?”
“It was childbirth.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Gabriel looked at me sharply.
I should probably have been more afraid of him.
Grief had damaged my sense of self-preservation.
“You want to know whether someone hurt Mateo,” I said. “Maybe you need to ask whether the same person hurt his mother.”
Luca returned with an old hospital file.
Sofia’s official cause of death was postpartum hemorrhage complicated by cardiac arrest.
Nothing unusual.
Then I saw her medication list.
One drug caught my attention.
“Why was she given this?”
Gabriel looked.
“Given what?”
A strong anticoagulant.
It could be medically appropriate in some postpartum circumstances.
But not casually in a woman who had recently hemorrhaged.
“Was Sofia at risk for blood clots?”
“I don’t know.”
I pointed toward the dosage.
“This could increase bleeding.”
Gabriel called the obstetrician who treated Sofia.
The doctor sounded confused.
“I never prescribed that.”
Silence.
Gabriel’s face changed.
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then why is it in her chart?”
The doctor did not know.
Hospital records showed the order had been entered electronically under his credentials at 1:14 a.m.
He had been in surgery at the time.
Someone stole his login.
Gabriel turned away.
For eleven weeks, he had believed Sofia died because childbirth went wrong.
Now someone had tampered with her medication.
The same household where his baby was being drugged had employed a woman with a false identity.
And that woman had met Ryan.
The connection seemed impossible.
Until Luca found Marianne’s hidden office safe.
Inside were photographs.
Not of Gabriel.
Of me.
One showed me leaving the hospital after Hope died.
Another showed Ryan outside our apartment months earlier.
Another showed me at Hope’s funeral.
Gabriel stared at the photographs.
“Marianne was watching you before you applied here.”
I felt sick.
“Why?”
Then Luca removed a document.
A birth certificate.
HOPE ELIZABETH MERCER.
My daughter.
I grabbed it.
“How did she get this?”
Attached was a hospital identification label.
My label.
My delivery date.
My medical record number.
Then another document appeared.
A genetic testing request.
MATERNAL SAMPLE: ANNA MERCER.
INFANT SAMPLE: MATEO FALCONE.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
“What the hell is that?”
My mind went blank.
Someone had requested DNA comparison between me and Mateo.
“That makes no sense.”
The test was never completed.
The infant sample section remained blank.
But Marianne intended to compare us.
Why?
Gabriel looked at Mateo.
Then me.
“No.”
“What?”
He shook his head.
“This is manipulation.”
“Obviously.”
But I could see fear beneath his anger.
Luca continued searching.
He found a photograph of Sofia.
Pregnant.
Standing outside a medical clinic.
Beside her was Ryan.
My ex.
I sat down.
“No.”
Gabriel took the photograph.
“You said you didn’t know Sofia.”
“I didn’t.”
“Ryan did.”
Apparently.
The date was six months earlier.
While I was pregnant with Hope.
While Sofia was pregnant with Mateo.
Gabriel’s voice became dangerous.
“Why was your ex meeting my wife?”
“I don’t know.”
Then I remembered Ryan disappearing for entire afternoons.
He told me he was gambling.
Maybe sometimes he was.
Maybe sometimes he was doing something else.
Luca found a handwritten note behind the photograph.
Two names.
ANNA - O NEGATIVE.
SOFIA - O NEGATIVE.
Underneath:
BOTH DUE WITHIN SIX WEEKS.
My skin prickled.
“What does blood type have to do with anything?”
Nobody answered.
Then Gabriel’s doctor requested access to Mateo’s hospital newborn screening records.
An hour later, he called.
“There’s a discrepancy.”
Gabriel put him on speaker.
“What discrepancy?”
“Mateo’s original blood card indicates A positive.”
“So?”
“Sofia’s hospital record says O negative.”
I knew enough genetics to understand part of the problem.
An O-negative mother could have an A-positive child depending on the father.
Nothing impossible.
But then the doctor continued.
“Your blood type is O negative too, Mr. Falcone.”
Silence.
Two O-type parents cannot normally produce an A-type child.
Gabriel looked at Mateo.
His face emptied.
“Are you saying he isn’t mine?”
“I’m saying the records need confirmation.”
I felt physically ill.
The baby in my arms was being poisoned.
Sofia had possibly been murdered.
Marianne had researched my pregnancy.
Ryan had met Sofia.
And now Mateo’s parentage was uncertain.
Gabriel ordered immediate DNA testing.
His sample.
Mateo’s.
Mine.
“Why mine?” I asked.
“Because Marianne wanted it.”
I almost refused.
Then I looked at Mateo.
If the answer helped protect him, I would endure it.
Samples were collected.
Results would take hours with expedited testing.
At 8:30 that morning, police found Marianne.
Alive.
She had been hiding inside an abandoned apartment owned by one of Gabriel’s companies.
Ryan was not with her.
Marianne refused to speak until Gabriel arrived.
Police would not allow him into the interview.
So she asked for me.
I stared through the observation glass.
“Why me?”
Marianne looked directly toward the mirror as if she knew I stood behind it.
Then she said:
“Because Anna deserves to know what happened to her daughter.”
My knees weakened.
I entered with detectives.
Marianne smiled.
“You still think Hope died in that hospital.”
My mouth went dry.
“I saw her.”
“No. You saw a wrapped infant from several feet away while sedated.”
“Stop.”
“Ryan arranged everything.”
“You’re lying.”
“Ask for Hope’s autopsy.”
“There wasn’t one.”
“Exactly.”
I stood.
Marianne leaned forward.
“Your daughter did not die because of your fall.”
I could barely breathe.
“Then where is she?”
Marianne looked toward the door.
“Closer than you think.”
My heart hammered.
May you like
Then she said the sentence that shattered both Gabriel’s life and mine.
“The baby Gabriel Falcone brought home from the hospital was not the baby Sofia delivered.”
