Chapter 5 - The Woman Wearing Sofia’s Dress
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Sofia's dress.
I remembered it.
Black silk.
High neck.
Pearl buttons at the wrists.
She wore it to our tenth anniversary dinner.
After she died, I had asked Elena to pack most of her clothes away because I couldn't bear to see them.
“Where is that dress now?” I asked.
Elena's face tightened.
“In storage.”
“Check.”
Marco called the mansion.
Five minutes later, the answer came back.
The dress was gone.
So were three other pieces of Sofia's clothing.
“Someone entered her storage room.”
“Nobody has access except me,” Elena said.
“And housekeeping.”
“I changed the lock after her death.”
“Then whoever took it had a key.”
Matteo tugged Elena's sleeve.
“The perfume lady.”
Every adult stopped.
“What perfume lady?” I asked.
He pointed toward the security image.
“She smells like Mama Sofia.”
Elena crouched.
“Mateo, when did you see her?”
“At our other house.”
My eyes snapped to Elena.
“What other house?”
She sighed.
The boys had lived in three separate locations over four years.
Each move happened after Elena suspected someone had gotten too close.
At the second house, about seven months earlier, a woman appeared near their preschool.
She never approached.
Never spoke.
But Matteo remembered her perfume.
“Why wasn't I told?”
Elena almost laughed.
“You still don't understand the system, Alejandro. We couldn't tell you.”
Marco examined the image.
“This may not be about impersonating Bianca.”
“What then?”
“Whoever took Sofia's clothing wanted the boys to recognize a scent.”
My blood chilled.
Conditioning.
Familiarity.
A person preparing to approach four children without frightening them.
I wanted every gate closed.
Every road watched.
Every employee questioned.
Marco stopped me.
“If Vittorio knows we identified the boys, he'll move faster.”
“Good.”
“No. We need him confident.”
“I don't care about Vittorio's confidence.”
“You will if you want the person inside your house.”
He was right again.
I was getting tired of people being right when I wanted to hurt them.
We returned to the mansion before dark.
For the first time, the boys entered through the front doors while holding my hands.
Luca had my left.
Matteo my right.
Enzo and Gabriel walked with Elena.
The dining room still held their abandoned plates.
I stared at the long table.
For five years, nobody had eaten there.
Sofia and I used to sit at opposite ends when hosting formal dinners, then move our chairs together after everyone left.
After she died, I closed the room.
Elena had reopened it for my sons.
That night we ate there.
All five of us.
Elena stayed.
Marco too.
The boys asked questions constantly.
“Why is the house so big?”
“Why do you have so many suits?”
“Do you have a dog?”
“Can we sleep here?”
Then Enzo asked:
“Did you love Mama Sofia?”
The table went quiet.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
I looked at him.
“More than everything I knew how to say.”
He considered this.
“Then she loved you too.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she says so in the videos.”
My eyes burned.
After dinner, Bianca arrived with something she had found among Sofia's charity records.
A storage receipt.
The unit was rented under a false name.
Marco and I went immediately.
Inside were boxes labeled by year.
Sofia had been building a case.
Photographs of Vittorio meeting bankers.
Copies of offshore transactions.
Medical reports.
Then we found a small freezer unit connected to an independent power source.
My stomach tightened.
Inside were medical transport containers.
Empty.
Each labeled with the fertility clinic's name.
Marco read the inventory.
“One embryo transferred to gestational carrier.”
“That became the boys.”
He nodded.
Then his face changed.
“There were two viable embryos.”
“I know.”
“The second one wasn't destroyed.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
He handed me a clinic transfer form.
Embryo B had been removed from storage four years and seven months earlier.
Three months after the quadruplets were born.
Authorized by Sofia Moretti.
Impossible.
Sofia had been dead for more than a year.
Someone used her identity.
Someone took our second embryo.
Marco slowly looked at me.
“If this document is real…”
May you like
I finished the thought.
“Then my four sons may not be my only children.”
