Chapter 5 - The Woman Alessandro Was Told Had Died
Margaret Cole had been living in Europe for six years.
At least that was what Vanessa told everyone.
In reality, she returned to Chicago repeatedly under another name.
She was not merely Vanessa’s mother.
She was Dr. Harrison’s original business partner.
Twenty-five years earlier, the two women founded a private fertility research company.
The project failed publicly after consent violations.
Margaret disappeared from medicine.
Elaine Harrison rebuilt her career.
But the research never stopped.
They created a hidden registry of embryos with rare genetic markers.
Some were sold illegally to wealthy clients seeking particular characteristics.
Not eye color or height.
Medical compatibility.
Immune profiles.
Disease resistance.
Potential tissue matching.
Children reduced to biological insurance policies.
Vanessa grew up around the operation.
She understood from childhood that embryos could be categorized, traded, and hidden behind legal paperwork.
Alessandro listened to the briefing without moving.
“What did she want from my family?”
Detective Vega opened another file.
Lorenzo Moretti, Alessandro’s father, had funded part of the original research.
Alessandro stared at the page.
“My father?”
“He wanted treatment options for the hereditary blood disorder.”
Lorenzo withdrew after discovering embryos were being used without consent.
He threatened to report them.
Three months later, his private plane crashed.
The case had been classified as mechanical failure.
Margaret and Harrison were never investigated.
Vanessa had not entered Alessandro’s life randomly.
She was completing a relationship begun by their parents.
“Did she kill my father?” Alessandro asked.
“We don’t have proof.”
Yet.
Margaret was arrested at a private apartment in Chicago.
She denied killing Harrison.
Then police found Harrison’s phone hidden in her freezer.
The device contained messages.
Harrison had panicked after Emma exposed the fake pregnancy.
She wanted to surrender records to authorities.
Margaret ordered silence.
Harrison wrote:
We already stole one generation from Sofia. I will not help Vanessa erase the boy too.
One generation.
What did that mean?
I reread the message.
“Emma?”
Vega shook her head.
“We thought so at first.”
Then she handed me an old photograph.
My mother, Rosa Reyes, stood outside Harrison Fertility Institute twenty-eight years earlier.
Pregnant.
I stared at it.
“My mother never mentioned this.”
“She was a surrogate.”
The room went cold.
“For whom?”
Vega looked toward Alessandro.
“For Lorenzo Moretti and his wife.”
Nobody spoke.
My mother had carried a Moretti embryo.
The pregnancy ended in a reported stillbirth.
Except hospital records did not match.
There was no fetal death certificate.
No burial record.
The infant was born alive.
Female.
Transferred immediately.
My hands began shaking.
“Where is she?”
Detective Vega looked at Vanessa’s family chart.
The child had been raised by Margaret Cole.
Named:
Vanessa.
I stopped breathing.
Vanessa was not Margaret’s biological daughter.
She was the biological daughter of Lorenzo Moretti.
Alessandro’s half-sister.
The woman who announced she was carrying his child was secretly his sibling.
She had known for years.
That was why she could never produce an actual Moretti pregnancy.
Any biological child between them would expose the relationship and create genetic risk.
So she selected my embryo.
She planned to manufacture a Moretti heir without conceiving one.
Alessandro stood.
His chair fell backward.
For the first time since I had known him, control left his face completely.
“She knew?”
Vega nodded.
“Records suggest Margaret told her when she was seventeen.”
He walked toward the window.
Vanessa had courted him.
Kissed him.
Shared his bed.
Planned marriage.
All while knowing they shared a father.
Not because she loved him.
Because marrying the Moretti heir placed Lorenzo’s hidden daughter inside the family fortune.
Her fake pregnancy was the final step.
The child did not need to be Alessandro’s biologically.
It only needed to be publicly recognized as his.
Then another realization hit me.
“Why my embryo specifically?”
Vega hesitated.
“Because Mateo’s genetic line may be connected to the Moretti family too.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Mateo’s adoption records had been sealed.
His birth mother was listed only as M.C.
Margaret Cole.
Vanessa’s mother.
My dead husband may have been Margaret’s biological son.
Which meant Vanessa might have been Mateo’s half-sister.
And Luca—
My son with Mateo—
carried genetic material connected to the same woman who stole him.
Margaret had not selected my embryo randomly.
May you like
She selected her own biological grandson.
---
