Chapter 6 - The Child Vanessa Needed to Steal
DNA testing untangled the family.
Margaret Cole was Mateo’s biological mother.
She gave birth at nineteen and placed him for adoption before entering medical school.
Years later, she raised Vanessa, who was biologically Lorenzo Moretti’s daughter but whom Margaret obtained through the fraudulent surrogacy case involving my mother Rosa.
Margaret therefore had two children raised separately:
Mateo.
And Vanessa.
They were not biologically related to each other through a father, but shared Margaret as mother only in Mateo’s case? No.
Vanessa was not genetically Margaret’s.
She was Lorenzo’s biological daughter carried by Rosa.
Margaret merely raised her.
So Vanessa and Mateo were not biological siblings.
That mattered legally.
But psychologically, Margaret treated both as parts of the same hidden system.
When Mateo married me and entered Harrison’s fertility program, Margaret discovered he was the son she surrendered.
Instead of contacting him, she monitored him through the clinic.
After his death, she preserved our embryos.
One of them—Luca—became the perfect child for Vanessa’s plan.
Genetically unrelated to Alessandro.
Medically compatible with Moretti blood-disorder research.
Connected to Margaret through Mateo.
And legally vulnerable because I had been falsely told it was destroyed.
Vanessa intended to present Luca as Alessandro’s biological heir.
If Alessandro later discovered infertility fraud, she would use his public acknowledgment and forged documents to maintain custody.
If he died, the Moretti trust would transfer enormous power to the child’s guardian.
Vanessa.
The boy was not simply an heir.
He was a key.
The Moretti family trust controlled hotels, ports, real estate, shipping, and private investment assets worth billions.
Its oldest clause required direct descendants for certain voting rights.
Alessandro had no acknowledged children.
If Luca were accepted as his son, Vanessa could control the child’s vote until adulthood.
She would effectively control the empire.
Emma ruined it with six words.
Her tummy is a pillow.
Vanessa’s criminal charges expanded.
Fraud.
Conspiracy.
Child identity theft.
Embryo theft.
Forgery.
Medical trafficking.
Sexual fraud related to concealing the sibling relationship from Alessandro.
Margaret faced additional charges for unlawful fertility practices, kidnapping, evidence destruction, and Harrison’s murder.
But Vanessa still had one move.
She petitioned family court for custody of Luca.
Her claim:
She was the intended mother.
She had arranged the surrogacy.
She had paid for care.
She had raised him indirectly through staff.
And I had signed embryo-destruction forms that she claimed terminated my parental interest.
The forms were forged.
But until the court ruled, Luca’s status remained uncertain.
The case attracted media attention.
Headlines called him The Billion-Dollar Baby.
I hated it.
He was a toddler who liked red balls and bananas.
Not a financial event.
Alessandro publicly asked the media to stop using his name in connection with Luca’s inheritance.
“The child is not a Moretti asset,” he said.
That sentence cost him.
Several family trustees objected.
They wanted him to claim Luca anyway.
“He can still be legally adopted,” one uncle said.
“Then the succession problem disappears.”
Alessandro looked around the boardroom.
“You want me to adopt a stolen child to stabilize your voting structure.”
“Don’t dramatize.”
“He has a mother.”
“They barely know each other.”
I heard about the meeting later.
Alessandro resigned as sole family-trust chairman that day.
He transferred authority to an independent board until criminal and custody proceedings ended.
His relatives called it weakness.
He called it refusing to turn Luca into property.
Our relationship changed after that.
Not romantic.
Not yet.
We were two adults standing near the same child without pretending either of us owned the future.
Luca slowly began accepting me.
First, he allowed me to feed him.
Then to hold his bottle.
Then one afternoon he fell asleep against my shoulder.
I sat completely still for forty minutes because I was afraid movement would wake him.
Rachel smiled.
“You can breathe.”
“I’m trying.”
Emma climbed beside us.
“Baby likes Mama now.”
I kissed her hair.
“He’s learning me.”
“Like preschool?”
“Something like that.”
Then Luca woke.
He looked at Emma.
“Mama,” he said.
My heart stopped.
He was not calling me.
He was copying Emma.
Still, the word hit like sunlight.
Rachel touched my shoulder.
“Don’t build too much around one sound.”
She was right.
Children deserved room to mean only what they meant.
The next day, Vanessa escaped custody.
A correctional transport vehicle was attacked during a medical transfer.
Two guards were injured.
Vanessa disappeared.
Within hours, the Moretti mansion security system detected a breach.
Emma was in the staff wing.
I was with Luca at the court-supervised residence.
Alessandro was downtown.
Vanessa had not come for Luca.
May you like
She had gone for Emma.
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