Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW MY WIFE WAS ALIVE
I had been told Sofia died at 2:16 in the morning on November 18, five years earlier.
A highway accident.
A vehicle fire.
A closed-casket funeral because the damage was too severe.
I remembered the hospital corridor.
The smell of disinfectant.
The physician who wouldn't meet my eyes.
And my brother Lorenzo holding my shoulders while I demanded to see my wife.
“She wouldn't want you to remember her that way,” he had said.
I had believed him.
For five years, I'd believed him.
Now Elena sat across from me in the library, holding a photograph of Sofia with four boys whose existence had been concealed from me.
The children were upstairs with Teresa Bellini, Elena's older sister and a retired pediatric nurse who had arrived through the staff entrance.
Vincent's guards remained at the gates.
The woman calling herself Dr. Evelyn Cross had been told to wait for the police and our attorney.
She had refused.
Then her SUVs had withdrawn to the road.
I knew that meant she wasn't finished.
“Start with Sofia,” I told Elena.
She twisted her hands together.
“Your wife discovered she was pregnant six weeks before the accident.”
I felt a sharp pressure behind my ribs.
“She never told me.”
“She wanted to.”
“Then why didn't she?”
Elena looked toward the door.
“Because Lorenzo found out first.”
My brother.
My younger brother had been my closest adviser for twenty years.
We'd survived our father's assassination together.
Built businesses together.
Buried Sofia together.
I shook my head.
“What does Lorenzo have to do with my wife's pregnancy?”
Elena took a breath.
“Your father left a trust.”
“I know.”
“Not the public one.”
I stared.
“There was another trust, Alejandro. One created before your father died. It controlled ownership of several legitimate companies and a large collection of properties.”
“What about it?”
“Under its terms, a verified biological child of yours would eventually inherit a controlling interest.”
I frowned.
“That's impossible. Lorenzo manages those companies.”
“Only until an eligible heir exists.”
The room went silent.
Elena continued.
“Sofia learned about the trust through your father's former attorney. She discovered Lorenzo had been diverting money from it for years.”
My jaw tightened.
“Why didn't she come to me?”
“She tried.”
“When?”
“Two days before the accident.”
I remembered.
Sofia had called me from a number I didn't recognize.
I'd been in a meeting.
I'd told her we'd talk at dinner.
We never did.
Elena looked at the photograph.
“She was terrified. She believed Lorenzo would hurt the babies.”
“Babies?”
She nodded.
“The ultrasound showed four.”
I closed my eyes.
Sofia had wanted children more than anything.
For years, we'd tried.
There had been treatments.
Disappointments.
Nights when she cried quietly in the bathroom because she thought I couldn't hear.
And she'd finally become pregnant.
With four babies.
I had been standing somewhere in Chicago discussing shipping contracts while my wife carried our children and feared my own brother.
“What happened the night of the accident?”
Elena swallowed.
“Sofia knew someone was following her. She called me. I was supposed to meet her at a private clinic.”
“Why a clinic?”
“Because she had started bleeding. She needed an examination.”
My stomach twisted.
“Was she hurt?”
“She was frightened. She said a black SUV had followed her for miles.”
Elena wiped her cheeks.
“She never reached me.”
I stared.
“But she survived?”
Elena nodded slowly.
“She survived the initial crash. Evelyn Cross was part of the medical team that treated her.”
“And the funeral?”
Elena's face crumpled.
“The records were falsified.”
My hands curled into fists.
“Who falsified them?”
“I don't know everyone involved. But Lorenzo arranged the funeral.”
I stood and walked to the window.
Outside, rain darkened the stone terraces.
Five years.
I had spent five years mourning a woman who had survived.
A woman who had given birth to four children.
A woman who had left instructions that they be hidden from me.
“Where is Sofia now?”
Elena didn't answer.
I turned.
“Elena.”
Her eyes filled.
“I don't know.”
My voice hardened.
“Is she alive?”
Elena began crying.
“She was when I last saw her.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
I stared.
“What happened?”
Elena looked down.
“Evelyn Cross took her away.”
Before I could ask another question, my phone rang.
Lorenzo.
I stared at his name.
Then answered.
“Brother,” he said warmly. “I hear you have unexpected guests.”
I went cold.
“How did you hear that?”
He chuckled.
“Chicago is a small city when you know the right people.”
I looked toward the door.
“What do you want, Lorenzo?”
His voice changed.
“Listen carefully. Whatever Elena has told you, she's lying.”
I said nothing.
Then he whispered:
“Those children don't belong to you.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone.
May you like
For the first time in my life, I wanted to know whether my brother was afraid of me.
Because I was beginning to understand what he had done.
