PART 6 — The Girl with Alessia’s Eyes

Dominic Moretti turned Chicago upside down in forty-eight hours.

He did not shout. He did not threaten in public. He did not storm through police stations like the crime legend tabloids wanted him to be.

He hired investigators.

He opened bank records.

He handed evidence to federal agents who had spent years trying to put him away and watched them struggle with the fact that, for once, he was the father of a missing child and not the monster in the room.

Sophie stayed with Matteo.

That should have been simple.

It was not.

Because the more she cared for him, the more the walls around her heart began to fail.

She knew his sounds now. The hungry grunt. The sleepy sigh. The offended little cry when his bottle was one minute late. She knew how he liked his blanket folded beneath his shoulder and how his fingers searched for hers when the room got too quiet.

Every time he did it, Leo came back.

Not as a wound.

As a memory.

That frightened her more.

On the third night, Dominic found Sophie asleep in the rocking chair with Matteo against her chest. He stood in the doorway for a long time, watching them beneath the nursery lamp.

When Sophie opened her eyes, she saw something unguarded in his face.

“You should sleep,” he said.

“So should you.”

“I don’t know how.”

She looked down at Matteo. “You learn.”

“Did you?”

Sophie’s throat tightened.

“No.”

Dominic nodded slowly.

There was no pity in his expression.

Only understanding.

That was more dangerous.

By morning, the investigators found the nurse.

Her name was Clara Bell. She had worked the maternity floor the night Alessia died, then resigned three days later and moved to Wisconsin. Dominic’s team found her living under her sister’s name in a small lakeside town.

She agreed to talk only if Sophie came.

“I don’t trust him,” Clara said over the phone. “But I saw the waitress on the news. The one who saved the baby. Bring her.”

Dominic did not like it.

Sophie went anyway.

They met Clara in a closed church basement with rain tapping the narrow windows. Dominic’s lawyer waited near the door. Two federal agents stood at the back. Clara sat at a folding table with both hands wrapped around a paper cup of coffee.

She looked older than her age.

And terrified.

“I didn’t know they were going to hurt Alessia,” Clara said before anyone sat down.

Dominic went rigid.

Sophie stepped forward. “Then tell us what you did know.”

Clara’s eyes filled with tears.

“Mrs. Moretti delivered twins. A boy and a girl. The girl was smaller but stable. I held her. She had dark hair. Same eyes as her mother.”

Dominic closed his eyes.

Sophie felt something inside the room break.

“Where is she?” Dominic asked.

Clara shook her head. “Victor came with legal paperwork. Said there was a private adoption already arranged because Alessia was too weak, because Dominic had agreed, because the family didn’t want scandal.”

“I never agreed,” Dominic said.

“I know that now.”

Clara sobbed once.

“Bianca took the baby girl. Wrapped her in a yellow blanket. I asked questions. Victor told me if I spoke, my son would disappear from his college dorm and never be found.”

Sophie’s stomach turned.

“Do you know where Bianca took her?”

Clara nodded.

“A woman named Evelyn Shaw. She runs a private children’s charity in Evanston. Very rich donors. Very clean reputation. But babies went in, and records changed.”

Dominic’s voice was quiet. “My daughter’s name.”

“Alessia named her before they took her.”

Clara looked at him.

“Lucia.”

Dominic turned away.

Sophie had seen him angry. She had seen him afraid. She had never seen him shattered.

By sunset, Evelyn Shaw’s charity hosted its annual donor gala at a restored mansion near the lake.

By eight o’clock, Sophie was inside wearing a borrowed black evening dress, Matteo safe with Dr. Feld and guards at the Moretti house, Dominic beside her in a tuxedo that made every donor in the room stop pretending not to recognize him.

They were not there to make a scene.

They were there to find a child.

Evelyn Shaw greeted them with a smile too white to be kind.

“Mr. Moretti,” she said. “What an unexpected honor.”

Dominic did not shake her hand.

“I’m looking for my daughter.”

The smile did not move.

“How tragic grief can become obsession.”

Sophie watched the room.

A little girl stood near the grand staircase in a pale blue dress, clutching a stuffed rabbit. She was maybe four years old.

Too old to be Lucia.

But beside her, partly hidden behind a nanny’s skirt, was a toddler with dark curls and huge brown eyes.

Sophie stopped breathing.

The toddler looked toward Dominic.

Then toward Sophie.

Her lower lip trembled.

She lifted one tiny hand and touched the side of her neck.

There, just beneath her ear, was a small blue birthmark.

The same shape as Matteo’s.

Dominic saw it.

His entire body went still.

Evelyn Shaw’s smile vanished.

Before anyone could move, the lights in the ballroom cut out.

A woman screamed.

Sophie heard small footsteps.

Then the toddler cried out.

When the emergency lights flashed on, the child was gone.

And on the marble floor lay her stuffed rabbit, split open at the seam.

Inside was a note.

Choose one child, Dominic. You do not get both.