Chapter 5 - THE MAN INSIDE THE HOUSE
I do not remember screaming.
I remember Sofia screaming.
I remember Milo crying because Sofia was crying.
I remember Damian giving orders so quickly that five men disappeared in different directions before I understood what he had said.
And I remember the empty crib.
Enzo’s blanket was still warm.
I pressed it against my face.
“My baby.”
Damian stood beside me.
“We’ll find him.”
I turned on him.
“You said this house was safe!”
Pain flickered across his face.
“You’re right.”
“I trusted you!”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that!”
My fist struck his chest.
He let me.
I hit him again.
“You said nobody could get in!”
Again.
“You said they were protected!”
Again.
This time my strength disappeared.
Damian caught me before I fell.
“I will bring him back.”
“How?”
His eyes looked almost black.
“Because whoever took him needed help from inside this house.”
That stopped me.
He looked toward the open window.
“The alarm was disabled for ninety-four seconds. Only six people have override authority.”
“Marcus?”
“He is one.”
Damian handed Sofia to Rosa’s assistant and turned toward Vincent.
“Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves.”
Within minutes, the house became something else entirely.
Phones were collected.
Vehicles were searched.
Security footage appeared across monitors in a downstairs command room.
I stood beside Damian as Vincent replayed the hallway camera.
11:42 a.m.
Rosa carried towels toward the nursery.
11:44.
A man wearing maintenance clothes entered the east corridor.
His face was hidden by a cap.
11:45.
The cameras went black.
11:47.
They returned.
Enzo was gone.
“Zoom,” Damian ordered.
Vincent froze the image.
The man’s hand was visible.
A heavy silver ring.
Damian leaned toward the screen.
He knew it.
“Marcus.”
My blood went cold.
“Are you sure?”
“That ring belonged to my father.”
Damian turned away.
For the first time since meeting him, he looked personally wounded.
“Marcus gave it to me at his funeral.”
Vincent said quietly, “He must have had a copy made.”
“No.”
Damian looked back at the screen.
“My father gave Marcus the original.”
The betrayal went deeper than business.
Marcus had been family.
Damian called him.
Speakerphone.
Marcus answered on the second ring.
“Damian.”
“Where is Enzo?”
Silence.
Then a sigh.
“You should have left the hospital records buried.”
My nails dug into my palms.
“You took my son.”
Marcus paused.
“Grace Carter.”
The way he said my name made my skin crawl.
“The statistical miracle.”
“What does that mean?”
“Triplets are expensive.”
Damian’s face became lethal.
“Careful.”
Marcus laughed softly.
“You always thought the Marchetti name made you untouchable.”
“Where is the child?”
“Destroy Denny’s evidence. Stop the DNA petitions. Send Grace away.”
“No.”
“Then perhaps one of the other children disappears tomorrow.”
I lunged toward the phone.
“You touch my babies and I swear—”
Damian gently caught my arm.
Marcus chuckled.
“You should be thanking us, Ms. Carter. Your children grew up in a mansion.”
“They grew up without their mother.”
“They grew up alive.”
The room went silent.
Damian’s gaze sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
Marcus did not answer.
Damian stepped closer to the phone.
“What happened to the mothers who kept asking questions?”
Still nothing.
My stomach twisted.
“Oh God.”
Marcus finally spoke.
“Don’t ask questions you aren’t prepared to have answered.”
The call ended.
I stared at Damian.
“What did he mean?”
“We’ll find out.”
“No. What did he mean by alive?”
Damian looked toward Vincent.
“Find every woman on Denny’s list.”
Rachel began making calls.
Damian’s men pulled archived records.
By evening, we had twenty-one names.
Six women could not be located.
Three had died within two years of giving birth.
Two deaths were listed as accidental overdoses.
One was a car crash.
I felt physically sick.
“They killed them.”
“We don’t know that yet,” Rachel said carefully.
Damian did not soften it.
“They probably did.”
I appreciated him for that.
No false comfort.
No lies.
Vincent entered carrying a tablet.
“We found the vehicle.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“Traffic camera caught a gray utility van six minutes after the abduction. Plate was cloned, but we followed it through three intersections.”
He placed a map on the screen.
“It entered the old medical district.”
Saint Catherine’s was there.
“So is Bellrose,” Rachel said.
Damian looked at me.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“Grace.”
“That is my son.”
“And if Marcus has armed men waiting?”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
The words came out before either of us expected them.
The room went still.
Damian stared at me.
Then he lowered his voice.
“I care whether you come back.”
My anger stumbled.
He looked almost annoyed at himself for admitting it.
I took a breath.
“I’m going.”
He held my gaze.
Then nodded once.
“You stay beside me.”
We left Milo and Sofia with Rosa, who had recovered with only a concussion.
Six vehicles drove into the city.
No sirens.
No headlights for the final block.
Bellrose Family Services occupied a four-story brick building that looked abandoned.
Damian’s men entered first.
I waited thirty seconds.
It felt like thirty years.
Then Vincent waved.
Inside, the lobby was empty.
Dust covered the desks.
But the elevator worked.
Someone had been using the building.
On the third floor, we found abandoned cribs.
Dozens of them.
Some still had faded name tags.
My throat closed.
I walked between them.
BABY WILLIAMS.
BABY REYES.
BABY PARKER.
Mothers.
Children.
Lives sold in rooms with cheerful yellow walls.
Then I heard something.
A cry.
Faint.
I turned.
“Enzo.”
Damian grabbed my arm.
“Wait.”
“That’s him.”
“Grace.”
“I know my son’s cry.”
I ran.
Someone shouted behind me.
I followed the sound down a corridor, through a treatment room, and toward a locked metal door.
“ENZO!”
The crying grew louder.
Damian’s men forced the door.
Inside sat Enzo in a portable crib.
Alive.
Unhurt.
I grabbed him.
“My baby.”
He screamed once.
Then recognized me.
His tiny hands grabbed my face.
“Mama.”
I sank to the floor.
Damian crouched beside us.
For several seconds, none of us spoke.
Then Vincent called from the next room.
“Boss.”
Damian stood.
I followed with Enzo against my chest.
There was no kidnapper.
No Marcus.
Only a laptop.
A camera.
And stacks of files.
Marcus had wanted us to find this place.
Or he had left in a hurry.
Vincent opened the laptop.
A video automatically began.
Dr. Elias Voss appeared on screen.
Older than I remembered.
More frightened.
“If you are watching this,” he said, “Marcus Bell has probably decided I’m disposable.”
My heart stopped.
Voss looked directly into the camera.
“The children were never the point.”
Damian frowned.
Voss continued.
“The money was.”
He described an adoption network involving wealthy couples who believed they were paying legal private-placement fees.
Hospitals falsified maternal consent.
Lawyers sealed records.
Employees selected vulnerable mothers.
But then he said something that changed everything.
“Grace Carter’s case was different.”
I stepped toward the screen.
“Why?”
The recording continued.
“Her children were never meant for Bellrose.”
Damian looked at me.
Voss swallowed on the video.
“Marcus Bell chose them personally.”
My skin went cold.
“He knew who their father was.”
The room became silent.
I stared at the screen.
The father?
I had never put a father on my hospital paperwork.
I had never told anyone because the man had disappeared before I knew I was pregnant.
His name was Daniel Reeves.
Or at least that was the name he had given me.
Voss continued.
“And if Grace Carter learns the real identity of the triplets’ father, Marcus Bell loses everything.”
The video ended.
I looked at Damian.
“Daniel wasn’t Daniel.”
Damian’s face had changed.
“What did he look like?”
“Dark hair. Hazel eyes. Around thirty-five. He had a scar across his right palm.”
Damian went completely still.
Vincent whispered something under his breath.
I looked between them.
“What?”
Damian’s voice was barely audible.
“My cousin Matteo had a scar across his right palm.”
The world tilted.
“No.”
“Grace.”
“No.”
I stepped back.
“No. Matteo was married.”
“Not when you would have met him. He married Isabelle eight months before the children were born.”
My breath disappeared.
Damian looked at Enzo.
Then at me.
The truth was suddenly much bigger than stolen babies.
May you like
Matteo Marchetti had not purchased my children.
He had been their father.
