Chapter 2 – The Plastic Hospital Bracelet

“He has your blood. And if you don’t marry Serena… her father is going to kill your son.”

The crystal glasses on the table seemed to vibrate from the sheer weight of Peter’s words.

Roman stumbled backward, his back hitting a marble pillar. The ruthless, untouchable head of the DeLuca family looked entirely shattered. He stared at the photograph of the seven-year-old boy in the silver locket, his chest heaving.

“I have a son,” Roman breathed.

He had spent seven years mourning a dead fiancée, believing his future was buried with her. And all this time, a child—his child—had been breathing, growing, and living in the shadow of the men who had destroyed his life.

Sofia DeLuca stood up, pushing her chair back with surprising strength for an eighty-two-year-old woman.

“Where is the boy?” the blind matriarch demanded, her voice ringing out with absolute authority. “Where is my great-grandson?”

Serena remained on the floor, weeping onto the expensive rug. “My father has him. He’s been keeping Leo at a private estate in upstate New York. He told me if I didn’t manipulate Roman into this marriage, Leo would disappear forever.”

“So you played the grieving sister,” Roman said, his voice turning into a lethal snarl. He stepped away from the pillar, walking slowly toward Serena. “You came into my house, slept in my bed, and watched me mourn Elena, knowing you had my child locked in a cage?”

“I protected him!” Serena screamed, looking up with wild, desperate eyes. “My father would have drowned him the day he was born if I hadn’t promised to use him as leverage! I raised Leo! He calls me mother!”

Roman’s hand shot out, grabbing the collar of Serena’s designer gown. He hauled her to her feet, his face inches from hers.

“He will never call you that again,” Roman promised.

He threw her back against the arms of his security guards, then turned to his chief of security. “Mobilize every man we have. Tear upstate New York apart until you find my son.”

“Wait,” Peter interrupted. The hired killer stepped forward, holding his hands up. “You won’t find him. Marcus Vale moved the boy three hours ago. He knew I was coming here to tell the truth. He knows the wedding is compromised.”

Roman rounded on Peter. “Then why are you here? If you’re Marcus’s man, why are you blowing up his plan?”

Peter’s tough exterior faltered. He looked down at his left hand—the hand with the permanently bent pinky finger. The injury he had sustained twenty-four years ago climbing into this very house to murder Roman’s mother.

“Because I have cancer, Roman,” Peter said quietly. “I have three weeks left to live. And before I go to hell, I want to make sure Marcus Vale goes with me.”

I stood perfectly still, processing the sheer volume of trauma unfolding in the room. I thought of my own father, sitting in his small apartment across the city, entirely dependent on my meager maid’s salary to survive his own darkness. Family was everything. It was the only thing that mattered.

And Roman’s family was being held hostage by a ghost.

“You want redemption?” Roman asked Peter, his voice dripping with venom. “Then tell me where my son is.”

“I don’t know where the boy is,” Peter admitted. “But I know how you can force Marcus to hand him over.”

Peter reached into his right pocket.

The guards tensed, but Peter only pulled out a small, clear plastic bag. Inside the bag was an old, faded piece of white plastic with a barcode on it.

He slid it across the mahogany table toward Roman.

“What is that?” Sofia asked, her blind eyes turning toward the sound of the plastic sliding on wood.

I leaned forward. The object was unmistakably familiar to anyone who had spent time in medical wards.

“It’s a hospital bracelet, Mrs. DeLuca,” I said softly.

Roman picked up the bag. He squinted at the faded text printed on the plastic band. His breath hitched.

“This is my mother’s name,” Roman whispered.

“Read the date of admission,” Peter instructed.

Roman’s eyes scanned the barcode. “October 14th, 2002.”

“Exactly,” Peter said.

Sofia let out a sharp gasp, her hands gripping the edge of the table. “That’s impossible. My daughter died on October 15th. She was murdered in her bedroom.”

“She was murdered in her bedroom, yes,” Peter said. “But she was admitted to the hospital the day before. Because someone inside this house was slowly poisoning her with arsenic.”

The room plunged into an icy silence.

“Your mother found out who was doing it,” Peter continued, staring directly at Roman. “She went to the hospital to get a blood test to prove it. When the traitor realized she knew, they called Marcus Vale to order the home invasion and cover up the poisoning.”

Roman stared at the bracelet, his mind racing through twenty-four years of rewritten history.

“Who?” Roman demanded, his voice shaking with a terrifying, uncontainable fury. “Who ordered the hit on my mother?”

Peter looked slowly around the grand dining room. His eyes swept past the terrified guests, past Serena, past the guards.

Finally, Peter’s gaze landed on a man sitting near the head of the table, calmly sipping his scotch.

“Ask your uncle Dante,” Peter said.

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