Chapter 10 – THE BOY IN THE BED
The air was sucked from my lungs.
The boy’s name is Leo.
I leaned against the dusty oak desk, my knees completely giving out. Luca caught me by the arms, supporting my weight as the revelation crashed over me like a tidal wave.
Leo wasn’t my adopted parents’ biological son.
He wasn’t born fifteen years after me.
“That’s impossible,” I gasped, shaking my head violently. “Luca, Leo is twelve years old. I’m twenty-seven. He can’t be my twin.”
Luca stared at the journal, his mind racing.
“Hannah,” Luca said slowly, his voice laced with a sudden, horrifying realization. “Think about it. A mysterious autoimmune disease. Severe stunted growth. Delayed puberty. A doctor who was deliberately poisoning him with immunosuppressants for four years.”
My blood ran cold.
“Dr. Evans,” I whispered.
“Dr. Evans wasn’t just keeping him weak,” Luca realized, the pieces locking together into a sickening picture. “He was altering his physical development. The drugs stopped his growth. They kept him looking like a child.”
I felt violently ill.
For four years, I thought I was caring for a sick twelve-year-old boy. But Leo was twenty-seven. A grown man trapped in a stunted, chemically altered body, his mind heavily sedated and confused by years of toxic medical abuse.
“Why?” I sobbed, clutching my chest. “Why would Catherine do something so monstrous?”
Luca’s face hardened into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.
“Because a twelve-year-old boy has no legal standing,” Luca said grimly. “If Leo was twenty-seven, he would be a legal adult. He could have claimed his half of the inheritance. He could have fought her. By keeping him trapped as a sick child under your guardianship, Catherine controlled both of the true heirs.”
She hadn’t just stolen our parents. She had stolen fifteen years of my brother’s life.
“We need to get to the hospital,” I panicked, pushing myself off the desk. “We left him at the hotel. We need to get him to a real doctor, someone who can reverse this!”
“He’s safe, Hannah,” Luca promised, steering me toward the door. “My security team is with him. And the poison is already out of his system. He’s going to grow. He’s going to heal.”
We ran out of the bakery and back into the SUV.
As Luca sped through the Chicago streets, I pulled out my phone and dialed the head of Luca’s security detail, who was assigned to watch Leo at the hotel penthouse.
“Daniel,” I said breathlessly when he answered. “Is Leo okay? Is he in the suite?”
“Yes, Miss Moretti,” Daniel’s deep voice replied over the speakerphone. “He’s asleep in the guest room. Eleanor and Mia are watching a movie in the living room. The perimeter is secure.”
I let out a massive sigh of relief.
“Don’t let anyone in,” Luca commanded from the driver’s seat. “We’re five minutes away.”
“Understood, Boss.”
We pulled up to the hotel. The gala was still raging in the ballroom, completely unaware of the dark secrets being unearthed across the city.
We bypassed the lobby and took the private executive elevator straight to the penthouse.
When the doors opened, Eleanor looked up from the sofa, smiling. Mia was asleep, her head resting in her grandmother’s lap.
“You’re back early,” Eleanor whispered.
“Where is he?” I asked, rushing past the living room.
“First door on the right,” Eleanor said, sensing the urgency in my voice.
I pushed the heavy oak door open and walked into the guest bedroom.
The room was dark, illuminated only by the soft glow of the city lights pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Leo was lying in the massive king-sized bed, fast asleep.
I walked over and sat gently on the edge of the mattress.
I looked at his face. Without the pallor of the poison, without the constant grimace of pain, I could see it. The bone structure. The jawline.
He didn’t look like a twelve-year-old boy anymore. He looked like a young man who had been starved of light.
He was my twin. My other half.
Tears streamed down my face as I reached out and gently brushed his dark hair away from his forehead.
Leo stirred, his eyes fluttering open. He blinked in the dim light, looking up at me.
“Hannah?” his voice was raspy, deeper than I remembered it being yesterday. The testosterone blockers Dr. Evans had been using were finally wearing off.
“I’m here, Leo,” I whispered, taking his hand.
He squeezed my fingers. His grip was surprisingly strong.
“I had a weird dream,” Leo mumbled, sitting up slightly against the pillows.
“It’s okay,” I soothed. “You’re safe now.”
“No, Hannah, listen,” Leo said, his brow furrowing in confusion. “I dreamed about the night Mom and Dad died. In the car.”
I froze. “You were in the car?”
Leo nodded slowly, rubbing his eyes. “I remember the truck hitting us. I remember Mom screaming. And then… someone pulled me out of the backseat.”
Luca stepped into the room, standing quietly behind me.
“Who pulled you out, Leo?” Luca asked gently.
Leo looked past me, his eyes widening as the memory crystallized in his mind.
“It was a woman,” Leo whispered, his voice trembling with sudden fear. “A woman in a red dress. She pulled me out of the wreck. And she took something from Mom’s neck before she left her there.”
The silver dove necklace.
Catherine hadn’t just run them off the road. She had stood over their dying bodies and stolen the necklace, hoping the shares were hidden inside it.
And she had taken Leo, handing him over to Dr. Evans to be hidden in plain sight.
“She’s gone, Leo,” I said fiercely, leaning down and hugging my twin brother tightly. “She’s locked in a cage, and she is never, ever going to hurt you again.”
Leo hugged me back, burying his face in my shoulder.
For the first time in our lives, the truth was out in the open. The poison was gone.
“Hannah?” Leo whispered against my shoulder.
“Yes?”
“Can we go home now?”
I looked up at Luca, who was watching us with a soft, proud smile on his face.
“We are home, Leo,” I said. “We’re finally home.”
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