Chapter 2 – THE TICKET IN THE COAT

Luca took the ticket from my trembling fingers.

He stared at the looped letters. “Your mother?”

“She died seven years ago,” I said, my voice barely working. “She was a waitress. She didn’t know anyone like Anna. She didn’t know anyone like you.”

“Clearly, she did,” Luca said quietly.

Before I could process what that meant, Marco burst into the room.

“Boss. We checked the security feeds. The man in the doctor’s coat wasn’t staff. He wheeled Anna Russo down the service elevator straight to the basement loading dock.”

“Did they get out?”

“A laundry truck left three minutes before we locked the doors.”

Lucy began to cry, a high, panicked sound. “He took my mom! He took her!”

Luca knelt in front of her, his large hands gripping her small shoulders. “Lucy, look at me. I am going to find her. I promise you.”

He stood up and looked at me. “Take Lucy to the safe house on Elm Street. Marco will go with you. Lock the doors. Do not open them for anyone, not even Vanessa.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He held up the ticket. “To see what your mother left at Union Station.”

The safe house was a fortress disguised as a brownstone. Marco swept the rooms while I wrapped Lucy in a warm blanket and made her tea. She sat on the velvet sofa, looking so small and broken.

“Emma?” she whispered.

“I’m here, sweetie.”

“When the lady in the red dress came to our apartment… she wasn’t alone.”

I froze, the teacup rattling against the saucer. “Vanessa brought someone with her?”

Lucy nodded. “A man. He stayed in the hallway. But I saw him through the crack in the door.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was older. He had a gold pin on his lapel. Like a little bird.”

My stomach dropped. I had polished that exact pin yesterday. It belonged to Richard Bellini.

My phone buzzed. It was Luca.

“Did you find the locker?” I asked immediately.

“Yes,” Luca’s voice was heavy. Dark.

“What was in it?”

“A metal lockbox. Inside was a flash drive, a stack of hospital records, and a photograph.”

“Records of what?”

“A cover-up. Emma, nine years ago, Vanessa was driving drunk. She hit Anna’s car. That’s why Anna was at the hospital.”

“And Richard Bellini?”

“He paid the doctors to falsify the blood tests. But that’s not the worst part.”

I gripped the phone tighter. “What is it?”

“The photograph,” Luca said, his voice breaking slightly. “It was taken in the delivery room. Anna didn’t just have Lucy that night.”

My breath hitched.

“She had twins, Emma. Richard Bellini took the other baby.”

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