Chapter 11 - Marco’s Final Bargain
Mason collapsed at my feet.
Marco fired toward Lorenzo.
Lorenzo pulled me behind a cabinet.
Bullets tore through the medical files.
Vale crawled beneath a desk.
“You betrayed me!” he screamed.
Marco did not look at him.
“You became frightened.”
“Frightened men become witnesses.”
He fired once beneath the desk.
Vale stopped moving.
Lorenzo returned fire.
Marco retreated into the elevator.
The doors began closing.
Mason grabbed my ankle.
“Do not let him leave.”
I looked down at the man who had destroyed my life.
His face had turned gray.
“Where is St. Agnes?”
“North highway.”
“Old church road.”
“Marco moved the children years ago.”
“What children?”
Mason coughed.
“He used the clinic for people he needed to disappear.”
“Babies with falsified deaths.”
“Witnesses without families.”
My horror deepened.
“Where did he move them?”
Mason reached into his jacket.
I pulled back, expecting a weapon.
He removed a small silver bracelet.
LILY HAYES was engraved across it.
My daughter’s hospital bracelet.
“Where did you get that?”
“Marco kept it.”
“He said it reminded me what happened when I disobeyed.”
I struck him across the face.
“You watched them take her.”
“I was afraid.”
“You were always afraid.”
“That is why you hurt people smaller than you.”
Mason’s eyes filled with tears.
“I never meant for the stairs—”
“Do not apologize now because you are dying.”
“You do not get to use me to feel forgiven.”
Lorenzo reached the elevator doors too late.
Marco had escaped.
Mason pressed a small key into my hand.
“Locker 317.”
“Central train station.”
“Everything Marco moved is recorded there.”
His grip weakened.
“Clara.”
I pulled my hand away.
“Lily had your eyes.”
My breath stopped.
“You saw her?”
“Once.”
“At St. Agnes.”
“She was alive.”
“How old was she?”
“Four months.”
“What happened to her?”
“I do not know.”
His eyes closed.
“Mason!”
He did not answer again.
I stared at the bracelet in my hand.
Lorenzo pulled me to my feet.
“We need to leave.”
“Marco will go to the locker.”
“He does not know Mason gave you the key.”
“He will assume Mason hid evidence.”
Lorenzo contacted his guards after the signal returned.
Marco’s men had retreated.
Bianca remained in police custody.
Leo was safe at the estate.
We drove to the central station before dawn.
Locker 317 stood in a deserted corridor.
The key turned.
Inside was a stack of passports.
Medical records.
Photographs of children.
And a flash drive.
The first video showed St. Agnes Children’s Home.
A nurse carried a four-month-old baby through a hallway.
Even through the grainy image, I recognized the blanket.
I had sewn it for Lily.
The nurse handed her to a couple whose faces were hidden.
A document appeared on the screen.
ADOPTION TRANSFER.
NEW NAME: ELLA BENNETT.
CURRENT LOCATION: PORTLAND, MAINE.
A recent photograph followed.
A little girl with brown hair stood beside a yellow school bus.
She looked almost three years old.
My mind could not understand the date.
“This is impossible.”
“My daughter died three weeks ago.”
Lorenzo examined the file.
“This photograph is from another child.”
The record number had been altered.
The original transfer happened nearly three years earlier.
Marco had used Lily’s file to hide someone else.
A second page loaded.
INFANT LILY HAYES.
STATUS: TRANSFER CANCELLED.
LOCATION: ROSSI ESTATE.
I stared at the words.
Lorenzo’s face became rigid.
“My daughter was brought to your mansion?”
A sound came from behind the lockers.
Marco stepped into the corridor.
He held Leo against his chest.
The baby’s personal guard lay unconscious behind him.
May you like
Marco pressed a gun beneath Leo’s blanket.
“She never left it.”
