Chapter 4 – The Woman Who Was Never a Nurse
Chapter 4 – The Woman Who Was Never a Nurse
I drove straight to my mother's apartment before sunrise.
She opened the door in her bathrobe.
The moment she saw my face, she knew.
"What happened?"
"I need the truth."
She laughed nervously.
"What truth?"
I held up the photograph.
Her smile disappeared.
Color drained from her face.
"Where did you get that?"
"So you do know her."
She stepped backward.
"I told you never to go near that family."
"You never told me anything."
"I was trying to protect you."
"From what?"
She whispered one word.
"Vincent."
"No."
I shook my head.
"He's protecting his daughter."
My mother actually looked frightened.
"That's what he wants you to believe."
"What does that mean?"
She closed every curtain in the apartment before speaking again.
Then she locked the front door.
Twice.
"You remember I worked as a nurse."
"Yes."
"I lied."
The room spun.
"What?"
"I never worked for the hospital."
I stared at her.
"Then... where did you work?"
She closed her eyes.
"I worked for the Moretti family."
My mind refused to process it.
"You were... their private nurse?"
"No."
"What then?"
"I was hired to protect pregnant women."
I frowned.
"I don't understand."
"Women connected to powerful families."
"From what?"
She whispered,
"From being murdered."
Silence crashed over the room.
She pulled an old metal box from beneath her bed.
Inside were fake IDs.
Burner phones.
Medical files with names blacked out.
Cash.
Passports.
"My God..."
"I wanted this life buried."
She handed me one folder.
The first page read:
Confidential Witness Protection
The patient name was missing.
But the ultrasound photo wasn't.
I looked closer.
Twins.
Below it, a handwritten note.
Transfer before Moretti discovers the pregnancy.
"What is this?"
My mother's hands shook violently.
"The beginning of the war."
"Whose babies were they?"
"I can't tell you."
"You have to."
"I can't."
"People are following me!"
"They'll kill you if you know."
"They're already trying!"
My mother suddenly grabbed my shoulders.
"No."
"They're trying to make Vincent believe something."
"What?"
"That you're connected to the missing child."
I frowned.
"What missing child?"
The terror in her eyes answered before her lips did.
"There weren't supposed to be only two children."
Every sound in the apartment seemed to disappear.
"What are you saying?"
She whispered,
"There were three."
At that exact moment...
The front window shattered.
Glass exploded across the living room.
Someone outside fired a single shot.
Not at us.
At the metal box.
The bullet tore through the folders.
Papers flew everywhere.
A black SUV screeched to a stop outside.
Moretti's security team.
But another vehicle was already speeding away.
Vincent burst through the apartment door seconds later, gun in hand.
His eyes searched the room until they found me.
"Are you hurt?"
I couldn't answer.
Because scattered across the floor was one photograph the bullet hadn't destroyed.
It showed Vincent...
His missing wife...
Baby Dani...
And another infant wrapped in a pink blanket.
Someone had carefully crossed out the second baby's face with black ink.
Vincent picked up the photograph.
For the first time since I'd met him...
The most feared man in the city looked completely broken.
May you like
He whispered only four words.
"She had a sister..."
