Chapter 4 - The Legacy Protocol
I did not sleep.
At six in the morning, Sophie woke up in a guest bedroom at Bellavista House and asked for Cheerios.
Children are brutal that way.
Your world can collapse overnight, but breakfast remains nonnegotiable.
Mrs. Porter brought a bowl.
Sophie sat cross-legged on an enormous bed eating cereal while I stood by the window watching police cars come and go.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Are you mad at me?”
That question hurt more than anything Serena had said.
I sat beside her.
“No.”
“I wasn't supposed to go upstairs.”
“That part wasn't great.”
She looked down.
“But you told the truth.”
She nodded.
“Was the green lady’s tummy pretend?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Are pretend babies bad?”
“No.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Stuffed animals have pretend babies all the time.”
She considered that.
“Captain Moose doesn't.”
“Captain Moose has commitment issues.”
She laughed.
For twenty seconds, my life felt normal.
Then Detective Ortiz knocked.
The Hawthorne records had arrived.
Or what remained of them.
The institute had closed eighteen months earlier after a tax investigation unrelated to medicine.
Most files had supposedly been destroyed.
But Serena’s red folder contained something the police hadn't expected.
An index.
A private program Salvatore DeLuca had called Legacy Protocol.
Ortiz showed me the first page.
I read three lines and handed it back.
“No.”
“Mara—”
“No.”
The purpose was described in bloodless corporate language.
Preservation of family continuity.
Independent gestational pathways.
Genetic donor control.
No marital leverage.
No external custodial exposure.
Those phrases translated easily.
Salvatore had wanted grandchildren without mothers who could claim influence.
Not children.
Assets.
Roman entered halfway through the briefing.
Ortiz did not soften anything for him.
“Your father funded four cycles that we can confirm.”
Roman stood motionless.
“Four children?”
“No.”
She looked at the report.
“Four embryo-creation attempts.”
My skin crawled.
“How many women?”
“At least six appear in the index.”
I looked at her.
“Six?”
“Some were egg sources. Some were intended carriers.”
“Were they employees?”
“Mostly.”
Roman swore quietly.
Ortiz continued.
“Your sample was used in two attempts.”
Roman's eyes closed.
“One resulted in D-17.”
Sophie.
“The other did not lead to a documented birth.”
“What about Mara?”
“One retrieval.”
I felt sick.
“Rebecca Lane?”
“Gestational carrier for D-17.”
I remembered Rebecca.
Twenty-six.
Funny.
Always chewing cinnamon gum.
She volunteered at Mercy House on weekends.
I met her after my surgery because she brought soup to my apartment.
That memory hit so hard I had to sit.
“She knew me.”
Ortiz nodded carefully.
“That may matter.”
“She brought me food after they took my eggs.”
“Mara—”
“She knew?”
“We don't know.”
I looked at Roman.
“Your family paid her?”
His face was pale.
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it's true.”
“That doesn't make it better.”
“No.”
The adoption timeline became more suspicious with every hour.
Rebecca died on March 14.
Sophie appeared outside Mercy House on March 18.
The hospital carrier had no traceable serial number.
The forged note named me specifically.
Someone knew exactly who I was.
Roman's security team found something else.
A surviving employee from Hawthorne.
Not a doctor.
A records supervisor named Evelyn Shaw.
Ortiz located her in Pennsylvania.
She refused to speak over the phone.
Roman said, “I'll send a car.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“No.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because when a witness in a case involving your father says she's scared, sending a black DeLuca SUV is not reassuring.”
Roman looked almost offended.
I would have laughed if I hadn't been exhausted.
Ortiz arranged federal protection instead.
That afternoon, I insisted on leaving Bellavista.
Roman offered another property.
I refused.
He offered a hotel under a false name.
I refused.
He offered private guards.
I refused those too.
Finally Ortiz said, “Mara, someone deliberately placed Sophie in your life. Until we know why, basic protection is reasonable.”
That changed it.
Not because Roman wanted security.
Because Sophie might still be part of a plan.
I agreed to two plainclothes officers outside my building.
Roman did not argue for more.
Before we left, he stopped me in the foyer.
Sophie was holding my hand.
“Mara.”
I looked at him.
“The DNA lab can collect tonight.”
“I know.”
“Ortiz gave me the address.”
“So?”
“I'll go separately.”
“Good.”
He hesitated.
Sophie stared up at him.
“You're tall.”
Roman looked down.
“So I'm told.”
“My mama says tall people can reach smoke alarms.”
I closed my eyes.
Roman nodded seriously.
“An important responsibility.”
Sophie approved of this.
Then she noticed the scar on his knuckle.
“Did that hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Did you cry?”
Roman glanced at me.
I refused to help him.
“A little.”
Sophie smiled.
“Good.”
He frowned.
“Good?”
“Mama says crying gets the scared out.”
Roman looked at me.
Something softened behind his eyes.
“Your mother sounds smart.”
“She knows thirty-eight swear words.”
“Sophie.”
“What?”
Roman looked away because he was trying not to laugh.
That was the first moment I saw a possibility I didn't want to see.
Not romance.
Nothing remotely like that.
Just connection.
Something biological maybe.
Or maybe simply a powerful man discovering that a four-year-old had no respect for his reputation.
We left.
At eight that night, the DNA samples were collected.
Mine.
Roman’s.
Sophie’s.
Results would take forty-eight hours.
At midnight, Ortiz called.
Evelyn Shaw had agreed to talk.
But before agents reached the Pennsylvania motel where she had been placed, someone triggered the fire alarm.
Evelyn disappeared during the evacuation.
Her room had been searched.
Nothing stolen.
Except one old paper ledger.
Ortiz said, “Someone else knows we're reopening Legacy Protocol.”
I stood in my dark kitchen.
Sophie slept down the hall.
“Serena?”
“She's under surveillance.”
“Then who?”
“We don't know.”
I heard Roman's voice in the background of Ortiz’s phone.
“Ask her about Shaw.”
“What?”
Ortiz returned.
“Roman says Evelyn Shaw was his father's personal medical records administrator.”
My skin went cold.
“So she wasn't just a witness.”
“No.”
“She was part of it.”
“We don't know.”
There it was again.
The phrase everybody kept saying.
We don't know.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
One photograph.
Sophie asleep in her bedroom.
Taken through my apartment window less than an hour earlier.
Under it were seven words.
STOP DIGGING INTO A CHILD WHO ISN’T YOURS.
I stared at the screen.
Then I called Roman.
May you like
For the first time since this began, I didn't tell him to stay away.
I said, “Get here.”
