Chapter 9 - There Were Nine Names
I wish I could say finding the truth made me feel better.
It didn’t.
Truth is not medicine.
Sometimes it is surgery.
Necessary.
Precise.
Painful.
Rebecca’s box contained evidence investigators had believed was gone forever.
Nine women.
Five had undergone egg retrieval procedures.
Two had been recruited as gestational carriers under incomplete or deceptive terms.
One had been subjected to hormone treatment that never progressed to retrieval.
One file was unclear.
Three women were former DeLuca employees.
Two worked for affiliated charities.
One had been a college student.
One was a hotel housekeeper.
One was Rebecca.
One was me.
Roman read every page.
Then he vomited in Noah’s bathroom.
I learned that later.
At the time, he returned pale and said nothing.
That somehow affected me more than rage would have.
The all-powerful Roman DeLuca could not command his body not to react to what his father had done.
Good.
He should feel something.
We all should.
Prosecutors contacted the women privately.
No public announcement.
No press conference.
No DeLuca lawyers approaching them first.
I insisted on that.
Roman agreed.
One woman refused contact.
Her right.
One had moved overseas.
One cried for twenty minutes after investigators told her why the “endometriosis procedure” she underwent at twenty-six had always felt wrong.
One already knew something had happened and had spent a decade being told by doctors that her memory was unreliable.
That one nearly destroyed me.
Her name was Teresa Monroe.
We met months later.
She looked at me and said, “The worst part wasn't what they did.”
I waited.
“The worst part was everyone making me feel crazy for knowing they did it.”
I understood.
Roman created a compensation fund.
I initially hated that.
“Money doesn't fix this.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because therapy costs money.”
I said nothing.
“Medical care costs money. Lawyers cost money. Lost work costs money.”
He looked at me.
“Money is one of the few things my family has too much of. It cannot repair what happened. It can keep the victims from paying for the aftermath too.”
I hated that he was right.
Again.
So I helped design the fund.
Not as a DeLuca charity.
An independently governed restitution trust.
No confidentiality agreements.
No requirement to waive lawsuits.
No public gratitude.
No family branding.
Roman’s board fought him.
One member said, “You will destroy the reputation your father spent forty years building.”
Roman answered, “Good.”
The quote leaked.
The internet loved it.
I did not.
Real life is more complicated than viral quotes.
Roman’s decision cost thousands of employees stability in the short term.
Banks became nervous.
Contracts were reviewed.
People who had done nothing wrong worried about mortgages and jobs.
Roman could not simply burn the company down because his father had been monstrous.
So he separated operations.
Independent compliance.
External board seats.
Victim oversight.
It was slow.
Boring.
Important.
Meanwhile, Serena remained in jail awaiting trial.
She requested to speak with me.
I refused.
She requested again.
I refused again.
The third time, her lawyer included one sentence.
Ms. Vale has information regarding why Rebecca Lane died.
I went.
Ortiz sat behind the glass with me.
Serena looked different without designer clothes.
Smaller.
Less polished.
Still dangerous.
I picked up the phone.
“What do you know?”
“No hello?”
“No.”
She smiled.
“You've become harder.”
“I was always hard. You just thought staff were furniture.”
Her smile faded.
“What about Rebecca?”
Serena leaned closer.
“Voss lied.”
“About what?”
“Salvatore ordering the hospital delay.”
I stared.
“Who ordered it?”
“No one.”
“What?”
“Voss delayed transfer himself.”
“Why?”
“He was stealing from Salvatore.”
Ortiz shifted beside me.
Serena continued.
“Voss had created unauthorized embryos using excess stored material.”
My stomach turned.
“Why?”
“Private clients.”
Roman’s father had built a secret program.
Voss had turned it into a black-market business.
Rebecca discovered that too.
“She copied records implicating Voss.”
“So he let her die.”
Serena shrugged.
“Maybe.”
“Don't shrug.”
For the first time, I raised my voice.
“She was a person.”
Serena stared at me.
Then looked away.
“Voss told Salvatore the delay was unavoidable.”
“Why did Salvatore shut the program down?”
“Because Rebecca’s copies could expose him.”
Still selfish.
Still Salvatore.
But the immediate medical decision might belong to Voss.
I hated how much distinction mattered.
Justice needed accuracy.
Even when accuracy made the story less simple.
“Why are you telling me?”
Serena smiled faintly.
“Because Voss is blaming everything on a dead man.”
“You care?”
“I care that he gets a deal.”
There it was.
Not morality.
Revenge.
Ortiz asked questions.
Dates.
Accounts.
A storage unit Serena claimed Voss had used.
Police searched it.
They found original Hawthorne surgical logs.
Undestroyed.
Including Rebecca’s delivery chart.
The timestamps proved Voss had waited fifty-two minutes after her blood pressure became critical before authorizing hospital transfer.
Fifty-two minutes.
I stared at that number for days.
Fifty-two minutes was an episode of television.
A drive across town.
Dinner.
A preschool nap.
Fifty-two minutes was enough time to kill somebody.
The evidence changed the prosecution.
Voss lost his cooperation deal.
New charges followed.
Roman called me after the announcement.
“Does this help?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
We sat on opposite ends of the phone in silence.
Then he said, “Sophie asked whether we can take her ice skating Saturday.”
“She can't skate.”
“Neither can I.”
I smiled.
“That I might pay to see.”
“Is that permission?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
“For letting you fall on ice?”
“For letting me be in her life.”
I looked down.
My fear had changed.
At first, I feared Roman would take Sophie.
Now I feared Sophie could love him.
Because loving someone gave them the power to hurt you.
I knew that.
She didn't yet.
And I could not decide whether protecting her meant controlling that risk—
or teaching her that some risks were hers to choose.
That night, Sophie climbed into my bed.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Can Roman come to my birthday?”
My heart tightened.
“If you want him.”
“I do.”
“Then yes.”
She smiled.
“And can Serena come?”
I stared into the darkness.
“No.”
“Why?”
Because Serena tried to erase you.
Because she used you as leverage.
Because she saw you as a threat before she saw you as a child.
Instead I said:
“Because some people are not safe to invite back into your life.”
Sophie thought about that.
“Even if they say sorry?”
May you like
“Yes.”
That answer was for me too.
