Chapter 2 - A Funeral Without a Body
We left through the service entrance while police cruisers screamed toward Madison Avenue. Ethan’s armored SUV waited in the alley, engine running. Victoria climbed in first. I sat opposite her. Daniel took the seat beside me. Ethan sat across from us, one arm resting along the door, his expression carved from stone.
Nobody spoke for three blocks.
Then Ethan asked, “Who knows about the pregnancy?”
“My doctor.”
“Name?”
“No.”
“Bella.”
“No.”
“Your life was just threatened.”
“And I’m still not giving you a list of innocent people to investigate.”
Daniel glanced at me approvingly. Ethan noticed.
“Stop looking at her.”
Daniel blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
I nearly laughed. “This is exactly why I left you.”
Ethan turned toward me. “No, you left because you found blood on my shirt.”
“I found blood on your shirt, a gun in our kitchen, and a man begging you for his life in our garage.”
“He was trying to kill you.”
“You never told me that.”
“You were already afraid.”
“I was afraid because you kept deciding what truth I was allowed to survive.”
Silence swallowed the car. Victoria stared out the window. Daniel suddenly found the floor fascinating.
Ethan’s voice softened. “If I told you everything, you would have left sooner.”
“That isn’t the defense you think it is.”
We crossed into Manhattan traffic. I rested one hand against my stomach. The baby kicked. Ethan saw it. His entire expression changed for one second—wonder, pain, hope—then vanished.
“Is it mine?”
The question came without threat.
I stared at him. “I don’t know what answer would make you less dangerous.”
His jaw flexed. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
Victoria spoke quietly. “Ethan, perhaps this isn’t the time.”
He didn’t look at her. “When would be a better time?”
“When no one is bleeding.”
I followed her gaze. A thin line of blood ran along Daniel’s sleeve.
“You’re hit.”
“It’s a graze.”
“You should have said something.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt the divorce reunion.”
Despite everything, a breath of laughter escaped me. Ethan looked murderous. Daniel smiled. For one ridiculous second, the tension cracked.
Then Ethan’s phone rang.
He answered immediately. “Talk.”
A voice spoke too quietly for me to hear. Ethan’s expression changed.
“What?” He sat forward. “Repeat that.” Another pause. “Lock it down. Nobody leaves.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“My apartment.”
My heart skipped. “What about it?”
“Someone broke in.”
Victoria’s face drained. “They got past security?”
“Yes.”
“What did they take?”
Ethan looked at me. “Nothing.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“They left something.”
He turned the phone toward us. A security photograph showed the marble floor of his penthouse foyer. In the center sat a small wooden box. Inside was a hospital bracelet.
ISABELLA BENNETT.
My name. My date of birth.
And beneath it, another bracelet.
BABY BENNETT.
There was no date. Only a handwritten message.
YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAVE THIS CHILD.
I stopped breathing.
Daniel cursed under his breath. Victoria whispered, “Oh my God.”
Ethan’s gaze became deadly calm. “Where did you get prenatal care?”
“No.”
“Bella.”
“No.”
“Someone has your medical records.”
“I know.”
“Then give me the doctor’s name.”
I looked him directly in the eye. “Dr. Laura Hale.”
Daniel stiffened.
I noticed.
“So you do know her.”
He hesitated too long.
Ethan leaned forward. “What do you know?”
Daniel’s face changed. The charming neighbor disappeared. The professional returned.
“She contacted me before Isabella hired me.”
I turned toward him. “What?”
“She knew someone was watching you.”
“You told me my lawyer found you.”
“He did.”
“After she called you?”
“Yes.”
Anger rose through my fear. “You lied.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
I laughed bitterly. “Apparently every man in my life has the same excuse.”
Ethan ignored the insult. “Why did Hale call you?”
Daniel looked at me. “She said someone had accessed your prenatal bloodwork.”
My hand gripped the seat. “When?”
“Four months ago.”
“You knew for four months?”
“I knew someone was searching. I didn’t know who.”
Ethan’s voice was ice. “What were they searching for?”
Daniel took a slow breath. “Paternity markers.”
Nobody moved.
Victoria closed her eyes.
I stared at Daniel. “That makes no sense. I never ordered a paternity test.”
“No.”
“Then why would those markers exist?”
Daniel looked at Ethan, then back at me. “Because someone ordered a full genetic profile on your unborn baby.”
Ethan’s face went still. “Who?”
Daniel answered with three words. “Thomas Bennett did.”
The SUV seemed to shrink around me.
“My father is dead.”
“Apparently not,” Victoria murmured.
I looked at her. “You said you saw him.”
She nodded. “Six weeks ago at my father’s house in Greenwich.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“He was introduced as Thomas Bellamy. He had silver hair, a scar beneath his left ear, and he knew details about the Romano family no outsider should know.”
Bellamy. My mother’s maiden name.
The scar decided it. When I was seven, my father had cut himself repairing our porch swing. I remembered holding a towel against his neck while he joked that I had saved his life.
Apparently I had only postponed the lie.
“Why would he fake his death?” I whispered.
Ethan answered, “Because he was hiding from someone.”
“Or planning something,” Daniel said.
I looked at Victoria. “What was he doing with your father?”
“I don’t know. They were meeting with three other men. I heard the word Providence twice.”
Ethan’s expression changed. “Providence?”
“You know it?”
“No.”
But he had answered too fast.
I leaned forward. “You do.”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Where?”
“Old financial records connected to my father.”
“Gianni?”
“Yes.”
My pulse quickened. Ethan’s father had died eight years earlier, leaving him an empire built from shipping, construction, gambling, and enough violence to fill three lifetimes.
“What kind of records?”
“Research donations.”
“Research into what?”
“I never found out.”
Victoria whispered, “My father called it inheritance science.”
I laughed without humor. “That sounds evil in a tuxedo.”
“No argument,” Daniel said.
Ethan’s phone buzzed. Another message from his security team. He opened it, then went still.
“What?” I demanded.
He handed me the screen.
A security image showed my mother, Catherine Bennett, sitting in a restaurant. Across from her was Thomas Bennett. My dead father. Alive. Older. Real.
The caption beneath it read:
ASK HER WHICH BABY SHE BROUGHT HOME.
My vision blurred.
“No.”
Ethan reached for me. I shoved his hand away.
“Don’t.”
“Bella—”
“Don’t touch me.”
My mother. My father. A sealed genetic record. A baby inside me that someone had already profiled before birth.
Then another message arrived.
A voice recording.
Ethan played it.
My mother’s voice filled the car.
“If Isabella ever learns what happened that night, Ethan will kill us both.”
The recording ended.
Nobody breathed.
Then Ethan said quietly, “Call your mother.”
I looked at him. “I don’t know her number.”
Daniel frowned. “You talk to her every week.”
“I did.”
“Did?”
I swallowed. “Until she vanished three days ago.”
The SUV slowed before an iron gate. Beyond it stood an old Manhattan townhouse with blacked-out windows.
Ethan looked at me. “Then we find her.”
“You mean you find her.”
“No.” He held my gaze. “We.”
I wanted to tell him there was no we anymore.
But somewhere in the city, my supposedly dead father had my medical records, my mother had disappeared, and somebody had fired at my unborn child.
May you like
For the first time since I left Ethan, being alone no longer felt like freedom.
It felt like exactly what someone had wanted.
