Chapter 7 - The Uncle Everyone Buried
Gabriel DeLuca woke in a secure trauma room with two police officers outside and Julian standing at the foot of his bed.
His first words were not hello.
“Where is Elena?”
Julian stared.
“You tell me.”
Gabriel laughed weakly.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t have been hit from behind.”
“You switched my champagne glass.”
“No.”
“Cassandra says Elena followed you.”
“That doesn’t mean I poisoned you.”
“You were declared dead in Brazil.”
“I paid for that obituary.”
“At least someone is admitting it.”
Gabriel winced as he tried to sit.
He had a concussion and a broken wrist. Julian felt no sympathy yet.
“Why fake your death?”
“Because your father wanted me dead.”
“Vittorio?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gabriel looked toward the officers.
“Because I discovered what the charities were doing.”
Julian laughed without humor.
“Everyone discovered the network.”
“Not the same part.”
Gabriel described the beginning.
In the 1990s, the DeLuca Foundation helped women in dangerous homes relocate with children. Corrupt officials sometimes created new records when legal systems failed them.
Illegal.
Sometimes lifesaving.
Then money entered.
Wealthy couples offered donations for children whose histories could be “simplified.” Judges wanted embarrassing custody cases buried. Men wanted heirs. Criminals wanted witnesses moved.
The rescue network became an exchange.
Vittorio did not invent the corruption, Gabriel claimed.
A priest named Father Dominic Rusk did.
“He convinced everyone it was mercy,” Gabriel said.
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
Julian almost laughed.
“Actually dead?”
“I watched the cancer kill him.”
“Good. One reliable death.”
Gabriel’s mouth twitched.
He said Vittorio eventually tried to end paid placements after one child was seriously neglected by a wealthy adoptive family. The child was removed and protected, but Vittorio realized the system had become monstrous.
“Who kept it running?” Julian asked.
“Thomas.”
Julian stiffened.
“No.”
“Thomas believed the answer was better screening, not stopping.”
“That doesn’t fit.”
“You think Thomas was a saint because he raised you.”
“I think you’re lying because you spent twelve years hiding.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“Both can be true.”
That sentence had become the family anthem.
“What does Lily have to do with it?”
“Nothing originally.”
“Originally?”
“Her existence proved records were still being falsified after Vittorio’s shutdown order.”
“Who falsified them?”
Gabriel looked away.
“Isabella.”
Julian’s mother again.
“Why?”
“To protect Cassandra from Celeste.”
Julian rubbed his forehead.
Every crime had two explanations.
Cruelty.
Protection.
Sometimes both.
“And Caleb Ross?” he asked.
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
“You know Caleb?”
“Nora’s ex-husband.”
“He worked for Thomas.”
Julian stopped.
“As what?”
“Finder.”
The word made his skin crawl.
“What does that mean?”
“He located people whose records could threaten the network.”
“Nora?”
“Yes.”
“Lily?”
Gabriel nodded.
Julian’s voice became very quiet.
“Did he know Lily was Cassandra’s daughter?”
“Eventually.”
“What did Thomas tell him to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try harder.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“Thomas ordered Caleb to recover Elena’s box. Caleb used Nora’s fear to get close. He was not supposed to harm Lily.”
Julian hated the sentence.
Not supposed to.
As if cruelty became smaller because it exceeded instructions.
“What did he do to her?”
Gabriel looked away.
“Enough that Thomas eventually turned against him.”
Julian did not ask for graphic details.
He knew enough: shouting, confinement, forceful grabbing, broken belongings, threats that made an eight-year-old believe disappearance could be punishment.
“What happened to Caleb?”
“Thomas made him vanish.”
“Dead?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“Ask Thomas.”
Julian stood.
Marco entered.
“Gabriel’s phone records came back.”
Julian waited.
“Last call before he disappeared in Brazil twelve years ago was to Elena Vale.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Julian stared.
“You knew she survived.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“From the beginning.”
The urge to strike him came fast and hot.
Julian did not move.
“Why did every adult in my life decide I was too fragile for truth?”
Gabriel’s answer was quiet.
“Because you were sixteen when your father died and twenty-five when Elena disappeared. Everyone kept seeing the boy carrying Vittorio’s blood on his hands.”
Julian looked away.
He remembered courthouse steps.
Gunfire.
Thomas pulling him backward.
His father collapsing.
Sometimes a family keeps someone frozen at the age of their worst day.
He understood that.
He did not forgive it.
Gabriel continued.
“Elena survived the crash. Thomas found her. The pregnancy complicated everything.”
“My child.”
“Yes.”
“Where is that child?”
Gabriel looked confused.
“You still don’t know?”
Julian’s heart slowed.
“Know what?”
“Elena lost the pregnancy.”
Margaret had said she delivered.
Thomas had said a girl.
Someone lied.
Again.
Gabriel said, “The baby did not survive.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw the hospital record.”
“Fake records are literally the subject of this conversation.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Fair.”
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“We found Thomas.”
“Where?”
“He walked into the Twenty-Second District.”
Julian froze.
“Surrendered?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He says he wants protective custody.”
“From whom?”
Marco swallowed.
“Caleb Ross.”
The missing ex-husband.
The man who terrorized Nora and Lily.
Julian left immediately.
Thomas sat in an interview room with no lawyer.
When Julian entered, Thomas looked relieved.
That made Julian angrier.
“Where have you been?”
“Trying to stop Gabriel.”
“Gabriel says he was trying to stop you.”
“He would.”
“Did you run the placement network after my father shut it down?”
Thomas’s face changed.
“Who told you?”
“Answer.”
“Yes.”
Julian stared.
Thomas continued quickly.
“Not for money.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The excuse.”
Thomas looked wounded.
“I moved women and children away from dangerous people.”
“And falsified identities.”
“When courts failed.”
“And hired Caleb.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He was good at finding people.”
“He abused Nora.”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“He frightened Lily.”
“I stopped him.”
“You grabbed Lily yourself.”
Thomas’s face collapsed.
“I was desperate for the key. I held her arm when she tried to run. She was terrified. I hated myself the second I saw her face.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“Regret does not rewrite a child’s memory.”
“I know.”
“Where is Caleb?”
Thomas looked toward the mirrored glass.
“He’s been working for someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why protective custody?”
“Because he called me.”
“What did he say?”
Thomas swallowed.
“He said the girl is the last clean key.”
Julian frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
“I swear.”
Thomas leaned forward.
“Julian, Caleb believes Lily can unlock a trust.”
“Money?”
“Records.”
“What records?”
“The master ledger.”
A ledger containing original identities, false placements, payments, judges, doctors, and every child moved through the DeLuca network.
Julian’s pulse quickened.
“Where?”
“Elena hid it.”
“And Lily is the key?”
“Something connected to her identity opens it.”
Julian thought of the music box.
The brass key.
The dance.
A child turned into a combination lock by adults.
Again.
Then a detective opened the door.
“Mr. DeLuca.”
Julian turned.
“We have a situation.”
“What?”
“A woman just arrived asking for you.”
“Name?”
The detective looked at Thomas.
“Elena Vale.”
Thomas stood so fast his chair fell.
Julian could not move.
Beyond the interview-room glass stood a woman with dark hair streaked silver.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
Thirteen years of grief had a face.
May you like
She looked directly at him.
And she was holding the hand of a teenage girl.
