Chapter 5 - The Uncle Who Was Already Inside
Rafael Moretti was supposed to be in Miami.
That was the first thing Adrian said.
The second was, “Lock down the hospital.”
Dr. Patel pointed at him. “You do not control this building.”
Adrian looked at me.
I nodded once. “Do it quietly.”
Marco was already moving before the words left my mouth.
Within minutes, two hospital administrators appeared, security doors were restricted, and the laboratory began reviewing camera footage. I stayed in bed because Dr. Patel threatened to sedate me if I tried to get up.
“I’m not fragile,” I told him.
“No,” he said, adjusting the monitor around my abdomen. “But your placenta is, and right now I care more about that than your pride.”
Adrian almost smiled.
“Don’t encourage him,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You keep doing that.”
His eyes softened for half a second.
Then Marco returned.
“We found the person who signed the sample out.”
“Rafael?” Adrian asked.
“No.”
Marco held up a still image from the hospital security camera.
A woman in blue scrubs stood at the lab counter wearing a mask and surgical cap. Only her eyes were visible.
“She used Rafael’s digital credential,” Marco said. “Badge cloned. Camera shows her leaving through the east stairwell.”
“Who is she?”
“We’re working on it.”
I stared at the image.
Something about the eyes felt familiar.
“Zoom in.”
Marco handed me the tablet.
I enlarged the frame.
Brown eyes. Slightly hooded. A thin scar near the right eyebrow.
My stomach dropped.
“I know her.”
Adrian leaned over me.
“Who?”
“She was at our wedding.”
His face changed.
I searched my memory.
“She worked for your father.”
Marco stiffened. “Dr. Mara Bellini.”
Varen made a broken sound from the corner.
Everyone turned.
“You know her,” I said.
He nodded.
“She ran the bloodline project.”
Adrian stared at him. “You said Rafael took it over.”
“He funded it. Bellini ran it.”
“Where has she been?”
“Gone.”
“Apparently not gone enough,” I said.
Varen rubbed both hands over his face.
“She was obsessed with proving the Moretti variant could be controlled through selective pairing.”
I felt sick.
“Selective pairing?”
“She believed certain partners could produce unaffected heirs.”
Adrian’s voice sharpened. “You’re talking about people like livestock.”
Varen looked ashamed. “That is how she saw it.”
A cold realization slid through me.
“Was I selected?”
No one answered.
I looked at Adrian.
“Was I?”
He stared at Varen.
Varen’s silence was enough.
My entire marriage seemed to fracture in retrospect.
The gala where Adrian and I had met.
The invitation I had received at the last minute.
The seat beside him.
The introduction by one of his father’s old associates.
I had always thought it was chance.
“Tell me,” I said.
Varen whispered, “Bellini identified you years before you met Adrian.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
Adrian turned toward me. “Elena, I swear—”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I said don’t.”
My eyes burned.
“Were we ever real?”
His face went pale. “Yes.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I know what I felt.”
“You met me because someone put me in your path.”
“That doesn’t mean I loved you because someone told me to.”
“Did they tell you to sit beside me?”
“No.”
“Did they tell you to call me?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
“He was dead.”
“Did Rafael?”
“No.”
I wanted to believe him.
That made me angrier.
Marco interrupted carefully. “We found Bellini’s car.”
“Where?” Adrian asked.
“Parking garage. Abandoned.”
“And the sample?”
“Gone.”
Varen stood suddenly.
“She won’t just test the sample.”
“What else would she do?” I asked.
He looked at me with horror.
“She’ll compare it to the old registry.”
“What registry?”
“The family genetic archive.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened. “Where is it?”
“I thought destroyed.”
“Stop thinking and tell me what you know.”
Varen flinched.
I said, “Adrian.”
He backed off.
Varen swallowed. “The archive contained genetic profiles for every Moretti descendant and every partner considered reproductively significant.”
I stared at him.
“That is disgusting.”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
“Your father. Bellini. Rafael. Me. Two lab directors.”
“Names.”
“One died. One disappeared.”
“Like you?”
He looked away.
Dr. Patel entered with new results.
“I have some good news.”
All of us turned toward him.
“The baby’s heart tracing has stabilized. The anemia is concerning, but not yet at the threshold for emergency delivery.”
I exhaled.
Adrian closed his eyes.
“How long?” I asked.
“We monitor. If she worsens, we deliver. If she remains stable, we buy time.”
“Days?”
“Possibly weeks.”
I nodded.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
“We repeated your antibody panel with a new sample drawn under observation.”
“And?”
“The antibody is real. But there’s another finding.”
Adrian’s body went tense again.
Dr. Patel sat beside me.
“Elena, your blood contains traces of a medication used in assisted reproductive protocols.”
I stared at him.
“What medication?”
“A synthetic gonadotropin analog.”
“I didn’t take fertility drugs.”
“I know.”
“When would I have been exposed?”
“That’s the problem. Based on metabolite pattern, within the last several months.”
Adrian went very still.
“No,” I whispered.
Dr. Patel continued gently. “It could be contamination. We’re repeating the test.”
I looked at Varen.
He had turned gray.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“What?”
“Bellini used that drug in experimental fertility synchronization.”
I felt the room tilt.
“Say that in normal English.”
“She used it to manipulate ovulation timing.”
My hands moved over my belly.
“But I conceived naturally.”
Adrian’s eyes met mine.
We both remembered the last night of our marriage.
The storm.
The argument.
The way anger had become desperation and then something softer.
Our daughter had been conceived before the divorce papers arrived.
I knew that.
I had counted.
So had Adrian.
Varen whispered, “Someone may have known exactly when you were fertile.”
I looked at him.
“And arranged what?”
He did not answer.
Adrian did.
“Our last night together.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
He looked sick.
“The power outage at the lake house,” he said. “The storm warning that made us stay overnight. The driver who suddenly had engine trouble.”
I remembered.
Every inconvenience that night had pushed us into the same room.
I had thought fate was cruel.
Now it looked engineered.
I whispered, “Someone wanted this baby conceived.”
Varen nodded.
“And someone else,” Adrian said, “wanted her never born.”
At that exact moment, my phone buzzed on the bedside table.
Unknown number.
A photo appeared.
It showed me asleep in my bookstore apartment three months earlier.
Taken from inside the room.
May you like
Underneath were five words.
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HIDING.
