Chapter 7 - The Bookstore Woman’s Real Name
Her real name was Nora Bell.
Marco found it forty-seven minutes after the video arrived.
Former Army intelligence analyst.
Cyber operations.
Discharged honorably nine years earlier.
No connection to bookstores.
No connection to Chicago.
And, according to a sealed federal record Marco somehow obtained, one prior investigation involving illegal medical surveillance networks.
I stared at the file.
“She was investigating Bellini?”
“Looks that way,” Marco said.
“Then why pretend to be Naomi?”
“To get close to you,” Adrian said.
I looked at him. “You say that like it’s comforting.”
“It isn’t.”
The address from the message led to an abandoned printing warehouse near the river.
I was not going.
That was the official decision.
Dr. Patel threatened to chain me to the bed if necessary.
Marco said the entire setup smelled like a trap.
Adrian said nothing for a long time.
Then he asked me, “What do you want?”
That question had become dangerous.
Because I wanted to go.
I wanted answers.
I wanted Nora alive.
I wanted to know why my pregnancy had been manipulated by people who treated bloodlines like corporate assets.
But my daughter shifted beneath my ribs, and the answer became obvious.
“I want her safe.”
Adrian nodded.
“Then you stay.”
“You’re going?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“You asked what I wanted. I didn’t say you could go play martyr.”
“Marco can extract Nora.”
“Then let Marco do it.”
Marco cleared his throat. “I appreciate the confidence.”
Adrian stared at the floor.
“You don’t trust me,” I said.
“I trust you more than anyone.”
“Then why do you keep deciding alone?”
His answer came quietly.
“Because every time I love someone, I confuse protecting them with controlling the situation.”
That stunned me.
He looked at me.
“I’m trying not to do that with you again.”
For one second, the hospital disappeared.
It was just us.
The man I had married.
The woman who had left even before the divorce because she could no longer breathe inside his protection.
I whispered, “Then don’t go.”
He nodded.
Marco took six men instead.
We watched through a secure video feed from the hospital.
The warehouse was dark except for one hanging industrial light.
Nora sat beneath it.
Still tied.
Still bleeding.
Marco approached slowly.
No one else was visible.
“Naomi?” I said toward the tablet, though she could not hear me.
Marco cut her restraints.
Nora collapsed forward.
Then every light in the warehouse went on.
A recorded voice filled the space.
Dr. Mara Bellini.
I recognized her immediately from old family dinners.
“Adrian,” she said calmly, “if you are hearing this, you remain predictable.”
Adrian’s expression darkened.
The voice continued.
“Elena, if you are hearing this, congratulations. Your daughter has already survived longer than expected.”
My blood turned cold.
Marco lifted Nora.
A screen on the warehouse wall flickered to life.
A medical diagram appeared.
Two genetic trees.
Moretti.
Hart.
My maiden name.
Bellini’s recording continued.
“The Moretti variant was never a defect. That was the first lie.”
Varen, standing behind us, whispered, “What?”
“The mutation increases resistance to certain clotting disorders but creates vulnerability when paired with a second gene found in a rare lineage.”
The Hart tree flashed.
My family.
My grandparents.
My mother.
Me.
I stared.
Adrian said, “She had Elena’s family mapped for generations.”
Bellini continued.
“Your daughter is not an accident. She is the first confirmed living combination of both lines in eighty-two years.”
I felt sick.
“What happened eighty-two years ago?” I asked.
No one answered.
On the screen, a black-and-white photograph appeared.
A woman with dark hair holding a baby.
The caption read:
ISABELLA MORETTI HART, 1944.
I stopped breathing.
“Hart?”
Varen sat down hard.
Adrian stared at the photograph.
Bellini’s voice grew almost reverent.
“The Moretti and Hart bloodlines crossed once before. The child disappeared. The records were erased. Since then, both families have lied about why.”
My mind raced.
My father had never spoken about any Moretti connection.
My grandparents had been schoolteachers in Indiana.
At least, that was what I had been told.
The screen changed again.
A series of infant death certificates.
Stillbirths.
Miscarriages.
Unexplained neonatal deaths.
All tied to Moretti descendants.
Then one surviving child.
Name redacted.
Date of birth: 1944.
Bellini said, “Rafael believed the child died. He was wrong.”
I gripped the bedrail.
“Who was the child?”
The recording paused.
Then displayed a photograph of an elderly man.
My grandfather.
Thomas Hart.
I stared at the face I had known my whole childhood.
“No.”
Adrian whispered, “Elena…”
“My grandfather was a Moretti?”
Varen looked horrified.
“If that’s true, then—”
I turned. “Then what?”
He swallowed.
“You and Adrian are distantly related.”
My stomach turned.
Dr. Patel immediately said, “Distant relation several generations removed does not automatically create a medical problem. We need actual genetics, not dramatic family trees.”
Thank God for doctors.
Bellini’s recording continued.
“The true value of the combined genome is not hereditary power. It is medical.”
A DNA sequence appeared.
“Certain combinations produce unusually strong marrow regeneration and immune recovery. Your daughter could carry a naturally occurring version of a mutation pharmaceutical companies have spent billions trying to replicate.”
Adrian’s face went flat.
There it was.
Money.
Of course.
“This was never about heirs,” I said.
“No,” Varen whispered.
“It was about patents.”
Bellini’s final words filled the warehouse.
“Rafael wants the child because her blood could be worth more than the Moretti empire.”
The recording ended.
Marco lifted Nora toward the exit.
Then Nora grabbed his sleeve.
She looked directly at his body camera.
“Elena,” she said weakly, “do not trust Varen.”
Everyone in my hospital room turned toward the doctor.
Varen went white.
Nora continued.
“He didn’t run from Rafael.”
She coughed.
“He helped build the program.”
Nora closed her laptop and leaned against the wall. “There’s something else you should know. When I first took the bookstore assignment, I thought you were simply a surveillance target. Then you started leaving tea for the homeless man outside every morning and pretending it was accidental. You remembered customers’ birthdays. You covered my shift when I lied about having the flu because I was actually meeting an agent. Somewhere along the way, protecting the operation became protecting you.”
I stared at her. “That is a terrible apology.”
“I know.”
“It’s manipulative.”
“Also true.”
“You are still not forgiven.”
May you like
“I know.”
I looked away before she could see my eyes fill. Too many people had lied to me while claiming love, protection, science, duty, or family as excuses. Nora’s confession did not repair the damage. But unlike the others, she was not asking me to erase it. For now, that mattered.
