Chapter 4 - The House Behind the Gates
Luka’s safe house was not a house.
It was an estate.
Stone walls surrounded nearly ten acres outside the city.
Cameras covered every entrance.
Two steel gates separated the driveway from the road.
“You live here?”
“Sometimes.”
“That means no.”
“It means I own several places.”
Of course he did.
I was beginning to understand that Luka Moretti existed in a world completely different from mine.
A woman named Rosa met us at the door.
She was in her sixties.
She looked at Isla and immediately cried.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
She took one look at me.
Then she wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
“No questions tonight.”
I nearly cried too.
It was the first kindness I had received since Derek walked away.
Rosa prepared a bedroom.
There was already a bassinet inside.
That bothered me.
I turned toward Luka.
“You expected a baby?”
“No.”
“Then why is that here?”
His expression changed.
“My sister visits.”
It was the first personal detail he had offered.
Before I could ask more, his phone rang.
This time he walked away.
I heard only fragments.
“Confirm it.”
“Both samples.”
“No one touches the original.”
Then he returned.
“What samples?”
He did not lie.
“Your blood.”
“And?”
“Derek’s.”
My heart slammed.
“You have Derek’s DNA?”
“He left a glass at the hospital.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“So does falsifying a paternity test.”
I folded my arms.
“What did you find?”
“The prenatal report was false.”
My knees almost gave out.
“Isla is Derek’s?”
“We need the independent laboratory confirmation.”
“But you think she is.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
For nine months Derek had placed his hand on my stomach.
He had painted the nursery.
He had chosen Isla’s middle name.
Then he had somehow received a false report and walked away without asking me one question.
Anger replaced grief.
“He believed it.”
“Maybe.”
My eyes opened.
“What do you mean, maybe?”
Luka pulled another file from his bag.
Derek had contacted the laboratory three weeks before Isla’s birth.
He had not merely received the report.
He had requested it.
And he had paid an additional fee to have the result delivered privately.
“Why would he request a secret test?”
“That is what we need to discover.”
The front door suddenly opened.
One of Luka’s guards entered.
“Someone’s at the gate.”
“Who?”
The guard handed Luka a tablet.
The security camera showed Derek standing outside.
Camille was beside him.
My husband had abandoned me less than six hours earlier.
Now he had found the one place I had never told anyone I was going.
Derek stared directly into the camera.
Then he raised a document.
“I know Elena is inside.”
May you like
He shouted toward the intercom.
“And I have a court order for the baby.”
