Chapter 18 - The secret in the blood
By mid-afternoon, the mansion’s lower conference room had been converted into a command center.
Marcus entered, carrying a heavy steel lockbox retrieved from Dr. Cole’s private apartment in Manhattan, which had been raided at sunrise. He placed it on the oak table in front of Lorenzo and Elena.
"Cole’s private records," Marcus reported. "We had our tech specialist crack the drive. It’s worse than we thought, Boss."
Elena leaned forward, her heart sinking. "What do you mean?"
Marcus opened a thick manila folder and slid two separate medical reports across the table. "Cole wasn't just working for Moretti to make a quick payout. He was conducting unauthorized genetic screenings on every infant delivered in his private wing for the past two years."
"Why?" Lorenzo demanded, his brow furrowing dangerously.
"Because," Marcus paused, glancing between Lorenzo and Elena with an expression of sheer disbelief, "Cole was searching for a very specific blood type and rare chromosomal marker linked to the late Don Vincente Rossi’s lineage."
Lorenzo froze. Don Vincente was his father—the former patriarch of the Rossi family, who had been assassinated five years prior.
"Explain," Lorenzo commanded, the air turning ice-cold.
"Your father had a child out of wedlock twenty-four years ago," Marcus said quietly, his eyes fixed on Elena. "A daughter he hid away in an upstate foster network to protect her from the mob wars of the nineties. That child was you, Elena."
Elena’s world tilted on its axis. The room seemed to spin around her. "What... what are you talking about? My parents were teachers from Syracuse! They adopted me—"
"Vincente Rossi paid for that adoption," Marcus revealed, pointing to a stamped legal seal from 2001. "He left a trust that secretly funded your nursing school. Dr. Cole discovered the match through routine bloodwork when you applied for your medical license. Julian Moretti found out. That's why your baby was targeted. She isn't just an innocent child, Elena. She carries the Rossi bloodline. She is Lorenzo’s niece."
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Elena looked up at Lorenzo, her eyes wide with shock, confusion, and fear.
Lorenzo stared at the documents, his face unreadable, his dark eyes burning with an inferno of revelation. "So," Lorenzo whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal realization, "Julian Moretti didn't just want to poison my son to destroy my legacy. He wanted to steal Elena’s daughter to claim the Rossi family trust through her bloodline."
