Chapter 143
Gabriela’s POV
It was four-thirty in the afternoon when my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize.
I was in my room at the Moretti mansion, trying to respond to messages from Alejandra’s office—they’d been asking me for information about a gallery event I was no longer going to attend this week. Aurora was downstairs with the twins and Andrea. Dad and Gabriel were at the federal office in Foley Square with the Harringtons. Alejandro had gone down to get coffee for both of them.
And my phone was vibrating with a Queens area code I didn’t have saved.
I almost didn’t answer.
Almost.
But something this past year had taught me not to ignore unknown numbers when the people I loved were in danger and too many leads were still unresolved.
“Hello?”
“Miss Gabriela?”
An older woman’s voice. Rushed. Frayed at the edges, as if she’d been holding something in for hours and had finally let it spill.
It took me three seconds to place her.
“Doña Marta?”
“Yes, miss. It’s me. Doña Marta. Lucía’s mother.”
I sat down on the bed because my legs were already bracing for what my mind hadn’t fully processed yet.
“Doña Marta. Did something happen?”
“I need your help, miss. I need your family to help me. Please.”
“Doña Marta, calm down. Tell me what happened.”
“My daughter. My Lucía. They took her, miss. They took her yesterday morning in Quebec. She was taking the baby to daycare when some men forced her into a van and took her.”
The floor tilted beneath me.
“How do you know?”
“The daycare director called me this morning because the baby never arrived. Then Lucía’s supervisor from the hospital called because she didn’t show up for her shift. I tried calling her all day—no answer. The phone rings, but she doesn’t pick up. And two hours ago, Lucía’s neighbor called me. A kind Russian woman. She told me what she saw from her kitchen window yesterday at seven fifteen in the morning. Three men. A black van. They covered my daughter’s mouth, miss. They took the baby from her arms. And they took both of them.”
I pressed my free hand against my mouth to stop the sound rising in my throat.
“Doña Marta…”
“Please, miss. Please help me. I know it wasn’t right what I said to you yesterday when you called. I know I spoke harshly. But I had promised my daughter I wouldn’t say anything. And now I regret it. I regret it because if I had told you where she was, you could have protected her and none of this would have happened.”
“This isn’t your fault, Doña Marta.”
“Yes it is, miss. It is. And now they took her. And they took the baby. He’s only eleven months old. I don’t know what to do.”
I closed my eyes for a second.
The baby.
Lucía had a baby.
Lucía had had a baby sometime in the past two years—and no one in my family knew.
“Doña Marta, I need you to confirm something. How old is the baby?”
“Eleven months, miss. He turns one in two weeks.”
I did the math instantly.
Eleven months. One year in two weeks. Add nine months of pregnancy.
Fifteen months ago, Lucía and my brother were still together in secret before the wedding.
“Doña Marta… is the baby’s father…?”
“It’s Mr. Gabriel Moretti, miss. He’s the father. Lucía found out after she’d already left for Malone. And when she moved to Boston, she was already very pregnant. That’s why she never contacted you. She didn’t want to ruin his life. Or Gabriel’s. Or his new wife’s. And then when Mrs. Victoria went to threaten her in Boston, my daughter got so scared she crossed the border with the newborn and hid in Quebec where no one could find her.”
I couldn’t speak for ten seconds.
Doña Marta’s voice kept breaking on the other end.
“Miss, I know this is a lot. And I know your brother doesn’t know about the baby. And I know I swore to Lucía I’d never say anything. But now they’ve taken her. And they took the baby. And if that woman is capable of sending three men to Quebec to kidnap a mother and her child, then she’s capable of anything. Anything. And the only one who can save them now is your brother. That’s why I’m telling you. I don’t care about breaking my promise anymore. All I care about is getting my daughter and my grandson back alive.”
Tears were running silently down my face, and I hadn’t even noticed.
“Doña Marta, I’m going to do everything I can. I swear on my nieces and nephews, I’ll do everything. But I need your help. I need every detail you have about where Lucía lived in Quebec—addresses, phone numbers, neighbors’ names—anything. So the people searching know where to start.”
“I’ll send everything right away, miss. As soon as we hang up.”
“And one more thing, Doña Marta.”
“Yes?”
“What’s the baby’s name?”
There was a long silence.
Then her voice came back, a little steadier—as if saying his name out loud was the only thing anchoring her to hope.
“Matías. His name is Matías Sandoval. Lucía didn’t give him his father’s last name. But she gave him his grandfather’s name. She told me once Gabriel had told her about his grandfather, and that’s why she chose Matías. So the boy would carry something of him, even if his father never knew.”
I closed my eyes again.
Matías Moretti.
My nephew.
My nephew was eleven months old and somewhere—probably in New York State—kidnapped, tied up or locked away or sedated, alongside the woman my brother loved.
And my entire family had been searching for one person.
When in reality, we were searching for two.
I went downstairs at 4:40.
Alejandro had just come back with two coffees and was in the kitchen speaking quietly with Mom about something I didn’t catch. The moment he saw my face, he knew.
“Gaby.”
“I need you to call my brother. Tell him to come back to the mansion immediately. Pause whatever he’s doing at Foley Square. Dad can stay there and finish whatever needs finishing—but Gabriel needs to come back. Now.”
“What happened?”
“Call him, Alejandro.”
“Gaby, tell me first.”
“No. If I tell you first, you’ll lose two minutes figuring out how to say it to him. And we need every minute.”
He studied me for three long seconds. Then he pulled out his phone, dialed Gabriel, and put it on speaker.
My brother answered on the first ring.
“Alejandro, what’s wrong?”
“You need to come back to the mansion.”
“I can’t. We’re about to close with Harrington. The old man is on the phone with Victoria right now. We’re close.”
I took the phone from Alejandro.
“Gabriel, it’s me.”
“Gabriela, not now.”
“Come to the mansion. Now. Something happened that you need to hear before you close anything with the Harringtons.”
“Gaby…”
“I’m asking you as your twin. Not just your sister—as your twin. The only person in this world who knows when you’re about to break and when you’re not. Come back. You need to hear this before you continue.”
Silence.
Then his voice shifted—that controlled stillness he used when he understood something serious was happening, even if he didn’t yet know what.
“Is it about Lucía?”
“Yes.”
“Is she…?”
“She’s alive as far as I know. But there’s something else you need to hear—from me. In person.”
“I’m coming.”
“Hurry.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
I hung up.
Alejandro looked at me like he understood something bigger than everything we’d gone through in the last thirty-six hours was about to unfold.
“Gaby.”
“Later.”
“Tell me now.”
“Later, Alejandro. I promise. But I want you to hear it at the same time he does. I’m not saying this twice.”
He didn’t push.
He just took my hand.
And we stood there in silence while Mom watched us from the other side of the island, her expression already knowing something was wrong.
Gabriel arrived at 5:10.
He came in with his jacket open, tie loosened, bandaged hand in his pocket, and the face of a man with absolutely nothing left in reserve.
I was waiting in the small sitting room. Alejandro beside me. Mom by the fireplace—she had insisted on being there.
“I’m here, Gabriela. Talk.”
“Sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit. Talk.”
“Please, Gabriel.”
He stared at me for three seconds.
Then he sat.
I took a breath.
“One. Two. Three.”
“Doña Marta called me half an hour ago. Lucía’s mother.”
His whole body tensed.
“What happened?”
“She confirmed Lucía was kidnapped in Quebec. Yesterday morning. Three men. A black van. A neighbor saw everything.”
He nodded, already pulling out his phone.
“I’ll send this to my investigator and Andrés’s right now. Do you have her number so they can contact her directly?”
“Yes, but Gabriel—”
“What?”
“There’s more.”
He looked up.
And I saw it—that look. The one a man gets when he already carries too much and somehow knows there’s more coming.
“What, Gabriela?”
I closed my eyes for a second.
Then I looked straight at him.
“Lucía wasn’t alone in Quebec.”
“What?”
“They didn’t take her alone. They took her with a baby.”
I watched the air leave his lungs in a single breath.
“What baby?”
“Her baby, Gabriel. A boy.”
“Gabriela…”
“He’s eleven months old. His name is Matías. He turns one in two weeks.”
His phone slipped from his hand and hit the carpet.
He didn’t pick it up.
“Gabriela.”
“He’s your son.”
Silence.
Absolute.
Five seconds that felt like five hours.
Alejandro stopped breathing.
Mom covered her mouth.
And my twin… my twin just stared at me, motionless, as if his entire system had crashed trying to process something that big.
“My son.”
Not a question.
A statement.
“Yes.”
“My son is eleven months old.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s been kidnapped.”
“Yes.”
“With his mother.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel stood slowly, like his body weighed four times more than usual. He walked to the window and stood with his back to us, staring out at the fading light.
He didn’t speak for a full minute.
Then I heard it.
A sound I hadn’t heard from him in years.
Since our grandfather’s funeral.
He was crying.
Silent, shaking, one hand pressed against the glass just to stay standing.
I walked to him and put a hand on his back.
“Gabriel.”
“Don’t touch me, Gaby.”
“Gabriel.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
“Look at me.”
He turned.
Tears everywhere. Eyes red. A look I had never seen in thirty-five years.
“I have a son, Gaby. A son who turns one in two weeks. A son who’s never seen me. Who doesn’t know who I am. Who might die in the next few hours because I married the wrong woman and she turned out to be a psychopath who now has him.”
“Gabriel—”
“My son has been alive for eleven months and I didn’t know. Lucía carried this alone. Alone. Gave birth alone. Raised him alone without a dollar from me, without my name, without anything. And all because I married the wrong woman trying to protect you. And in the end, I protected no one.”
“Gabriel—”
“I’m going to kill Victoria. I’m going to kill her with my own hands.”
“Gabriel.”
“What?”
“First we find them. Then you decide what to do. But first—we find them.”
Alejandro stepped forward, placing a firm hand on his shoulder.
“We’re going to find them. Both of them. I swear to you.”
Gabriel nodded.
Aurora crossed the room and pulled him into an embrace.
“Son. We’re going to find them. And this family is going to grow—with one more grandson for me.”
“Mom…”
“Breathe. Now let’s go to your father’s study. We need to call everyone. Now.”
They left together.
And I stayed behind.
Sitting in the chair my brother had just left.
My nephew was named Matías.
He was eleven months old.
And he was out there somewhere.
“Hold on, baby,” I whispered under my breath.
“Your dad is coming.”