Chapter 4 - The Mothers Removed from the Family
The Continuity Household records began forty two years earlier.
The language sounded legal without describing anything lawful.
Maternal instability.
Protective relocation.
Bloodline preservation.
Child reassignment.
Temporary family guardianship.
Some women signed documents.
Others disappeared from the records after being declared unfit.
Their children remained inside the Rossi family.
The fathers were told the mothers abandoned them, accepted money, or died.
My grandfather had approved the earliest cases.
Dominic’s father witnessed several transfers.
The system was not written like a criminal operation.
It was written like policy.
A family process for removing women who threatened property, reputation, or control.
Grace had found nine names.
One belonged to my aunt Lucia, my father’s younger sister.
Family history said Lucia died as an infant.
The record showed she lived until age six before being transferred to another household under a different surname.
Another belonged to a woman named Catherine Russo.
She gave birth to my cousin Antonio.
We were told Catherine left with another man.
The record described her as resistant to financial consolidation and authorized medical separation.
Antonio grew up hating a mother who may never have chosen to leave.
The final name before Grace’s was Sofia Vescari.
Dominic’s wife.
She disappeared twenty years earlier.
Dominic told everyone she died during a psychiatric crisis.
The file said she was transferred to a private residence after attempting to expose the council.
Dominic had not merely served the system.
He had surrendered his own wife to it.
Perhaps that was why his voice trembled behind the wall.
Perhaps he knew exactly what Grace faced.
Mara requested permission to search the nursery wall and lower estate archive.
I gave it.
The federal team recovered the metal box Grace had photographed.
Most documents remained.
A handwritten ledger was missing.
The wall contained another hidden compartment holding photographs of children, trust amendments, and private adoption orders.
The orders used false names and friendly judges.
Some dated back decades.
Others were recent.
One order concerned our unborn son.
It named Isabella as emergency guardian if Grace died, disappeared, or became medically incapable.
My signature appeared beneath it.
The signature was real.
The document was not.
Six months earlier, I signed a security authorization before leaving for Europe.
Someone removed the signature page and attached it to the guardianship order.
My mother had collected genuine consent and changed what it meant.
At the maternity wing, Grace began having stronger contractions.
Emilia said the medication changes, dehydration, and stress could trigger labor.
Our son might arrive at any time.
Federal security covered the floor.
Luca controlled no access without Mara’s approval.
I accepted the restriction.
I no longer trusted private loyalty as a substitute for documented protection.
Mara found a message in Dominic’s abandoned phone.
The council is divided. Isabella wants the boy. The Steward wants the woman silenced first.
“Who is the Steward?” I asked.
“No name.”
“Could it be Dominic?”
“He wrote the message to someone else. So no.”
Another message instructed Dominic to extend my European mission.
The conflict between the Bellandi and Caruso families had been real.
The intelligence keeping me overseas had not.
Someone exaggerated threats, altered meeting dates, and intercepted reports to prevent my return.
My mission was not invented.
It was prolonged until Grace signed or gave birth.
Dominic had controlled the information through family contacts.
But several messages came from a secure device registered to Rossi Holdings legal counsel.
Vincent Caruso.
Not part of the rival Caruso family despite the surname.
Vincent had managed our trusts since my father’s death.
He understood every succession clause.
When agents reached his Manhattan office, he had disappeared.
His assistant said he left after receiving a call from Isabella on the night I returned.
The call lasted forty seven seconds.
Then Vincent ordered a car to the airport.
He never arrived.
His abandoned vehicle was found beside the Hudson River.
Blood marked the driver’s seat.
No body.
Dominic remained missing beneath the estate.
Vincent vanished before questioning.
The hidden council might be eliminating people as quickly as we identified them.
Luca’s search teams mapped the underground tunnels.
One passage reached the family chapel.
Another reached the wine cellar.
A third continued beyond estate property toward an abandoned caretaker’s house.
Federal agents entered it.
They found Dominic’s jacket, a spent medical injector, and drag marks across the dirt.
Dominic may not have escaped willingly.
At the caretaker’s house, agents discovered a chair, rope, and a live monitor showing Grace’s hospital room.
Someone had access to the protected maternity camera.
Mara called the hospital.
The camera feed was disabled.
Security searched every staff credential.
One camera technician had entered the floor using a temporary badge.
The badge carried the name Anthony Rossi.
My father.
May you like
Dead for twelve years.
Continue to the next part: Someone using Matteo’s dead father’s identity has gained access to Grace’s protected hospital floor.
