Chapter 8 - The Father Nobody Expected
“No.”
Mara said the word before anyone finished the thought.
“Jonah was not Leo’s father.”
Nico remained silent.
Marco picked up the photograph.
“Elena told me the father was gone.”
Mara turned on him.
“My husband was not sleeping with your sister.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You were thinking it.”
Marco set the photograph down.
“I was thinking we need facts.”
“Then get them.”
Her voice cracked.
“Because I will not let my husband’s memory be destroyed by another Castellano rumor.”
Marco nodded.
“Agreed.”
A DNA test could answer the question.
But obtaining Jonah’s DNA was complicated.
Then Mara remembered something.
Emma.
If Jonah were Leo’s biological father, Emma and Leo would share paternal DNA markers consistent with half-siblings.
Dr. Shah arranged a legitimate kinship test with Mara’s consent.
The wait took hours.
Mara spent them furious.
Not because she believed Jonah had betrayed her.
Because some frightened part of her realized she no longer knew what to believe about him.
He had hidden Rebecca.
He had hidden Elena.
He had hidden federal evidence.
Love did not erase secrets.
Sometimes love made secrets hurt more.
Marco sat across from her in the hospital cafeteria.
“Jonah loved you.”
Mara looked up sharply.
“You watched one video.”
“I watched how he said your name.”
“That doesn’t prove fidelity.”
“No.”
Marco leaned back.
“But I know what men sound like when they’re lying about what matters.”
Mara gave a bitter smile.
“Professional expertise?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
“Have you ever been married?”
“No.”
“In love?”
Marco was quiet.
“Once.”
“What happened?”
“She realized loving me meant living behind armored glass.”
“What did you do?”
“I let her leave.”
Mara studied him.
“That almost sounds noble.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I spent six months having her followed because I couldn’t accept she was safe without me.”
Mara raised an eyebrow.
“There he is.”
Marco almost smiled.
Then the humor disappeared.
“I don’t want Leo growing up believing that kind of control is love.”
Mara looked toward the neonatal floor.
“Then teach him something different.”
The DNA results arrived at 4:06 p.m.
Dr. Shah entered with a genetic counselor.
Mara’s hands became cold.
Marco stood beside her.
The counselor sat down.
“Mr. Ellison was not available for direct testing, so this is not equivalent to a direct paternity test.”
Mara nodded impatiently.
“But based on the relationship markers between Emma and Leo, the results do not support a half-sibling relationship.”
Mara closed her eyes.
Relief hit so hard she nearly cried.
Jonah was not Leo’s father.
Marco exhaled.
“Then who is?”
The counselor could not answer that.
Nico could.
He had spent the afternoon following Elena’s hidden travel records.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Michael Reyes.
A federal financial-crimes investigator.
Marco recognized it.
“He died last year.”
Nico nodded.
“Car accident.”
Mara stared at him.
“Another accident?”
“Apparently.”
Michael Reyes had worked on organized-crime cases.
He had also secretly met Elena for nearly two years.
A photograph showed them together at a cabin.
Elena was smiling.
Not the polished smile she wore at charity galas.
Something private.
Real.
Marco sat down slowly.
“She loved him.”
Nico nodded.
“It looks that way.”
Marco stared at the photograph.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Mara answered.
“Because he was federal law enforcement and you were a mafia boss.”
Marco gave her a look.
“Fair.”
Michael Reyes had died seven months before Leo’s birth.
The timeline fit.
More importantly, it changed the legal stakes.
Leo was the son of a federal investigator who had been quietly examining Castellano accounts.
Vittorio could not allow that connection to become public.
At the guardianship hearing the next morning, the courtroom was packed.
Reporters filled the back rows.
Mara hated every camera.
Vittorio sat beside his attorneys wearing grief like a tailored suit.
Marco sat across the aisle.
He looked calm.
Mara knew better now.
Adrian Bell represented Elena’s trust.
A family-court judge reviewed the emergency petition.
Vittorio’s attorneys played Marco’s recorded phone call.
Marco’s voice filled the courtroom.
Recover the records by whatever means are necessary.
Mara watched Marco listen to his own words.
He did not look away.
Vittorio’s attorney argued that Jonah died less than twelve hours later.
Then he introduced Mara’s appointment as trustee.
He suggested Jonah and Elena planned to seize Castellano assets through Leo’s trust.
Mara wanted to stand and scream.
Adrian stopped her with a glance.
Then Vittorio’s lawyer delivered the cruelest accusation.
“Mrs. Ellison has inserted herself into the newborn’s care despite no biological relationship.”
Mara’s jaw tightened.
“She has accepted private protection from Marco Castellano.”
“She has remained near his family.”
“And she may now control assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The judge looked toward Mara.
“Have you received payment from Mr. Castellano?”
“No.”
“Any gifts?”
“No.”
“Housing?”
“No.”
“Employment?”
“No.”
“Why are you involved?”
Mara looked toward Vittorio.
Then at the judge.
“Because Leo was hungry.”
The courtroom became quiet.
Mara continued.
“I was sitting in a hospital with my daughter when Marco approached me.”
“I did not know Elena.”
“I did not know anything about the trust.”
“I helped because a premature baby needed milk.”
“That is all.”
The judge studied her.
Vittorio’s lawyer stood.
“And now?”
Mara looked directly at him.
“Now I know his mother left a message warning me not to trust the man sitting behind you.”
A wave of whispers moved through the courtroom.
Vittorio’s face hardened.
Adrian introduced Elena’s voicemail.
Then the trust document.
Then evidence of the altered medication.
The judge ordered an independent investigation.
Vittorio’s guardianship request was denied temporarily.
Marco exhaled.
Mara did not.
Because the judge also prohibited Marco from exercising control over Leo’s trust until Jonah’s death was investigated.
Vittorio had lost.
But so had Marco.
Outside the courthouse, reporters shouted questions.
“Mrs. Ellison, are you romantically involved with Marco Castellano?”
“Mr. Castellano, did you order Jonah Ellison killed?”
“Is Leo the son of a federal agent?”
Mara froze.
That last question should not have been public.
Marco heard it too.
Nico pushed them toward the vehicle.
“Someone leaked Reyes.”
Marco looked back toward the courthouse.
Vittorio was smiling.
Not broadly.
Just enough.
The ride to the hospital was silent.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
Dr. Shah.
His face changed as he listened.
“What happened?”
Mara’s pulse accelerated.
Marco lowered the phone.
“Leo is missing.”
For one second nobody understood the words.
Then Mara stopped breathing.
“What?”
“A fire alarm forced evacuation of part of the neonatal floor.”
“During the movement, someone wearing hospital credentials took his transport incubator.”
Marco’s face became something Mara had never seen before.
Not anger.
Terror.
He called every security team.
Hospital doors locked.
Police arrived.
Elevators stopped.
Mara ran toward the neonatal floor with Marco beside her.
Dr. Shah stood near the nurses’ station crying.
“We had him.”
“I swear we had him.”
Marco gripped the counter.
“Camera.”
Security footage showed a masked person pushing Leo’s transport incubator toward the service elevator.
Then another camera captured the person removing the mask inside an underground corridor.
Mara leaned toward the screen.
The face appeared.
Marco’s body went still.
It was Rebecca Ellison.
Mara’s dead husband’s sister had taken Leo.
And twenty seconds later, Mara’s phone rang.
Rebecca’s voice whispered through the speaker.
“Do not tell Marco where I’m taking him.”
Mara looked directly at Marco.
May you like
Rebecca continued.
“If Marco follows us, Leo will die before sunrise.”
