Chapter 2 - THE PROMISE LUKA BROKE
I held the phone so tightly my fingers hurt.
“Who sent this?”
Luka looked at the photograph.
“I don’t know.”
“That seems to be your favorite answer.”
“Amelia.”
“Don’t.”
My daughter stirred in the bassinet.
I lowered my voice immediately.
The instinct surprised me.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier, I had never held a child of my own.
Now every sound in the room seemed to pass through the filter of whether it might wake her.
I looked back at Luka.
“You told me my father died because of M-17.”
“Yes.”
“You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“You promised him something the night before he died.”
Luka did not answer.
Dr. Sloan stood.
“I’ll give you privacy.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“You stay.”
Luka’s expression shifted.
“Amelia.”
“I don’t know him.”
I pointed at him.
“And right now, I don’t trust anyone who already knows more about my life than I do.”
Dr. Sloan sat again.
“That’s fair.”
Luka walked toward the window.
For a moment he stared down at the city.
When he finally spoke, his voice was lower.
“I met your father when I was nineteen.”
I tried to calculate.
Luka looked mid-thirties.
That meant he had known Dad for years before the accident.
“How?”
“My father.”
“Who was he?”
“Dominic Moretti.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Luka noticed.
“He owned a private security company.”
“Owned?”
“He died eight years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be.”
There was something complicated in the way he said it.
He continued.
“Your father worked in hospital systems auditing.”
“I know.”
“He did more than that.”
“What?”
“He investigated data manipulation for insurance companies, private clinics, and hospital boards.”
That sounded like Dad.
He had always described his work as boring.
Numbers.
Computers.
Compliance.
He used to joke that his greatest professional danger was dying under a stack of spreadsheets.
Suddenly that joke felt cruel.
Luka turned.
“In the last two years of his life, he was quietly investigating Mercer Medical Holdings.”
I stared at him.
“My husband’s family?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Missing fertility records.”
Dr. Sloan looked uncomfortable.
Luka continued anyway.
“Consent forms that had been altered.”
“Donor codes that didn’t match storage logs.”
“Biological samples moved between facilities without authorization.”
My stomach twisted.
“And M-17?”
“That was one of the codes.”
“One?”
“There were more.”
“How many?”
He hesitated.
“We don’t know.”
“You keep saying we.”
“My father and yours.”
I stared at him.
“Your father helped mine?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Luka’s face hardened.
“Because my family was involved too.”
I looked at the tattoos on his hands.
The skull near one knuckle.
The black lines disappearing beneath his sleeve.
“What does that mean?”
“When my mother was trying to have another child, she underwent treatment at a Mercer clinic.”
I said nothing.
“She lost the pregnancy.”
His voice became flat.
“Then she learned the clinic had retained biological material she had never consented to store.”
“What kind?”
“Everything.”
The word was ugly in its simplicity.
“Eggs.”
“Embryos.”
“Blood samples.”
“My father tried to sue.”
“What happened?”
“The records disappeared.”
I looked at Dr. Sloan.
She did not deny it.
Luka continued.
“Years later, I was injured overseas.”
“Military?”
“No.”
He did not elaborate.
“I needed surgery.”
“Before treatment, a doctor recommended fertility preservation because there was a risk of permanent damage.”
“So you froze sperm.”
“Yes.”
“At a Mercer clinic.”
“Yes.”
“And M-17 was your sample?”
“One of the storage identifiers.”
I shook my head.
“But why would my father know?”
“Because when he audited the storage servers, he found M-17 had been transferred.”
“To where?”
“That was the problem.”
“The destination had been erased.”
I looked at my daughter.
“But now we know.”
“Maybe.”
He moved closer.
“Your archived procedure record suggests your fertility treatment used a sample tagged M-17.”
“That doesn’t prove it was yours.”
“No.”
“But Ethan signed the transfer.”
“Yes.”
I could barely say his name without feeling sick.
“Why would he choose you?”
Luka glanced at Dr. Sloan.
She looked back at him.
Something passed between them.
I saw it.
“What?”
Neither answered.
I stood again.
More slowly this time.
“What are you not telling me?”
Dr. Sloan spoke first.
“We need testing.”
“For what?”
“Paternity.”
My chest tightened.
“And?”
She hesitated.
“Kinship.”
I frowned.
“Kinship between who?”
“Mr. Moretti and your husband.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Luka closed his eyes briefly.
I looked at him.
“No.”
“We don’t know anything yet.”
“You think Ethan is related to you?”
“We have reason to consider it.”
“What reason?”
He said nothing.
I laughed once.
It sounded almost hysterical.
“That’s unbelievable.”
“I agree.”
“You sign my daughter’s father line.”
“You tell me your sperm may have been used without my consent.”
“You tell me my husband is sterile.”
“You tell me my father was investigating his family.”
“And now you’re suggesting you and Ethan might be related?”
Luka did not defend himself.
That made me angrier.
“What did you promise my father?”
His eyes lifted to mine.
Finally.
“I promised that if Mercer Medical ever used your name in connection with M-17, I would find you before they did.”
The room became quiet.
I felt my anger pause.
Not disappear.
Pause.
“Before they did what?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You made a promise without knowing what you were protecting me from?”
“I was nineteen.”
He looked toward my daughter.
“Your father was terrified.”
I had never heard anyone describe Dad that way.
Dad had been steady.
Gentle.
Annoyingly calm.
Even after Mom died from a stroke when I was eleven, Dad had held himself together so I could fall apart.
“What exactly did he say?”
Luka looked at me for a long moment.
Then his voice changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to make me understand that he had carried the words for years.
“He said, ‘If Amelia ever walks into a Mercer clinic, it means I failed.’”
I stopped breathing.
“He said, ‘If a child is involved, don’t trust the paperwork.’”
My knees weakened.
“And then?”
Luka looked away.
“He made me promise to protect you.”
I swallowed.
“But you didn’t.”
Pain crossed his face.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I tried to find you after he died.”
“You didn’t find me?”
“I found you.”
That hurt worse.
“What?”
“You were thirteen.”
I stared at him.
“You were living with your aunt in Vermont.”
A memory flashed through my mind.
A black SUV parked across from Aunt Maggie’s house.
A man standing beside it once.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Watching from the other side of the street.
I had forgotten that day.
Or maybe I had forced myself to.
I whispered.
“That was you.”
Luka nodded.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because your father left instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“Not to tell you anything unless the Mercer name entered your life.”
My stomach dropped.
“I married Ethan six years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then where were you?”
Silence.
I felt rage rise again.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before your wedding.”
“Three weeks?”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was marrying into the family my father was investigating, and you did nothing?”
Luka took the accusation without flinching.
“I believed the investigation had died with our fathers.”
“Your father was still alive then.”
“He told me to stay out of it.”
“Why?”
“He believed Mercer Medical had cleaned up the program.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
I stared at him.
There it was.
The first crack.
Not in his story.
In him.
Luka Moretti was not a machine.
He had made a choice.
The wrong one.
“Why?”
He looked down.
“Because my father spent half his life chasing that file.”
“He lost our house.”
“He lost his company.”
“He lost friends.”
“He became someone who checked locks three times before bed.”
“He thought every car behind him was following him.”
“He stopped trusting everyone.”
I listened.
“I hated M-17 before I even understood what it was.”
His jaw tightened.
“So when he told me your father was gone, the file was gone, and you were safe, I chose to believe him.”
“Then I married Ethan.”
“Yes.”
“And you still did nothing.”
“I checked on you.”
My anger sharpened.
“You watched me?”
“From a distance.”
“That isn’t better.”
“No.”
“Did you know we were trying to have a baby?”
“Not until six months ago.”
“How?”
“I hired someone to monitor Mercer Medical’s archive traffic.”
Dr. Sloan looked at him sharply.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you yet.”
She almost laughed.
“Apparently none of us can trust anyone.”
Luka continued.
“Six months ago, someone opened an encrypted archive containing M-17.”
“Who?”
“Elias Mercer.”
Ethan’s father.
The name chilled me.
“Then what?”
“A fertility file containing your married name was accessed seventeen minutes later.”
My hand went to my mouth.
“You knew six months ago.”
“I knew something was wrong.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I tried.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“I sent three messages.”
“I never got them.”
“Your number changed.”
“It didn’t.”
He stopped.
My stomach tightened.
“What number did you have?”
He recited it.
It was mine.
I had had it since college.
“Those messages never came.”
Luka’s face hardened.
“Then someone intercepted them.”
Dr. Sloan looked down at her tablet.
“That can be checked.”
I suddenly remembered Ethan replacing my phone after I dropped mine in the kitchen sink.
He had insisted.
He had transferred everything himself.
That was seven months ago.
I felt nauseated.
“What did the messages say?”
“Only that I knew your father and needed to speak to you about Mercer Medical.”
I closed my eyes.
Would I have believed him?
Probably not.
Would Ethan have panicked?
Absolutely.
My phone buzzed again.
Another message from the unknown number.
This time it contained an address.
A storage facility forty minutes outside the city.
Below it was a six-digit number.
Then one sentence.
THOMAS HAYES LEFT SOMETHING HERE THAT LUKA NEVER FOUND.
I showed Luka.
His face changed.
“I know that facility.”
“Have you been there?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It opened after your father died.”
Dr. Sloan stood.
“You’re not going anywhere today.”
I looked at her.
“I’m going.”
“You gave birth this morning.”
“And someone is sending me messages about my dead father.”
“You need medical clearance.”
“Then clear me.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
I looked at Luka.
He spoke quietly.
“She’s right.”
“You don’t get a vote.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“But whoever is sending those texts knows where you are.”
I glanced at my phone.
The cold realization settled over me.
They knew the moment Luka showed me the photograph.
Maybe they were watching us now.
Luka walked to the window and pulled the blinds closed.
My skin prickled.
Dr. Sloan called hospital security and requested someone check cameras outside my room.
Ten minutes later, she returned looking grim.
“There’s a problem.”
“What?”
“The camera covering this corridor stopped recording twenty-eight minutes ago.”
Luka swore under his breath.
“Other cameras?”
“Still active.”
“Then who accessed the system?”
“We’re checking.”
My daughter began crying.
Everything stopped.
For all the conspiracies, files, dead fathers, erased records, and unknown threats, Ava did not care.
She was hungry.
The nurse helped me sit comfortably.
I held my baby.
Her tiny mouth searched instinctively.
My whole body softened despite myself.
I looked at her face.
Whatever M-17 was, she was not a file.
She was not evidence.
She was not a mistake.
She was my daughter.
And I suddenly understood something with absolute clarity.
Anyone who tried to turn her into a weapon had chosen the wrong mother.
Luka stood near the door, facing outward.
Guarding us.
I still did not trust him.
But I believed one thing.
He was afraid for Ava.
That mattered.
By evening, Dr. Sloan agreed to discharge me the following morning if my vitals remained stable.
Hospital security relocated us to a private room under another patient alias.
Only four people knew.
Me.
Dr. Sloan.
The charge nurse.
And Luka.
At 11:17 p.m., I woke to darkness.
Ava slept beside me.
Luka was gone.
For one second, panic surged.
Then I saw a folded note on the table.
I’M CHECKING THE STORAGE FACILITY BEFORE YOU GO ANYWHERE NEAR IT.
I cursed him quietly.
Then my phone lit up.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
It showed Luka entering the storage facility.
The timestamp was two minutes earlier.
The next photograph showed a man standing behind him.
Older.
Gray coat.
Face partially hidden.
Then came the message.
HE SHOULD HAVE KEPT HIS PROMISE.
My pulse exploded.
I called Luka.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I reached for the call button.
Before I could press it, another image arrived.
This one showed the storage-unit door open.
Inside stood a metal box.
The same box from the old photograph with my father.
On top of it lay a bloodstained-looking white envelope—though in the dim image I couldn’t tell if the dark stain was blood or something else.
Written across the front were three words.
FOR AMELIA ONLY.
Then a final text appeared.
IF LUKA OPENS IT FIRST, YOUR FATHER’S LAST SECRET DIES WITH HIM.
May you like
And suddenly, for the first time, I wondered whether the anonymous sender was threatening Luka.
Or warning me about him.
