Chapter 4 - THE BLOOD TESTLinda did not remember leaving the Greystone facility.
One moment she was staring at the empty television room on her phone.
The next she was inside Vincent’s vehicle, racing through industrial streets while sirens wailed somewhere behind them.
Margaret sat beside her wrapped in a blanket. A medic checked her blood pressure.
Vincent occupied the front passenger seat, issuing orders into two phones at once.
Every major bridge was being watched.
Airports had received photographs of the triplets.
Private security teams were searching train stations, bus terminals, warehouses, and abandoned Rossi properties.
None of it felt fast enough.
“My girls don’t go anywhere without their backpacks,” Linda said.
No one answered.
“Sophie needs her medication.”
“I know,” Vincent said.
“She needs it at eight.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know.”
He turned.
His face was composed, but his eyes were not.
“I memorized the dosage from the card in her rabbit.”
Linda stared at him.
“It was in her backpack.”
“I photographed it at the clinic.”
“Why?”
“Because I had just found out I had a daughter with a heart condition.”
For one second, Linda’s panic parted enough to let the answer through.
Then it closed again.
Margaret reached for her hand.
“Salvatore won’t hurt them immediately.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He needs them.”
“For what?”
Margaret looked toward Vincent.
“There is something Daniel discovered before he died.”
Vincent ended his phone call.
“What?”
“The Rossi succession agreement.”
Vincent frowned.
The family agreement had been written decades before by his grandfather. It controlled voting authority in businesses held through private trusts.
“The agreement gives control to the eldest direct heir,” Margaret said.
“I’m the eldest direct heir.”
“You are now.”
The words changed the air inside the vehicle.
Vincent understood first.
“My father had another child.”
Margaret nodded.
“Before he married your mother. A son.”
Linda looked between them.
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
Vincent stared at Margaret.
“No.”
“Your father had an affair with my sister. Daniel was born the following year. Your father provided money, but your grandfather refused to recognize him publicly.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Daniel was older than me by eleven months.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He discovered the truth only weeks before he died.”
Linda remembered Daniel’s strange behavior during those final days. His locked files. His fear. The call that brought her to Calder Street.
“Salvatore knew,” Margaret continued. “If Daniel proved his parentage, he could challenge control of the Rossi trusts. But Daniel didn’t want the money. He wanted leverage to expose Salvatore’s trafficking operations through the docks.”
Vincent looked out the window.
Daniel had been his friend since they were boys.
His brother.
Both by loyalty and blood.
“What do the girls have to do with it?” Linda asked.
“If Daniel died without recognized children, the claim would pass to Vincent. But if Linda’s daughters are Vincent’s, Salvatore can use them to pressure him.”
Vincent’s gaze hardened.
“That still makes me the heir.”
“Unless the girls aren’t yours.”
Linda stiffened.
Vincent turned slowly.
Margaret looked ashamed.
“Daniel helped Linda escape. Salvatore may claim Daniel was the father.”
“That’s impossible,” Linda said.
“Truth has never been Salvatore’s preferred weapon.”
Vincent understood the plan.
Salvatore could produce false evidence naming Daniel as the girls’ father. As Daniel’s alleged children, the triplets would hold a potential claim older than Vincent’s. Salvatore could act as guardian or trustee, controlling the businesses through them.
“He wants a blood test,” Vincent said.
Margaret nodded.
“He mentioned a doctor.”
Linda’s hands shook.
“He took them to prove who their father is.”
“Or to manufacture proof,” Vincent replied.
The vehicle turned into the underground garage beneath the Rossi estate.
Vincent had avoided bringing Linda there. The estate was known, visible, and filled with memories.
Now it became command headquarters.
The mansion stood on several acres beyond iron gates, built of gray stone and dark wood. Linda had attended dinners there before she disappeared. Vincent’s mother had once shown her the gardens and said the house needed children.
Linda entered through the service corridor with Margaret.
Men moved through every room carrying phones, maps, and laptops.
Vincent’s younger sister, Bianca, hurried down the main staircase.
She stopped when she saw Linda.
For seven years, Bianca had believed Linda dead.
Her hand rose to cover her mouth.
“Linda?”
Linda could not answer.
Bianca crossed the distance and embraced her.
The gesture broke something.
Linda held on for three seconds before pulling away.
“The girls were taken.”
“I know. We’ll find them.”
“You didn’t even know they existed.”
Bianca looked toward Vincent.
“No. But they’re family.”
Vincent gave Marco new instructions.
“Pull traffic footage from every block surrounding the safehouse. I want vehicles, pedestrians, delivery trucks, utility workers. Everything from six hours before the abduction.”
“The system was disabled for eleven minutes,” Marco said.
“Someone knew the security reset cycle.”
Bianca’s expression darkened.
“Someone inside?”
“Probably.”
The safehouse guards had been found unconscious, not dead. Their coffee contained a powerful sedative.
The girls had likely been removed through the freight elevator.
Someone had known exactly where they were.
Vincent looked around the room at the men who served him.
For the first time, he saw each of them as a possible threat to his children.
He called for a complete lockdown.
No one could leave.
Linda walked to the window overlooking the rear gardens.
Her mind filled with the girls’ voices.
Maya asking questions.
Emma humming while she colored.
Sophie waking at night and calling for water.
“Mommy?”
Linda turned instinctively.
No one was there.
Vincent approached but stopped several feet away.
“I need something from you.”
“What?”
“A recent photograph of all three girls. Clear faces.”
She pulled out her phone and opened an image from their fifth birthday.
The girls wore matching blue dresses. Maya held the cake knife like a sword. Emma laughed with her eyes closed. Sophie had frosting on her nose.
Vincent looked at the photograph.
His composure slipped.
“They had a unicorn cake,” he said.
“Sophie wanted unicorns. Maya wanted pirates. Emma wanted flowers.”
“So you combined them?”
“It was a pirate unicorn standing in a garden.”
He almost laughed.
The sound never came.
Linda sent him the image.
His phone rang.
Dr. Russo.
Vincent answered.
The doctor had reviewed Sophie’s file and found something unexpected.
Her original newborn bloodwork had been submitted under Linda’s alias, but the hospital retained coded genetic markers. Dr. Russo compared them with old Rossi medical records because of the family heart condition.
“There’s a paternal match,” Dr. Russo said. “Not enough for legal confirmation, but enough to establish a direct biological connection to the Rossi line.”
Vincent put the call on speaker.
“What percentage?” Linda asked.
“Based on the markers available, very high. I would still recommend a formal test.”
“They’re his,” Linda said.
“I believe they are.”
Vincent closed his eyes briefly.
The truth did not arrive with celebration.
It arrived while the children were missing.
Marco entered carrying a tablet.
“We found the vehicle.”
Security footage showed a white municipal van leaving the alley behind the safehouse seven minutes after the cameras failed.
The van belonged to the city’s water department.
It had been reported stolen that morning.
A highway camera captured it heading west.
Another image showed a dark sedan following.
Marco enlarged the sedan’s plate.
It belonged to Dr. Elias Kemp, a genetic specialist whose private laboratory handled confidential paternity testing.
“Address?” Vincent asked.
“He owns a clinic in Oak Park and a lake house near Geneva.”
“Send teams to both.”
Linda moved toward the door.
“I’m going.”
Vincent blocked her path.
“We don’t know which location is real.”
“Then I’ll go to one.”
“Salvatore expects that.”
“Good.”
“No.”
Her hand struck his chest.
It was not a slap.
It was the desperate impact of a mother with nowhere else to put her fear.
“They are alone.”
“They have each other.”
“They need me.”
“They need you alive.”
“They needed a father for five years too, but that didn’t magically put you beside them.”
Vincent absorbed the blow.
Linda regretted it immediately but refused to apologize.
He lowered his voice.
“You can hate me after they’re safe.”
“I don’t hate you.”
The truth escaped them both.
Vincent stared at her.
Linda looked away.
“I hate that I believed him,” she whispered. “I hate that I was so afraid. I hate that every time one of the girls looked like you, I had to tell myself it meant nothing.”
Vincent reached toward her, then stopped.
“I hate that he made you believe you were safer without me.”
Marco interrupted.
“We have another issue.”
He placed the tablet on the table.
An internal camera from the safehouse had saved four seconds of footage before the system went down.
A woman entered the television room carrying juice boxes.
She wore the black uniform of Rossi household staff.
Bianca leaned closer.
“That’s Celia.”
Celia Martinez had worked for the family for twelve years. She had cared for Bianca after surgery and stayed beside Vincent’s mother during her final illness.
“She knew about the safehouse?” Vincent asked.
“She delivered supplies there this morning,” Marco answered. “On my authorization.”
Marco’s face tightened.
He had unknowingly provided access.
“Where is she now?” Vincent asked.
No one knew.
Her phone had been turned off.
Her apartment was empty.
Linda studied the footage.
Celia placed the juice boxes on a table. Maya approached first. Emma followed. Sophie remained on the couch.
The video froze.
“She drugged them,” Linda said.
“Probably a mild sedative,” Marco replied. “The guards received a stronger dose.”
Linda imagined Sophie’s heart reacting to the drug.
Her knees weakened.
Vincent caught her by the arm.
She did not pull away.
“Find the lake house,” he ordered.
They left in two vehicles.
This time Linda rode beside Vincent in the rear seat.
Neither spoke for several miles.
Then Linda noticed blood on his hand.
He had cut his palm with his own fingernails.
She took a handkerchief from her purse and wrapped it around the wound.
Vincent watched her.
“You still carry those.”
“You used to ruin your shirts.”
“I used to get into fights.”
“You still do.”
“Now I buy darker shirts.”
Despite everything, a small, broken laugh escaped her.
Vincent looked at her as though the sound had brought sunlight into the car.
Linda quickly sobered.
“Promise me something.”
“What?”
“When we find them, you don’t kill anyone in front of them.”
His expression closed.
“Linda—”
“They are children. They remember everything.”
“If someone threatens them—”
“Stop the threat. But do not become the thing Salvatore told me you were.”
Vincent looked down at the handkerchief around his palm.
“I will not let them see me become him.”
It was the only promise he could honestly make.
They reached the lake house just after noon.
The property sat behind tall trees near the water. No vehicles were visible.
Vincent’s men surrounded the area.
Marco found the back door unlocked.
Inside, the house smelled of antiseptic.
A portable examination table stood in the living room.
Three small adhesive bandages lay on a tray.
Linda touched one.
Pink with yellow stars.
Sophie always chose yellow stars at the doctor.
“They were here.”
A laptop rested on the kitchen counter.
Its screen displayed three completed DNA reports.
Maya Hale.
Emma Hale.
Sophie Hale.
Probability of paternity: 99.99 percent.
Vincent Rossi was listed as the biological father.
Linda stared at the results.
Salvatore had his proof.
A sound came from upstairs.
Vincent raised his weapon.
His men moved ahead.
They found Dr. Kemp locked inside a bedroom closet. His glasses were broken and his wrists tied.
“They forced me,” he said. “They had three children.”
“Where did they take them?” Vincent demanded.
“I don’t know. They sedated me after the tests.”
Linda leaned closer.
“Were the girls awake?”
“The outspoken one was.”
“Maya.”
“She told the others not to cry. She said their mother would find them.”
Linda pressed her hand to her mouth.
“Was Sophie all right?”
“The smallest child had an elevated pulse, but she was conscious. I gave her the medication from her backpack.”
Relief arrived as pain.
Vincent asked who had been present.
Dr. Kemp described Salvatore, Celia, two armed men, and another person he could not clearly see.
“A man or woman?” Marco asked.
“A man. Tall. He stayed near the door.”
“Did you hear a name?”
The doctor hesitated.
“One of the girls called him Uncle.”
Vincent looked at Linda.
The triplets had no uncles.
Except for the men Linda had once taught them to recognize in old photographs.
Daniel.
Impossible.
Dead for seven years.
Dr. Kemp continued.
“The man told them not to be afraid. He said their mother had trusted him once.”
Linda’s face went white.
“What did he look like?”
“Dark hair. Scar near his jaw.”
Linda stumbled backward.
Daniel had received that scar at sixteen after falling from a bicycle.
Vincent saw the answer in her expression.
“No.”
Linda stared at the empty bandages.
Her brother had died on the floor of the Calder Street warehouse.
Vincent had held his body.
They had buried a casket.
But no one except Salvatore had been allowed to view Daniel before the funeral.
The man assisting in the abduction had known the girls recognized him.
He had allowed them to call him Uncle.
Linda whispered the name she had not spoken with hope in seven years.
“Daniel.”
Then Vincent’s phone rang.
A video call.
He answered.
The image showed the triplets sitting inside a moving vehicle.
Maya held Sophie against her shoulder. Emma was crying silently.
A man leaned into view.
A scar crossed his jaw.
Daniel Hale looked older, thinner, and very much alive.
“Hello, brother,” he said to Vincent.
May you like
Then he turned the camera toward Linda.
“And hello, little sister.”
Related Stories
