“What was the baby’s name?”
Camila closed her eyes.
“When Mom got her, there was a bracelet around her wrist.”
I heard myself ask, “What did it say?”
Camila looked at me.
“Lucia Callahan.”
Nobody moved.
Ethan stared at me as if the entire world had vanished.
And suddenly, every impossible piece fit.
Why my father had known Patrick Callahan.
Why Michael Morales had risked everything.
Why my mother had always refused to discuss my adoption.
Why Ethan had looked at me strangely from the moment I boarded the plane.
Why he had found Sophie’s bottle without hesitation.
Why his hands had trembled when I asked whether he had children.
Why he had spent sixteen years searching.
I looked at Ethan.
“No.”
His eyes filled.
The terrifying King of Chicago, the man people crossed streets to avoid, looked suddenly like a boy who had lost his entire family.
“You’re Lucia.”
I staggered backward.
“No.”
“My sister’s daughter.”
“No.”
“My niece.”
“No.”
My voice broke.
Ethan tried to reach for me.
I moved away.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew on the plane!”
“I suspected.”
“How?”
His expression shattered.
“Your face.”
I froze.
“You look like Isabelle.”
He swallowed.
“When you walked down the aisle carrying Sophie, I thought I was losing my mind.”
Tears slid down his face.
“I had photographs enhanced.
I knew approximately how old Lucia would be.
But I never found records after the crash.”
“You followed me?”
“I was already on that flight.”
“Why?”
“Because Camila had contacted me three days earlier about your father’s evidence.
She told me her sister was coming from Los Angeles.”
His breath trembled.
“She never sent your photograph.”
He looked at me.
“I didn’t know who you were until you sat beside me.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“And Sophie?”
He looked at my daughter.
A strange laugh escaped him through tears.
“The first Callahan baby I’ve held since Lucia disappeared.”
Camila covered her mouth.
Ethan whispered, “I was holding my great-niece.”
Then he closed his eyes.
And lost consciousness.
Three weeks later, Senator Whitmore was alive.
Unfortunately for him.
The bullet had passed through his shoulder.
He survived surgery and woke in federal custody after Camila released everything.
