Chapter 5 - The Night They Came for Her
The darkness lasted less than three seconds.
Emergency lights came on.
Damian was already moving.
"Get the children."
His voice changed completely.
No grief.
No hesitation.
Command.
Reyes drew his weapon.
Two guards appeared in the doorway.
Noelle's heart pounded.
"What happened?"
"Generator should've started immediately."
Damian grabbed her wrist.
"Stay with me."
A crack sounded outside.
Not thunder.
Gunfire.
Noelle froze.
Damian pulled her behind the stone column beside the dining room entrance.
Another shot.
Glass exploded across the far side of the room.
Noelle screamed.
Damian shoved her down.
"Stay low."
Men moved through the house.
Orders snapped through radios.
Noelle could hear the triplets crying upstairs.
Her body went feral.
"My babies."
"Teresa has them."
"I'm going up."
"No."
"They're crying."
"So are bullets."
She shoved at him.
"I don't care."
"I do."
Their eyes locked.
Another shot hit the window frame.
Damian cursed.
"Reyes!"
"East lawn!"
Reyes shouted from the hall.
"Two shooters!"
Damian turned to Noelle.
"Behind me."
They ran.
Up the staircase.
Noelle barely felt her feet touch the steps.
Teresa stood in the nursery with Emilia in one arm and Matteo in the other.
Luca screamed from the crib.
Noelle rushed to him.
The moment she lifted him, his crying changed.
Not gone.
But softer.
Damian watched.
For half a second, war vanished from his face.
Then the nursery window cracked.
Damian threw himself over Noelle and Luca.
"Safe room."
Teresa moved immediately.
A concealed door opened behind the built-in bookshelves.
Noelle stared.
"Of course you have a safe room."
"Complain later."
They hurried inside.
Steel door.
Air filtration.
Monitors.
Medical supplies.
Enough food for days.
Noelle stared at the wall of security screens.
"This is insane."
Damian took Emilia from Teresa.
"This is my life."
"Not theirs."
His expression tightened.
"I know."
The exterior cameras showed dark figures moving near the hedge.
Damian touched his earpiece.
"One alive."
Noelle looked at him.
"What?"
"I want one shooter alive."
She understood.
He needed answers.
Five minutes later the gunfire stopped.
Ten minutes later Reyes's voice came through the speaker.
"Clear."
Damian didn't open the door immediately.
He checked every camera.
Then he looked at Noelle.
She was sitting on the floor with Luca against her chest and Matteo gripping her shirt.
Emilia rested on Damian's shoulder.
Fourteen months.
He had done this for fourteen months.
Maybe not sitting in a safe room under gunfire.
But holding them.
Feeding them.
Cleaning them.
Learning them.
Loving them.
Noelle's anger toward him became harder to carry.
"Who knew I was here?"
she asked.
"Too many people."
"Hospital staff."
"Yes."
"Your men."
"Yes."
"Denny?"
Damian looked at her.
"Why Denny?"
"He heard everything."
Reyes entered.
Blood marked one sleeve.
Noelle stared.
"Are you hurt?"
"Not mine."
That didn't make her feel better.
Damian handed Emilia to Teresa.
"Talk."
"Two shooters."
"Names?"
"One dead."
"And the other?"
"Alive."
"Who hired them?"
"Won't say."
Damian walked toward the door.
Noelle stood.
"I'm coming."
"No."
"We had this conversation."
"This one is different."
"Because you're planning something I won't like?"
Damian looked at her.
"Yes."
She folded her arms.
"Then definitely."
He almost argued.
Then Luca reached toward him.
"Dada."
Damian stopped.
Noelle did too.
Luca's small hand opened and closed.
"Dada."
Something softened in Damian's face.
He took him from Noelle.
Luca settled instantly.
Noelle felt the strange pain again.
Not jealousy.
Something more complicated.
Evidence.
Her son loved this man.
Her son trusted him.
Damian kissed Luca's hair.
Then handed him back.
"I won't hurt the shooter."
Noelle raised an eyebrow.
"Badly."
"Damian."
"Fine."
He looked offended by the compromise.
"No hurting him."
Reyes muttered.
"This is new."
Damian gave him a murderous look.
Reyes opened the door.
The surviving shooter sat restrained in the estate's detached security office.
He was younger than Noelle expected.
Twenty-five.
Maybe twenty-six.
Blood ran from his nose.
He looked scared.
Damian pulled out a chair and sat across from him.
Noelle stood beside the wall.
The shooter looked at her.
Recognition flashed.
Damian saw it.
"You know her."
The man looked away.
"Never seen her."
Damian leaned back.
"Then you're a bad liar."
Silence.
"Who paid you?"
Nothing.
Noelle stepped forward.
"Was it Dr. Crane?"
The shooter blinked.
Tiny.
Quick.
Enough.
Damian noticed too.
"Interesting."
The shooter's mouth tightened.
Damian continued.
"Evelyn Crane."
The man stared straight ahead.
"Victor Hale."
Nothing.
"Sofia Marchetti."
The shooter looked confused.
Noelle's pulse jumped.
He hadn't expected that name.
Damian saw it.
"Not Sofia."
He murmured.
"Who?"
The shooter stayed silent.
Noelle sat in the chair opposite him.
"My children were stolen."
He looked at her.
"I'm not asking you to care."
Her voice was calm.
"I'm asking you to understand that I have already survived the worst thing a person could do to me."
The man swallowed.
"You don't scare me."
He glanced at Damian.
"He does."
Damian almost smiled.
Noelle continued.
"But I don't want him to hurt you."
The shooter gave a humorless laugh.
"Lady, you don't know who he is."
"Maybe not."
She leaned forward.
"But I know what grief turns people into."
Damian's expression shifted.
Noelle didn't look at him.
"Tell us who paid you."
The shooter's eyes lowered.
"They'll kill me."
Damian spoke.
"They already sent you to attack my house."
The man looked up.
"You think they expected you to come back alive?"
That landed.
The shooter's breathing changed.
"Who?"
Damian asked.
The man closed his eyes.
"Crane."
Noelle gripped the chair.
"Directly?"
"No."
"Who contacted you?"
"A guy named Pritchard."
Reyes moved near the door.
"First name?"
"Leon."
Damian glanced at him.
Reyes was already searching.
Noelle asked.
"Why me?"
The shooter opened his eyes.
"You weren't the target."
Silence.
Damian went still.
"Who was?"
The shooter looked toward the house.
Noelle felt cold before he spoke.
"The babies."
Damian's chair moved backward so hard it struck the wall.
The shooter recoiled.
Noelle stopped breathing.
"You were supposed to kill children?"
The man looked sick.
"No."
"Then what?"
"Take them."
"Why shoot at the nursery?"
"I didn't."
He pointed toward the dead man's weapon on the evidence table.
"That was Kessler."
His voice shook.
"I was told to create a distraction."
"Take them where?"
Damian demanded.
"I don't know."
"Wrong answer."
"I swear."
The shooter pulled against the restraints.
"Pritchard said three kids were evidence."
Noelle's stomach turned.
"Evidence of what?"
"He didn't say."
Damian's hands curled into fists.
Noelle grabbed his sleeve.
He looked at her.
She shook her head once.
He stayed where he was.
Reyes lifted his phone.
"Found Leon Pritchard."
He turned the screen.
Former pharmaceutical representative.
Private medical broker.
Consultant for fertility clinics.
Noelle stared.
"Medical broker?"
Reyes kept reading.
"Worked with St. Catherine's procurement department six years ago."
Damian's eyes narrowed.
"Address."
"Chicago."
"Pick him up."
Reyes left.
The shooter sagged.
Noelle stood.
"Was Dr. Crane stealing babies to sell them?"
The man didn't answer.
Damian looked toward the evidence table.
"No."
Noelle turned.
"You sound sure."
"If money was the goal, they wouldn't need to recover these three now."
He looked at her.
"They'd only need you dead."
The words chilled her.
Noelle thought of the files in Crane's cabinet.
Twenty-seven women.
Multiple births.
No next of kin.
"What if the babies weren't the product?"
Damian stared at her.
"What if something else was?"
Neither of them liked the question.
Hours later, after police officers friendly to Damian had been quietly persuaded to treat the shooting as an attempted kidnapping without public names, Noelle returned upstairs.
The nursery smelled like baby powder and warm milk.
Matteo slept with one leg outside the blanket.
Luca hugged the stuffed rabbit.
Emilia's fist rested beside her cheek.
Noelle stood between the cribs.
She cried silently.
Damian appeared in the doorway.
"You should sleep."
"So should you."
"I don't."
"Ever?"
"Not well."
Noelle touched Emilia's hair.
"They're mine."
The words still sounded impossible.
"Yes."
"And yours."
Damian was silent.
Noelle looked at him.
"They are."
His face tightened.
"Biology says otherwise."
"Biology doesn't erase fourteen months."
"No."
"But court might."
Noelle stared.
He looked suddenly afraid.
Not of bullets.
Not of rivals.
Of her.
"You think I'm going to take them."
"I think you should."
She blinked.
"What?"
Damian stepped into the room.
"If someone had stolen my children and I found them fourteen months later, I'd burn down the city before I let anyone keep me from them."
His voice roughened.
"So if you want me gone—"
"No."
He stopped.
Noelle surprised herself again.
"I don't know what I want."
"Fair."
"But I know I don't want to walk into their lives and rip away the person they know as their father."
Damian looked down.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet."
His eyes returned to hers.
"I'm angry."
"You should be."
"At Sofia."
He flinched.
"At Hale."
His jaw hardened.
"At Crane."
A nod.
"At this hospital."
"Yes."
"And sometimes, irrationally, at you."
Damian absorbed that.
"Also fair."
"But when Luca says Dada, I see his face."
Noelle wiped her cheek.
"I can't punish him because someone punished me."
Damian stared at her for several seconds.
Then his phone buzzed.
He read the screen.
Whatever peace had entered the room vanished.
"What?"
Noelle asked.
He handed her the phone.
Reyes had sent a photograph.
Leon Pritchard was dead.
His apartment had been stripped.
But behind a false panel inside his closet, Reyes had found a ledger.
On the first page were dates.
Payments.
Hospital codes.
On the second page were infant numbers.
Noelle recognized the date beside three entries.
April 17.
Next to them, someone had written:
MARCHETTI SET.
NOELLE BISHOP.
GENETIC MATCH CONFIRMED.
Noelle looked at Damian.
"Genetic match to what?"
He didn't answer.
Because beneath those words was another line.
PATERNAL SOURCE: D.M.
Noelle's blood turned to ice.
Damian read it again.
D.M.
He looked at the sleeping triplets.
Then at Noelle.
Neither spoke.
May you like
Because there was only one question left in the room.
Could Damian Marchetti be their biological father?
