Chapter 4 - Shadows of the Past
Within two hours, the private medical team from the North Shore—the same clinic that had issued Dante’s infertility diagnosis five years ago—was brought into the estate under armed escort.
A rapid DNA test was performed in Dante's private study.
Dante sat behind his desk, holding a cup of hot chocolate that he had personally given to young Leo. The boy sat on the leather couch across from him, wrapped in a plush wool blanket, silently eating a plate of warm food as if he hadn't seen a hot meal in weeks.
The head physician, Dr. Harrison, stepped into the study holding a digital printout. His face was pale, his hands shaking.
"Well?" Dante demanded, his jaw set like granite.
"The... the results are conclusive, Mr. Vatello," Dr. Harrison stammered. "The probability of paternity is 99.99%. Leo Vance is indisputably your biological son."
Dante felt the breath get sucked out of his lungs.
A son. He had a son.
"How?" Dante asked, his voice cracking with an emotion he hadn't felt in a decade. "You sat in this very room five years ago and told me I was completely, irreversibly infertile. You gave me medical reports! You told me I could never sire a child!"
Dr. Harrison dropped to his knees, terror filling his eyes. "Mr. Vatello, I swear on my life, I didn't lie to you back then! Five years ago... your consigliere, Marco Ferrante, came to my clinic alone! He paid me five hundred thousand dollars and threatened to butcher my family if I didn't forge those lab reports! He ordered me to make you believe you were infertile!"
Dante froze.
The pieces of the puzzle began falling into place with devastating, horrifying precision.
If Dante believed he was infertile, he would never marry, never produce a blood heir, and eventually pass the Vatello empire down to his most trusted advisor—Marco Ferrante.
"Where is Clara?" Dante asked softly, his voice drops below freezing. "Where is Leo's mother?"
Leo stopped eating. He looked up from his plate, his eyes filling with big, silent tears. "Mama is at Saint Jude’s Hospital," the boy whispered. "She's very sick. The bad man in the suit... the one who stands next to you... came to our apartment last week. He told Mama that if she didn't leave Chicago forever, he would make sure I disappeared."
Dante stood up slowly.
The air in the study turned to ice. He looked at Nico, who was standing by the door with a look of pure murder on his face.
"Nico," Dante said quiet and low. "Where is Marco?"
"He tried to take a car from the garage ten minutes ago, boss," Nico reported. "My boys locked down the perimeter. He’s in the basement holding cell."
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Dante walked over to the couch. He knelt down in front of his eight-year-old son, gently placing his large hand on the boy's small shoulder.
"Leo," Dante said, his voice softer than anyone had ever heard it. "Your mother saved your life by sending you here. Now it's my turn to save hers."
