Chapter 4 - The Child Without a Grave
I arrived at Cedric's mansion with Elena beside me and rage burning through my exhaustion.
“You said my brother was murdered.”
Cedric didn't argue.
“I told you what the official case recorded. I shouldn't have repeated it as if I knew it was true.”
“Did you know Nico survived?”
He stared at a spot on his desk.
“I knew there was a child taken out of the building. I didn't know what happened to him afterward.”
“Then tell me everything.”
Fifteen years earlier, Cedric had been twenty-three and working reluctantly in his father's organization. He had discovered plans to intimidate Isabella because she'd copied evidence of false shipping accounts and financial crimes.
On the night of the fire, he arrived after hearing that the warehouse had been locked down. A rescue crew was already trying to get workers out. Cedric had been injured when part of the structure collapsed, damage that permanently affected his mobility.
He remembered a young boy being carried away through a side exit by a woman associated with the company's employee assistance program.
“Was that Nico?” I asked.
“I thought it might be. My father insisted the boy had died, but he never showed me proof.”
For years, Cedric had privately sought records while trying to survive within Aldo's dangerous network. He had learned enough to suspect that the child had been given a new identity.
“Fifteen years,” I whispered. “You had fifteen years to tell me.”
Cedric met my gaze.
“I was afraid that if I approached you, my father would know where to look.”
“Your father died five years ago.”
He could not answer that.
Elena asked him to provide every record to investigators and allow Anna full independence in deciding what happened next.
Cedric nodded.
As we left, Tomaso handed Elena a hospital admissions record from the night of the fire.
May you like
On the last line, beneath an unidentified nine-year-old boy, someone had written two words.
Transferred alive.
