Chapter 6 - ISABELLA’S SISTERBianca Voss had been born Bianca Moretti, six years after Isabella.
The sisters shared a mother but had different fathers. Their family concealed Bianca because her father was married to another woman, and scandal threatened the Moretti business empire.
Isabella left Italy for the United States and later married Vittorio.
Bianca followed years afterward.
“She wanted a relationship with Evelyn,” Vittorio said. “Isabella refused.”
“Why?” Evelyn typed through the communication tablet.
Vittorio looked ashamed.
“Because Bianca had been treated for severe psychiatric episodes.”
Dana opened the sealed medical file.
The records described delusions, violent behavior, and fixation on Isabella’s family.
But every diagnosis had been signed by Dr. Vale’s father.
The same institute that controlled the embryo vault.
“Did you ever witness the behavior?” Dana asked.
“No.”
“You relied on the records.”
“Yes.”
Vittorio now recognized how easily medical language could have been used to isolate Bianca.
After Isabella died, Bianca contacted him repeatedly. She claimed the fertility institute had retained reproductive material without consent.
Vittorio dismissed her.
Three months later, she reportedly died in a boating accident.
No body was recovered.
The hospital profile declared her dead using a certificate issued by Vale Reproductive Institute’s private physician.
Evelyn typed another question.
WHY HIDE HER FROM ME?
Vittorio lowered his head.
“Your mother asked me to. I continued after she died because it was easier than admitting our family had abandoned someone.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Grant had exploited more than legal loopholes.
He had entered a family built on omissions.
Dana examined Bianca’s fertility history. She had stored eggs at Vale Reproductive Institute under a confidential account.
A later note stated that all samples were destroyed.
But embryo B-19 contained markers linking it to Bianca’s account.
If the baby came from B-19, Bianca might be the genetic mother.
The newborn’s close relationship to Evelyn would then be consistent with niece and aunt—not sibling.
The preliminary laboratory had not distinguished between those possibilities because both involved significant shared DNA.
Nathan asked who the father was.
The paternal record had been encrypted under Isabella’s old tablet.
Vittorio stared toward the evidence container.
“Someone wants us to open it.”
Dana agreed.
The tablet’s biometric lock required Vittorio’s face and a secondary code known only to Isabella.
Vittorio tried their wedding date.
Rejected.
Evelyn’s birthday.
Rejected.
The name of the vineyard where they met.
Rejected.
The tablet warned that one attempt remained before permanent deletion.
Evelyn looked toward the photograph of Bianca.
She remembered a childhood story her mother used to tell about two sisters named Bella and Bee. One crossed an ocean. The other remained behind a locked garden.
Evelyn blink-selected the word:
BEE.
Vittorio entered it.
The tablet unlocked.
Files appeared from the year of Isabella’s death.
One video showed Isabella sitting inside the fertility institute. She looked ill but alert.
“If Vittorio watches this, Bianca was right,” she said. “Vale did not destroy the embryos.”
Another file listed B-19.
Genetic mother: Bianca Moretti Voss.
Genetic father: encrypted.
Transfer authorization: Isabella DeLuca.
Vittorio stepped backward.
“My wife authorized it?”
The date was two weeks before her death.
Isabella had knowingly preserved an embryo created from Bianca’s egg and an unknown man’s sperm.
But why?
The next video began.
Isabella looked directly at the camera.
“B-19 must never be implanted into Evelyn.”
The recording cut off.
Someone had deleted the rest.
Then Dana received an alert from the neonatal room.
The newborn’s bracelet sensor had begun broadcasting a second medical identity.
PATIENT BIANCA DE LUCA—AGE 0 DAYS.
Grant’s forged trust documents had not named the baby at all.
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But the hospital system had already assigned her Isabella’s family name.
👉 Isabella had preserved Bianca’s embryo while warning that it must never be placed inside Evelyn—yet someone had done exactly that.
