Chapter 3: Confessions in the Rain
Chapter 3: Confessions in the Rain
On the other side of the city, the neon lights of Manhattan bled into the wet asphalt. Serena Vale walked two paces behind Eli, her designer coat soaked through, her silver clutch abandoned on the hood of a car miles behind them.
The St. Jude Mission
They reached the rusted iron gates of the West Forty-Eighth Street mission. Eli didn't look back to see if she was following; he simply pushed the door open, the smell of cheap coffee and damp wool washing over them.
“You can’t stay here,” Serena said, her voice cracking as she watched the boy navigate the crowded room of cots with the practiced ease of someone who had grown up in the shadows of luxury.
“June said a clean floor is better than a dirty house,” Eli said, pulling a thin blanket over his shoulders. He looked up at her, his eyes entirely devoid of the desperation she felt. “You should go back to your husband. He’ll be looking for you.”
“Let him look,” Serena said, a strange, cold strength blooming in her chest. For six years, she had allowed the Vale family name to act as her cage. Her husband, Arthur Vale—Graham’s older cousin—had built his entire reputation on flawless, unblemished prestige.
“June was right about one thing,” Serena whispered, kneeling beside the cot, ignoring the grime on the floor. “I had weak courage. But it wasn’t because I didn't love you, Eli. It was because I thought they would kill you to keep the ledger clean. I’m going to change the ledger.”
The Precinct on 10th Avenue
A mile away, Claire Moreau sat across from a tired detective whose desk was piled high with manila folders. Nico sat next to her, his small hand wrapped tightly around a paper cup of hot cocoa.
The halved business card of the Moreau family lawyer lay between them on the scratched metal desk.
“Let me get this straight, Ms. Moreau,” the detective said, rubbing his eyes. “You’re accusing the Chief of Obstetrics at Saint Jerome’s—a clinic heavily funded by your own family’s estate—of falsifying a death certificate six years ago to facilitate an illegal adoption?”
“I am,” Claire said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. “And I’m accusing my father’s estate of funding the silence of every nurse on that floor.”
May you like
The detective looked from the blue hospital stamp on the back of the old photo to Nico’s face. The resemblance was undeniable. “If we pull these records, Ms. Moreau, the press is going to dismantle your family name by morning.”
“Good,” Claire said, looking at Nico, who was watching her with a cautious, quiet intensity. “Let them tear it down to the bedrock. I want the names of every child who went through Saint Jerome's Wing between 2018 and 2020. My father didn’t just do this to me. He did it for his friends.”
