Chapter 12 - What Leo's Father Left Behind
A woman entered.
She was forty.
Dark-haired.
Her eyes were Leo's.
Antonio whispered, “Lucia.”
Leo did not move.
The woman looked at him.
“Hello, little brother.”
Chloe watched Leo lose every defense he possessed.
“You're alive.”
“So are you.”
Antonio tried to approach.
Lucia stepped back.
“Not you.”
The rejection devastated him.
Lucia explained.
Victor had not kidnapped her.
Antonio had sent her away.
As a teenager, Lucia discovered the financial war surrounding the families and threatened to expose it.
Antonio feared she would be killed.
So he arranged a new identity.
Then told Leo she had died in an accident too early for him to remember clearly.
Another protection.
Another lie.
Leo looked at his father.
“You erased my sister.”
“I saved her.”
Lucia laughed bitterly.
“You saved my heartbeat. You destroyed my life.”
Antonio had no answer.
Chloe looked at Leo.
He understood.
They were surrounded by parents who had loved their children so desperately that they had mistaken control for protection.
Lucia had returned because Antonio's fake death made her believe the danger had ended.
Instead she found Victor rebuilding his claims.
She had been the anonymous person sending information.
The contract page.
The envelope.
The clues.
“You wrote on my ultrasound envelope?” Chloe asked.
“No.”
Lucia frowned.
“That wasn't me.”
Everyone became still.
“Then who?”
Marco checked the original footage again.
Bradley had held the marker.
But he never touched the envelope.
Someone else had.
A teenage bakery employee.
The cashier.
Leo's security found her.
She admitted a man had paid her five hundred dollars to write the message.
Description?
Young.
Blond.
Mid-twenties.
Chloe knew immediately.
“Danny?”
“No,” Marco said.
“Then who?”
Amelia entered.
Her face was pale.
“I know.”
She showed them an old photograph.
Two boys.
Danny.
And another child.
“Daniel had another son.”
Chloe looked at her father.
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Ethan.”
“Why has no one mentioned him?”
“Because I didn't know he existed until five years ago.”
Ethan Bennett had been born from an affair.
He blamed Chloe and Danny for growing up with the father he never had.
Victor found him first.
Used him.
Paid him.
Promised him a share of Chloe's inheritance.
The final threat had never been Bradley.
It had been family.
Again.
They found Ethan that evening.
Not in hiding.
Standing outside Chloe's former apartment.
He surrendered without resistance.
“I never wanted anyone hurt.”
“You helped Victor kidnap Danny.”
“I gave him locations.”
“That gets people hurt.”
Ethan looked ashamed.
“I wanted Dad to notice me.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“I do.”
“Twenty-five years late.”
“Yes.”
Ethan's anger collapsed.
Daniel did not ask forgiveness.
He simply sat beside his son on the curb until police arrived.
Chloe watched from Leo's car.
“Families are exhausting.”
Leo looked at her.
“I'm beginning to notice.”
She rested her head against his shoulder.
“Do you regret this?”
“The baby?”
“Me.”
Leo turned fully.
“Never.”
“The contract?”
“Every day.”
She smiled faintly.
“What happens to it?”
Leo removed the folded agreement from his coat.
Then tore it in half.
Chloe stared.
“That's legally meaningless.”
“I know.”
He tore it again.
“Still satisfying.”
She laughed.
Leo took her hand.
“I want you to stay.”
“Because I'm pregnant?”
“No.”
“Because you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Because you need an heir?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He waited.
Chloe deliberately made him wait longer.
Then kissed him.
“I want to stay too.”
Later that night, they returned to the penthouse.
For the first time in months, Chloe felt something close to peace.
Then she saw an envelope beneath the door.
No threat.
No black marker.
Just her name.
Inside was a copy of the original surrogacy agreement.
One clause had been circled.
Upon birth, the gestational mother relinquishes all parental rights.
Chloe stared at it.
Beneath the clause someone had written:
MORETTI SIGNED THIS AFTER HE KNEW YOU WERE PREGNANT.
May you like
Chloe slowly looked toward Leo.
“Tell me this isn't your signature.”
