Chapter 8 - The Photograph in Bradley's Safe
“That is false.”
Leo said it before Chloe could breathe.
Bradley looked equally stunned.
“I never touched her.”
“Wonderful wording,” Chloe snapped.
Chaos erupted.
Reporters pushed toward them.
Leo's security formed a wall.
The screen went black.
Marco seized control of the projection booth.
Leo led Chloe into a private elevator.
Bradley followed.
Leo turned.
“Why are you here?”
“Because someone just claimed I'm the father of your child.”
“You aren't.”
“I know!”
The elevator opened onto the private floor.
Bradley led them to his father's suite.
Inside a wall safe were files dating back decades.
One folder bore Chloe's name.
Inside was the original trust document.
Leo read rapidly.
“This paternity document on the screen used the same legal reference number.”
Bradley frowned.
“Meaning?”
“Someone built the fake from these records.”
Only a handful of people had access.
Richard.
Bradley.
Antonio.
And Amelia.
Chloe looked at her mother.
Amelia did not flinch.
“I didn't do it.”
“Then who?”
“Victor.”
“How?”
Amelia pointed toward the safe.
“That isn't Richard's only copy.”
Bradley turned.
“What?”
“Your father gave Victor access years ago.”
Bradley's face went white.
“No.”
“Your father has been working with him since 1998.”
Bradley shook his head.
“You're lying.”
Amelia opened another folder.
Photographs.
Richard and Victor.
Meetings across decades.
Payments.
Documents.
Bradley sat down.
For the first time, Chloe saw not the arrogant man who had hurt her but a son discovering his father had built their family wealth on betrayal.
“I didn't know.”
Chloe believed him.
Leo did not care.
“We need to move.”
Marco entered.
“The leak is everywhere.”
Chloe checked her phone.
Hundreds of notifications.
Headlines.
MORETTI SECRET HEIR?
WHO IS CHLOE BENNETT?
LOVE TRIANGLE?
The internet had turned her unborn daughter into entertainment within minutes.
Chloe sat.
“I can't do this.”
Leo crouched in front of her.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“None of those people matter.”
“They're talking about her.”
“They don't know her.”
“They're calling me a liar.”
“I know who you are.”
The simplicity of it broke something inside her.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me.”
Leo's eyes remained steady.
“You're the woman who walked into my casino alone to save her idiot brother.”
Danny, listening from a secure video connection, protested faintly.
Leo ignored him.
“You argued with six attorneys over one paragraph because you thought it gave me too much authority.”
“It did.”
“You steal the blankets.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
Bradley looked deeply uncomfortable.
Leo continued.
“You hate olives. You pretend you don't like expensive restaurants because menus without prices annoy you. You talk to our daughter when you think no one hears you.”
Chloe's eyes filled.
“And you are the only person in my life who tells me no without calculating what it might cost.”
His thumb brushed a tear from her cheek.
“I know exactly who you are.”
Bradley quietly turned away.
Then Chloe's phone rang.
Unknown caller.
She answered.
Victor Salerno.
“Beautiful show, wasn't it?”
“What do you want?”
“For Moretti to doubt you.”
“He doesn't.”
A pause.
Victor sounded irritated.
“Then perhaps he should.”
“You're wasting your time.”
“Am I?”
A message arrived.
A photograph.
Leo leaving a hotel room six months earlier with an elegant brunette.
Chloe recognized her.
Isabella Romano.
Daughter of one of the families that wanted Leo married.
Victor said, “Ask him what agreement he made before you.”
The call ended.
Chloe showed Leo.
He did not deny it.
“Isabella was the original arrangement.”
“For an heir?”
“For marriage.”
The word hurt more than Chloe expected.
“What happened?”
“I refused.”
“When?”
Leo hesitated.
“After I met you.”
Bradley suddenly spoke.
“There's something else.”
They turned.
He held a ledger.
“Victor paid Isabella last week.”
Leo took it.
“For what?”
Bradley read the transfer memo.
“Medical acquisition.”
Chloe felt cold.
Leo immediately called Ellis.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Marco called the clinic security desk.
His face changed.
“Clinic's been breached.”
Chloe stood.
“The embryos.”
Before Chloe became pregnant naturally, the clinic had created embryos as part of the original medical plan.
Leo stared at Marco.
“How many were stored?”
“Three.”
Chloe remembered.
Three possible embryos.
Genetically Leo's.
But not hers—the initial arrangement had contemplated a donor before everything changed.
Marco's next words made the room silent.
“The storage unit was opened thirty minutes ago.”
“Were they taken?”
Marco looked at the report.
“Two remain.”
May you like
Chloe's blood went cold.
One was missing.
