Chapter 5 - The Father Who Refused to Stay Dead
I forgot how to breathe.
Thomas Maren looked older than the father I remembered.
Gray threaded through his dark hair.
Lines cut deeply around his eyes.
But it was him.
My father.
Alive.
“Elena.”
“Don't.”
He stopped.
Marco Duca remained beside him, immaculate in a charcoal suit.
Police waited behind them.
Marco's gaze landed on Mia.
“My God.”
I pulled her closer.
Alessandro stepped between us.
“Get out.”
Marco smiled sadly.
“Still giving orders before you understand the room.”
“You brought police into my home.”
“To recover a child whose inheritance you concealed.”
“I learned about her yesterday.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Yes.”
Marco looked at me.
“Elena, your employer has not told you everything.”
“My employer has told me more in one day than my father did in sixteen years.”
Thomas flinched.
Good.
I wanted it to hurt.
“You abandoned us.”
“I protected you.”
“My mother died believing you were gone.”
His face collapsed slightly.
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
“I watched from a distance.”
That was worse.
“You watched?”
“Elena—”
“You watched me bury her?”
His eyes filled.
“I couldn't come back.”
“You chose not to.”
Marco interrupted.
“This reunion can happen later.”
I turned on him.
“You don't get to decide that.”
His pleasant expression cooled.
“The child is a Duca.”
“She is my daughter.”
“And Gabriel Duca's daughter.”
“You knew.”
“Of course.”
Alessandro moved closer.
“You knew Gabriel was alive.”
Marco looked at him.
“For years.”
“And you said nothing.”
“It wasn't my secret.”
“You controlled his inheritance.”
“I protected the company.”
“By stealing it?”
Marco's smile disappeared.
The police shifted uneasily.
One officer stepped forward.
“We have an order requiring temporary protective custody until the family court reviews the guardianship dispute.”
I felt the floor disappear beneath me.
“No.”
Alessandro took the document.
He read it.
“This order is based on allegations that Elena endangered her daughter by leaving her unattended in a workplace.”
Marco looked toward me.
“You did leave an infant on a laundry-room floor.”
My shame became rage.
“You did this.”
“I reported a legitimate concern.”
“You're trying to take her.”
“I am trying to protect my family.”
“She is not your family.”
“She is my great-niece.”
Mia began crying.
The officer looked uncomfortable.
Alessandro handed the order back.
“This is defective.”
“The court disagreed.”
“My attorneys won't.”
“They can argue tomorrow.”
“Until then?”
“Child services will place Mia with an approved relative.”
Marco opened his arms slightly.
“With me.”
“No!”
My scream frightened Mia.
She began sobbing.
I held her tighter.
Thomas stepped forward.
“Elena, listen to me.”
“You brought him here.”
“I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“Marco knows where the original ledger is.”
Alessandro froze.
“The one we found is incomplete?”
Thomas nodded.
“Gabriel removed pages.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
He looked at me.
“And Mia.”
Marco's face hardened.
“You've said enough.”
Thomas laughed bitterly.
“I said nothing for sixteen years. Look what that bought us.”
He reached inside his coat.
Security moved instantly.
“Easy.”
He pulled out a folded document.
“The second page of Luca's trust.”
My heart stopped.
The note.
Do not trust Alessandro with the second page.
Thomas handed it to me.
Alessandro did not try to take it.
I unfolded it.
A handwritten amendment had been notarized two days before Luca died.
If Luca's child or descendants were ever located, no member of the Vittorio Duca line could serve as guardian of the voting trust.
Including Alessandro.
I looked at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
Marco smiled.
“Convenient.”
Alessandro ignored him.
“Who is the alternate guardian?”
Thomas pointed to the bottom.
I read the name.
Thomas Maren.
My father.
“No.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Your mother said the same thing.”
“What does my mother have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
He looked at Mia.
“Elena, your mother wasn't just my wife.”
A terrible feeling moved through me.
“She was Luca's attorney.”
Alessandro stared.
Thomas continued.
“She wrote the trust amendment because Luca discovered Vittorio was laundering money through the foundation.”
“The ledger,” Alessandro said.
“Yes.”
“Why name you guardian?”
“Because Luca trusted me.”
Marco laughed.
“You expect anyone to believe that?”
Thomas looked at him.
“You've spent eight years making sure nobody could.”
The police officer interrupted.
“We still have a custody order.”
Alessandro pulled out his phone.
“You also have thirty seconds before a federal judge receives evidence that the petitioner failed to disclose a multibillion-dollar financial interest in obtaining custody.”
Marco's face changed.
“You wouldn't.”
“I already did.”
For the first time, I understood why people feared Alessandro.
He didn't shout.
He didn't threaten.
He simply moved faster than everyone else.
His attorneys filed an emergency motion.
Twenty minutes later, the order was stayed.
Mia remained with me.
Marco left furious.
Before stepping into the elevator, he looked at Thomas.
“You've made a mistake.”
Thomas answered quietly.
“No. I made the mistake sixteen years ago.”
The doors closed.
I turned toward my father.
“Start talking.”
We sat in Vittorio's old study.
Thomas told us everything.
Luca had discovered that Vittorio and Marco used the family foundation to move illegal money.
Luca planned to expose them.
He died before he could.
“Not an accident?” Alessandro asked.
“No.”
“Who killed him?”
“I don't know.”
Alessandro's fist tightened.
“My father?”
“I spent years believing so.”
“And now?”
Thomas looked toward the closed door.
“Now I think Vittorio was covering for someone.”
“Marco.”
“Possibly.”
Thomas explained that after Luca died, Sofia Vale fled with baby Gabriel.
Vittorio found them.
Instead of killing the child, he paid Sofia to disappear and falsified Gabriel's death.
Years later, Gabriel returned under his mother's surname and secretly investigated the family.
That was when he found me.
“Did you send him?”
“No.”
“But he was watching me because of you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Marco's people were searching for me.”
“Why didn't you come home?”
“Because I had the original ledger.”
“Where?”
Thomas hesitated.
Alessandro leaned forward.
“That's why Marco kept you alive.”
Thomas nodded.
“He needed it.”
“Why not kill you and search?”
“He doesn't know where it is.”
I stared at my father.
“You let us believe you were dead to protect a book?”
“To protect evidence capable of putting several men in prison.”
“You had a daughter.”
“I know.”
“A wife.”
“I know.”
“Don't say that like it fixes anything.”
“It doesn't.”
His voice broke.
“I chose what I thought would keep you alive. I was wrong.”
I wanted to hate him.
Part of me did.
But another part saw a tired old man who had spent sixteen years paying for one decision.
“Where is the ledger?”
He looked at me.
“Your mother hid it.”
“My mother?”
“She never told me where.”
“Then how do we find it?”
“She left the location to you.”
“I have nothing from her.”
“Yes, you do.”
He pointed toward my neck.
I touched the thin silver chain I had worn since my mother died.
A tiny oval locket hung from it.
I had never been able to open it.
Thomas took it carefully.
He pressed the edge.
It separated.
Inside was not a photograph.
It was a tiny key.
My hands shook.
“To what?”
“Your mother's storage box.”
We drove to a small bank in Queens.
The box had remained untouched for nine years.
Inside were letters.
Photographs.
And the original ledger.
Alessandro opened it.
The missing pages were there.
Names.
Payments.
Dates.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
His face went pale.
He turned the book toward me.
The final authorized payment before Luca's death had not been signed by Vittorio.
It had been signed by Marco.
Payment recipient:
D. VALE.
I stared.
“Vale?”
Gabriel's mother's surname.
Thomas leaned closer.
“No.”
“What?”
His face transformed.
“D isn't a person.”
“Then what is it?”
“Dominion Vale.”
Alessandro stood abruptly.
“What is Dominion Vale?”
Thomas looked terrified.
“A private company Marco used for off-book operations.”
“Operations like what?”
“Surveillance.”
A pause.
“Abductions.”
My stomach turned.
“And murder.”
Alessandro's phone rang.
He answered.
A security officer spoke rapidly.
Alessandro looked toward me.
“What happened?”
He ended the call.
“Marco never went home.”
“Where did he go?”
Alessandro turned the phone around.
Security footage showed Marco entering my apartment building.
He carried a key.
Then another message arrived.
A photograph.
My old apartment.
Mia's crib.
And a man sitting beside it.
May you like
Gabriel.
Alive.
