Chapter 11 - Lucia
Mariana couldn't move.
The young woman stood in the doorway.
She was in her early twenties.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
A small scar near her eyebrow.
Mariana covered her mouth.
“Lucia?”
The young woman began crying.
“I've been looking for you.”
Mariana ran toward her.
They embraced.
I stood frozen.
The missing child.
The secret daughter.
Alive.
Lucia pulled away.
“You don't know what they told me.”
“Who?”
“My grandmother.”
I knew immediately.
“Ofelia.”
Lucia nodded.
“She told me you abandoned me.”
Mariana began sobbing.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I was told you didn't want me.”
“I never abandoned you.”
Lucia looked at me.
“Are you Santiago?”
“Yes.”
“Then you're part of this too.”
“What do you mean?”
She handed me a flash drive.
“Everything is on here.”
I took it.
“Where did you get it?”
“From Victoria.”
“Who is Victoria?”
Lucia looked frightened.
“The woman who raised me.”
Mariana stared.
“But my mother said…”
“Your mother lied.”
I plugged the drive into my laptop.
There were dozens of files.
Medical records.
Court documents.
Audio recordings.
Photographs.
One folder was labeled:
EMILIANO — ORIGINAL RECORDS
I opened it.
The first document was my father's birth certificate.
The second was a hospital record.
The third showed something impossible.
My father had another child.
A son born one year before me.
Named Emiliano.
But the record had been altered.
I looked at Lucia.
“Where is he?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“Who is he?”
“My grandmother.”
“Ofelia?”
“Yes.”
The room fell silent.
Then I played an audio file.
My mother's voice came through the speakers.
“I never wanted Santiago to know.”
Another voice answered.
My father's.
“You cannot keep doing this.”
Mother said:
“If you tell him, I'll take everything from you.”
My father's voice cracked.
“And the children?”
“You don't get to choose.”
The recording ended.
I stared at the screen.
Paola stood behind me.
“What else is there?”
I opened another file.
A scanned letter.
My father's final letter.
It contained one sentence that made my entire body go cold.
The child called Emiliano was never dead.
I looked toward my newborn son.
Our baby was sleeping peacefully.
His name was Emiliano.
The same name.
The same family.
The same secret.
Then another file appeared.
DNA MATCH — CONFIDENTIAL
I clicked it.
May you like
The result loaded.
And the name listed beside the match was—
