Chapter 6 - The Man Who Was Supposed To Be Dead
The video played.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
The old security footage filled the screen with grainy black-and-white images.
A hospital hallway.
Five years ago.
My hospital room.
I knew that hallway.
I remembered the smell.
The lights.
The pain.
The confusion.
But I didn't remember the faces.
Not until now.
Roman stood beside my unconscious body.
Lucas stood near the door.
And then someone else entered the frame.
A man wearing a dark coat.
A man Roman had spent years believing was dead.
His father.
My breath caught.
"No."
The word left my mouth before I realized I had said it.
Roman looked like he couldn't hear anything else.
His father.
Alive.
Standing inside the hospital where I had been lying unconscious.
Lucas stepped closer to the screen.
His face had lost all emotion.
"That's impossible."
Roman didn't answer.
Because he believed it too.
The Castell family had buried their father five years ago.
There had been a funeral.
There had been witnesses.
There had been a body.
At least, that was what everyone believed.
The man on the screen walked toward my hospital room.
Then stopped.
He looked directly at the camera.
Like he knew someone would watch it one day.
Then the footage ended.
The screen went black.
The silence afterward was unbearable.
I looked at Roman.
"Your father was alive."
Roman didn't respond.
I stepped closer.
"Roman."
His eyes remained fixed on the screen.
"I saw him die."
His voice was quiet.
Too quiet.
"I was there."
Lucas looked at him.
"You were?"
Roman finally turned.
For the first time, the brothers looked like they weren't enemies.
They looked like two sons who had just discovered they had been lied to.
"What are you saying?"
Lucas asked.
Roman shook his head.
"I saw his body."
"Did you identify it?"
The question hit him.
I saw it.
The hesitation.
The smallest crack.
Lucas noticed too.
"No."
Roman looked away.
"No."
The room changed.
Because that one word changed everything.
For five years, Roman had built his life around a death that might never have happened.
I walked back to the desk.
The old footage was still in my mind.
The man in the hallway.
The way he looked at the camera.
The way he seemed certain someone would find it.
"Who uploaded this?"
Roman checked the system.
"Unknown."
"Someone had access."
"Yes."
"Someone wanted us to see it."
Lucas nodded.
"Which means whoever sent it knows the truth."
I looked at the screen.
"And they know I was there."
Nobody spoke.
Because that was the part none of us wanted to admit.
Five years ago, I wasn't just an employee who discovered a financial secret.
I was connected to the night Roman's father disappeared.
The question was how.
And why.
Roman opened the restricted archive again.
The password screen appeared.
"Move."
I looked at him.
"What?"
"I need to check the original files."
"Roman."
"If someone changed my memories, my records, and my security system, I need to know what else they touched."
I understood.
Because I would have done the same.
I moved beside him.
The archive contained thousands of documents.
Old investigations.
Company records.
Family files.
Then Roman searched my name.
Nothing.
No results.
His expression changed.
Again.
That was becoming a pattern.
"What?"
He turned the screen toward me.
"Your entire file is gone."
I stared.
"Impossible."
"Not hidden."
Lucas stepped closer.
"Deleted."
I looked at Roman.
"You deleted it."
"No."
His answer was immediate.
Too immediate.
"I removed the investigation report."
He pointed at the screen.
"But this is different."
Someone else had erased me.
Not from a company.
From history.
My phone vibrated.
Another message.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
YOU ARE LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACE.
A second message arrived.
THE FILE WAS NEVER ABOUT YOU.
A third.
IT WAS ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW.
My hands tightened.
Roman noticed.
"What did they send?"
I showed him.
Lucas read over his shoulder.
Then looked at me.
"What did you see?"
I shook my head.
"I don't know."
"You were conscious."
"No."
"You survived a crash."
"I lost my memory."
Lucas stared.
"Not all of it."
The words bothered me.
Because they felt true.
There were moments.
Small pieces.
A voice.
A hallway.
A hand holding mine.
A sentence I couldn't remember.
I closed my eyes.
Then something came back.
A hospital room.
Five years ago.
Roman sitting beside me.
Blood on his shirt.
And another voice.
A man's voice.
Whispering:
"Don't trust the Castell family."
My eyes opened.
Roman noticed.
"What?"
I looked at him.
"I remember something."
His expression changed.
"What?"
I swallowed.
"Someone was in my room."
Lucas immediately asked:
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Male or female?"
"Male."
Roman became still.
"What did he say?"
I looked at him.
"He said..."
The memory came back slowly.
Like something buried trying to escape.
"He said not to trust the Castell family."
Nobody spoke.
Because Roman and Lucas both knew what that meant.
Someone had entered my hospital room.
Someone had tried to turn me against them.
Someone who knew I had seen something.
The door suddenly opened.
A security officer entered.
"Sir."
Roman looked up.
"What?"
The man's face was pale.
"We found the source of the video."
Roman stood.
"Where?"
The guard hesitated.
"Inside the building."
Lucas immediately reached for his weapon.
"Who?"
The guard looked at Roman.
"Someone using an old Castell access code."
Roman's expression darkened.
"Whose?"
The guard handed him a tablet.
Roman looked at the screen.
Then froze.
I saw the change.
Not anger.
Not suspicion.
Recognition.
"Roman?"
He didn't answer.
I walked closer.
"What is it?"
He turned the tablet toward me.
A security image appeared.
A man standing in the underground archive.
The camera angle showed only his back.
But the identity information was displayed below.
ACCESS HOLDER:
LUCIANO CASTELL.
I stared.
"Your father."
Roman's face went pale.
"No."
Lucas stepped forward.
"He's alive."
Roman looked at him.
"That's impossible."
The guard spoke quietly.
"Sir..."
Roman looked at him.
"What?"
The guard swallowed.
"The person inside the archive left a message."
My heart started beating faster.
"What message?"
The guard looked at Roman.
"He said he knew you would find the truth eventually."
A pause.
Then:
"He asked us to tell Tessa something."
My entire body went cold.
Roman looked at me.
"What?"
The guard handed me the tablet.
On the screen was one sentence.
Five years ago, you didn't lose your memory.
Someone made sure you forgot.
I couldn't breathe.
Then another line appeared underneath.
And this time, it wasn't a message.
May you like
It was a name.
The name of the person who had changed my life five years ago.
