Chapter 5 - The Name My Father Erased
Victor Duca looked older than death.
Gray hair.
Scar along his cheek.
My father's eyes.
He raised both hands.
"I'm not here to hurt anyone."
Charles laughed bitterly.
"You've been saying that for twenty years."
My mother moved between them.
"Enough."
I stared at Victor.
"I attended your funeral."
"I know."
"Was anyone in this family actually dead?"
His expression tightened.
"Lorenzo."
The room became silent.
My father.
At least one grave contained the person whose name was carved into it.
Victor explained everything.
The financial theft had begun with forged approvals.
Charles had been framed.
Victor discovered the fraud but was attacked before he could expose it.
His disappearance was staged for his protection.
My father remained behind, trying to identify the person orchestrating everything.
Eventually he succeeded.
But before he could act, he died.
"Heart attack?" I asked.
Victor hesitated.
"Probably."
"Probably?"
"No evidence ever proved otherwise."
I refused speculation.
"Then who did he identify?"
Victor removed a folded document.
A partnership amendment.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Margaret Duca.
My aunt.
My father's older sister.
The woman who had managed the family's charitable foundation for thirty years.
The woman who sent me Christmas cards.
The woman who had held my hand at both funerals.
"Margaret?"
Victor nodded.
She'd used the foundation to move funds.
When Eleanor discovered irregularities, Margaret panicked.
Threats followed.
But Victor insisted Margaret hadn't worked alone.
There was another person.
Someone younger.
Someone who still had access to my home.
The knocking system had been activated because someone had entered the hidden room.
"Who has keys?" Victor asked.
Grace.
Daniel.
Me.
Senior house staff.
And Margaret.
My aunt still had an old family key.
My stomach turned.
Then I remembered the security footage.
The signet ring.
There were supposedly three.
Father.
Me.
Victor.
But Margaret had commissioned a replica after Lorenzo died.
She wore it occasionally at family events.
The figure entering my house hadn't been Victor.
It had been Margaret.
We returned immediately.
Grace and the girls were safe.
But Margaret was gone.
She had visited that afternoon.
Grace had assumed I invited her.
She'd stayed twelve minutes.
Nothing appeared missing.
Then Mia tugged my sleeve.
"Mr. Duca?"
"What?"
"The lady went into your study."
My pulse changed.
"What did she do?"
"She talked to the wall."
Every adult went silent.
"What did she say?"
Mia thought carefully.
"She said, 'You should have stayed dead.'"
Victor closed his eyes.
Margaret knew he was alive.
I searched the hidden room.
Inside a drawer we found a recorder.
Margaret's voice.
Conversations.
Threats.
Enough evidence.
Then another recording played.
My father's voice.
"Margaret, this ends tonight."
Her response:
"If you expose me, Adrian learns everything."
"What does Adrian have to do with this?"
"Ask Eleanor."
The recording ended.
I looked at my mother.
"What does that mean?"
She sat down.
"There's something we never told you."
I laughed without humor.
"That list is getting long."
She looked toward Victor.
He nodded.
My mother reached into her bag.
She removed a birth certificate.
Mine.
Except the father's name wasn't Lorenzo Duca.
It was blank.
I stared.
"What is this?"
"The original."
My throat tightened.
"Who was my father?"
Eleanor whispered, "Lorenzo."
"Then why is it blank?"
"Because when you were born, we weren't married yet."
"That's not enough."
"No."
She looked at me.
"Margaret knew something about the circumstances surrounding your birth that she believed could destroy Lorenzo's control of the company."
"What?"
Before she answered, Mia appeared in the doorway.
She was holding something.
A photograph.
"I found this under the desk."
I took it.
My mother gasped.
The photograph showed Lorenzo holding me as a newborn.
Beside him stood another man.
On the back was a name.
Thomas Harper.
Grace's last name.
I turned.
Grace had gone completely still.
"Who is Thomas Harper?"
She whispered:
"My father."
Then someone knocked three times from behind the wall.
Victor stared toward the hidden room.
"That's not our signal."
The bookcase clicked.
It began opening.
May you like
And a woman's voice from the darkness said:
"Adrian, don't believe any of them."
