Chapter 3 - My Name Was on His Contract
Adrian killed the lights.
Tyler tried the handle.
Locked.
“Giana.”
I stared at Karin in the darkness.
My sister?
Impossible.
My mother had been my father’s only wife.
At least that was what I had believed.
Tyler knocked again.
“I just want to talk.”
Adrian leaned close.
“Do not answer.”
Tyler’s voice hardened.
“Moretti, this isn’t your family.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“He knows I’m here.”
A second man spoke outside.
Security.
Tyler had brought help.
Adrian opened a rear maintenance panel I hadn’t noticed.
We escaped through an adjoining records room and reached the garage.
Karin came with us.
Inside Adrian’s car, I examined the birth certificate.
Father: Richard Bellamy.
My father.
Mother: Evelyn Vale.
Child: Karina Evelyn Bellamy.
Born eighteen months before me.
“Did you know?” I asked.
“Not until three weeks ago.”
“How?”
“Tyler told me.”
That surprised me.
“He knew?”
“He said your father had another daughter. He said you stole my inheritance.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“And sleeping with my husband was your recovery strategy?”
Her face flushed.
“No.”
“Then explain.”
“He approached me in Chicago. He said he was separated.”
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
I looked away.
I hated her.
But I recognized the architecture of Tyler’s lies.
Different rooms.
Same builder.
Adrian took us to a private apartment.
Karin showed me messages.
Tyler had courted her for months.
He told her I was vindictive.
Unstable.
Greedy.
Then came the document that changed everything.
A contract.
Tyler promised Karin ten percent of Vance Holdings once he controlled my shares.
In return, she would testify that I had threatened her.
He was constructing a legal case for my incapacity.
The affair had never been only an affair.
I looked at Karin.
“You were helping him.”
“At first.”
“Why stop?”
“Because yesterday I found out what happened to your father.”
My breath caught.
Adrian turned.
“What happened?”
Karin removed a flash drive.
“Tyler keeps a second phone. I copied everything.”
Adrian inserted it into an offline computer.
A recording appeared.
Tyler’s voice.
Another man’s.
“You were supposed to frighten Richard, not put him in the hospital.”
Then the unidentified man replied.
“He wouldn’t give us the key.”
My knees weakened.
Adrian caught my elbow.
I pulled away.
“Play it.”
The recording continued.
My father had discovered the theft.
Tyler wanted the evidence.
Someone confronted my father.
He collapsed.
But he didn’t die.
The hospital report had been manipulated.
The funeral had been staged.
I stared at Adrian.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Your father disappeared voluntarily after the hospital. I arranged the first forty-eight hours. After that, he cut contact to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
Anger exploded through me.
“I buried him.”
“I know.”
“I stood over an empty coffin?”
“Yes.”
I slapped Adrian.
The room became silent.
He accepted it without moving.
“I deserved that.”
“You all decided what I could survive.”
“No,” he said. “Your father decided what Tyler would do if he knew Richard was alive.”
My phone rang.
Tyler.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
“Why?”
“Because someone broke into the archive.”
“Maybe your mistress needed bookkeeping lessons.”
“Stop.”
“No.”
His breathing changed.
“I made mistakes.”
“You forged my signature.”
Silence.
“You stole from the company.”
“Giana—”
“You had my father attacked.”
“I never ordered that.”
The speed of his denial told me enough.
“Then you know who did.”
He hung up.
That evening, Adrian’s investigator traced Kestrel Meridian.
The owner wasn’t Tyler.
It was someone named Marcus Dane.
Former Vance Holdings chief security officer.
My father had fired him six years earlier.
I remembered Marcus.
Big hands.
Quiet voice.
He used to bring me coffee when I worked late.
Adrian showed me a surveillance photograph.
Marcus entering a private clinic.
Three days ago.
Then another image.
An older man was visible through the clinic window.
Gray hair.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
My father.
I stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
“Take me there.”
Adrian hesitated.
“Now.”
We drove north.
The clinic sat behind iron gates.
No sign.
No public entrance.
Adrian’s men disabled the security system.
Inside, the corridors smelled of antiseptic.
Room 214.
Empty.
Room 216.
Empty.
Then I heard a cough.
Room 218.
I pushed the door open.
An older man sat beside the window.
He turned.
My entire body stopped.
“Dad?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Gia.”
I crossed the room.
Then a red laser dot appeared on his chest.
Adrian shouted my name.
May you like
The window shattered.
And my father fell.
