Chapter 9 - WHY CLARA WAS BROUGHT INTO THE HOUSE
Clara had believed Mrs. Dora hired her because another maid quit.
That was only half true.
Bianca had recommended her.
Raphael confronted Dora.
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t know why Bianca cared.”
“Did you investigate?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I found nothing except poverty, a child, and medical bills.”
Clara looked embarrassed.
Raphael ignored that.
Bianca had placed Victor Salvi’s daughter inside Raphael Duca’s house.
Why?
Daniel found the answer.
Bianca had been searching for Raphael’s father’s missing notebook for years.
She assumed Clara unknowingly possessed it.
By keeping Clara close to Raphael’s property, Bianca could monitor her.
The wedding would give Bianca even more access.
But something had changed.
Noel.
Raphael looked toward the child playing quietly with her cloth horse.
“She became leverage.”
Clara nodded.
Then Daniel pulled up another record.
Noel’s birth certificate listed no father.
But someone had requested a sealed DNA comparison when she was six months old.
“Who?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Anthony Morelli.”
Clara turned on him.
“Why?”
Anthony was brought in.
His face looked hollow.
“I thought Daniel might be the father.”
“He is.”
Anthony shook his head.
“No.”
Daniel froze.
“What?”
Anthony placed an envelope on the table.
“The test excluded you.”
Clara stared at Daniel.
Daniel stared at Clara.
Neither spoke.
Raphael felt intrusive merely standing there.
Clara whispered:
“That’s impossible.”
Daniel’s voice cracked.
“We were together.”
“Yes.”
“Then…”
Clara covered her mouth.
A memory.
A party.
A drink Anthony’s brother had given her.
A missing stretch of hours.
She went pale.
“No.”
Raphael immediately understood enough to hate where this was going.
But Anthony shook his head.
“Your daughter was not fathered by my brother.”
Clara looked up.
“Then who?”
Anthony produced a second DNA report.
The paternal match belonged to a man Clara had never knowingly met.
Raphael read the name.
His hands went cold.
Leon Duca.
His father.
Clara looked at Raphael.
He looked back at her.
Noel could not be Leon’s child—Leon had died years before her birth.
Unless the report was not identifying Noel’s father.
Unless it was identifying a bloodline.
Daniel read the fine print.
First-degree familial relationship to paternal reference.
Raphael stared at Noel.
Then at Clara.
There was only one living son of Leon Duca.
Him.
May you like
And somewhere in the room, a clock seemed to stop.
Because the report suggested Noel was Raphael Duca’s biological daughter.
