Chapter 1 - MY DEAD BROTHER HAD A SON
The air left my lungs.
“Nicholas?”
Rose nodded weakly from the hospital bed.
“My Nicholas?”
“Yes.”
My younger brother had been dead for eight years.
His helicopter went down during a flight from Hartford to Boston. By the time rescue teams reached the wreckage, there was almost nothing left to identify except personal effects and dental records.
I had buried him at thirty-one.
Now Rose was telling me he had a seven-year-old son.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“I was pregnant when Nicholas died.”
I stared at her.
“Did he know?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
That answer hurt more.
Rose explained that she met Nicholas nine years earlier when she worked evenings at a private rehabilitation facility funded by the Vance Foundation. Nicholas volunteered there anonymously because he hated publicity.
They became friends.
Then more.
He kept the relationship private because our family treated every serious relationship like a merger requiring background reports, lawyers, and boardroom opinions.
Three weeks before the helicopter crash, Rose told him she was pregnant.
“He was happy,” she whispered.
I sat frozen.
“He said he wanted to tell you first.”
“He never did.”
“He was supposed to the weekend after the flight.”
There was no weekend after.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
Rose closed her eyes.
“Because somebody came to me first.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who?”
“A lawyer representing the Vance family.”
“What lawyer?”
“He never gave me a personal name. He said Nicholas had never acknowledged the pregnancy and that if I tried to claim my baby was his, your family would destroy me in court.”
I stood.
“My family?”
“He offered me money.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
I felt sick.
Rose refused.
Then she disappeared from Greenwich.
Moved to Bridgeport.
Had Matthew.
Raised him alone.
“How did you end up working in my house?”
“Three years ago, I learned Nicholas had left something for his child.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know.”
She had taken the housekeeping position because the Vance estate still contained Nicholas’s old personal storage rooms and archived papers.
She never intended to deceive me forever.
She was looking for proof.
Then Camila discovered what she was doing.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Rose had finally found an envelope Nicholas once hid inside an old leather document case.
Camila walked into the study while Rose was holding it.
“She saw his name.”
“What happened?”
“She told me to give it to her.”
“And you refused.”
Rose nodded.
“She said Matthew could destroy everything.”
My chest tightened.
“Destroy what?”
“She wouldn’t explain.”
The argument moved into the hall.
Camila grabbed Rose.
Rose pulled away.
The mirror shattered.
Afterward, Camila tried to move her before I woke.
I stood beside the hospital bed trying to process the fact that the woman I planned to marry had known about my dead brother’s child.
“Where is the envelope now?”
Rose looked frightened.
“Not in the house.”
“Where?”
“With my neighbor.”
Then she whispered:
“She has Matthew too.”
I immediately called my security chief.
Two trusted guards were sent to Bridgeport.
Not company security.
Men who answered directly to me.
Then Rose caught my wrist.
“Mr. Vance.”
“What?”
“Don’t tell your uncle.”
My stomach tightened.
“Uncle Victor?”
Victor Vance.
My father’s younger brother.
Chairman of Vance Global.
The man who helped me run the company after Nicholas died.
“Why?”
Rose looked toward the hospital-room door.
Then whispered:
“Because Nicholas wrote his name on the envelope.”
“What did he write?”
Her fingers tightened around mine.
May you like
Three words.
DON’T TRUST VICTOR.
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