Chapter 6 - THE BROTHER I NEVER KNEW
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
I looked at my mother.
“Julian is your son?”
She nodded.
Tears rolled down her face.
“He was born before I met your father.”
My mind struggled to process it.
“Then why did you give him to Richard?”
“I didn't.”
Her voice broke.
“Richard took him.”
She explained that Julian had been born during a period when Richard controlled nearly every aspect of her life.
He wanted an heir.
A successor.
Someone he could shape.
When Julian was only six months old, Richard took him.
He told my mother that if she resisted, he would destroy the rest of our family.
Years later, my mother had me.
She tried to get Julian back.
Richard refused.
Instead, he turned Julian into his weapon.
My stomach tightened.
“Does Julian know?”
“He learned the truth only recently.”
That explained his fear.
His obedience.
His desperation.
But it didn't excuse what he had done to me.
My mother understood.
“I know.”
She reached across the table.
“I don't expect forgiveness.”
I didn't give it.
Not yet.
Then Rebecca interrupted.
“There is another problem.”
She opened the master ledger.
Richard had been transferring ownership of companies through a complex chain of trusts.
But one document kept appearing.
A birth record.
Julian's.
And beside it was my own.
The two records had been linked by a private legal agreement.
I read the clause.
My heart stopped.
If Julian died or became legally disqualified, control of certain assets would transfer to his closest maternal relative.
Me.
I looked at my mother.
“So Richard needed Julian to control me.”
“Yes.”
“And if Julian refused?”
“He would replace him.”
“With whom?”
She looked at the ledger.
“Victoria.”
The mistress.
I suddenly understood.
Victoria wasn't just Julian's affair partner.
She had been selected as a replacement.
A new public spouse.
A new heir.
A new way to control the trust.
But there was something even worse.
Victoria had been pregnant.
Everyone assumed the baby was Julian's.
The ledger showed otherwise.
The biological father was someone named Marcus Reed.
A private investigator.
A man who had worked for Richard.
And Marcus had vanished two months earlier.
We found him the next day.
He was hiding in a motel outside Tucson.
He agreed to testify.
But before he could sign his statement, the motel room exploded into chaos.
Someone shot through the window.
Marcus dropped to the floor.
My security team rushed him to safety.
The shooter escaped.
But he left something behind.
A photograph.
It showed Richard.
Victoria.
And a newborn baby.
Written on the back were four words:
THE TRUE HEIR LIVES.
My mother stared at it.
“That's impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Victoria's baby isn't alive.”
The room went silent.
Then Marcus looked at me.
“No.”
His voice trembled.
“The baby is alive.”
I felt the world stop.
“Where?”
He pointed toward the photograph.
May you like
“That's what Richard has been hiding.”
And the answer was hidden inside the hospital where my daughter had just been born.
