Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
We returned to Chicago.
Every instinct told me it was a trap.
Dominic agreed.
But my mother was missing.
We couldn't ignore the message.
The Monarch Room had been closed to the public.
Police had already secured the building.
At exactly 10:00 p.m., Dominic and I entered through the same private entrance where my humiliation had begun.
The restaurant was dark.
Empty tables filled the room.
My hair had been shaved there less than twenty-four hours earlier.
Now every chair looked like a witness.
Dominic held my hand.
“Stay beside me.”
“I will.”
A light switched on above table twelve.
Someone was sitting there.
A woman.
I recognized her immediately.
My mother.
She looked frightened.
“Mom!”
I started forward.
Dominic stopped me.
“Wait.”
A voice came from the balcony.
“Smart man.”
We looked up.
Daniel stepped into the light.
My brother.
The man I had trusted for most of my life.
He wore a black suit and held a folder.
“You finally came home,” he said.
I stared at him.
“You kidnapped Mom.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“She came willingly.”
My mother looked at me.
“I had to.”
“Why?”
Daniel smiled.
“Because she knows what happens if you refuse to cooperate.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“You're finished.”
Daniel laughed.
“You still think this is about money.”
He dropped the folder onto the table.
Documents scattered across the surface.
“The company.”
“The trust.”
“The accounts.”
“All of it is secondary.”
I looked at him.
“Then what do you want?”
Daniel's smile disappeared.
“Dad.”
My heart stopped.
“What about him?”
“He didn't die because of an accident.”
I already knew.
But hearing it from my brother was different.
“He was murdered,” Daniel said.
My mother closed her eyes.
Daniel continued.
“Marcus Vale was murdered too.”
Dominic went completely still.
“Who did it?”
Daniel looked at our mother.
She whispered:
“Robert.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Daniel smiled.
“That's what he wants you to believe.”
He opened another file.
Inside were photographs of Robert meeting a private investigator.
Payments.
Bank transfers.
Then one photograph stopped me.
My father.
Alive.
Taken two months after his supposed death.
I couldn't breathe.
“That's impossible.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Your father survived the first attempt.”
Dominic stared at the photograph.
“Where was he?”
Daniel answered:
“Mexico.”
My mother began crying.
“He called me once.”
I turned toward her.
“You knew?”
“I thought he was dead afterward.”
Daniel shook his head.
“He wasn't.”
He placed a final photograph on the table.
It showed my father standing beside a young woman.
A woman I recognized.
Me.
But the photograph was dated eighteen years ago.
I stared at it.
“I was twenty.”
Daniel whispered:
“He came back for you.”
My knees weakened.
“Then why didn't he find me?”
“Because someone intercepted him.”
“Who?”
Daniel looked toward Dominic.
“Your father.”
Dominic's face hardened.
“My father was dead.”
“No.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Marcus Vale survived too.”
Silence.
The room seemed to lose oxygen.
Two supposedly dead men.
Two families.
One secret.
And suddenly I understood why everyone had been terrified of the original trust.
It wasn't just about money.
It was evidence.
Evidence connecting two powerful families to a crime that had been buried for more than a decade.
Then the lights came on.
The restaurant doors opened.
And a man walked inside.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Walking with a cane.
My heart stopped.
Because I knew that face.
May you like
I had seen it every night in my childhood dreams.
“Dad?”
