Chapter 6 - THE CHILDREN THEY WANTED TO DIVIDE
Norah became furious.
Not frightened.
Furious.
“No.”
Roman looked at her.
“No one divides them.”
“I agree.”
“I mean no trust. No name. No company. Nothing.”
Roman nodded.
“They’re babies.”
“Yes.”
“They get to choose who they become.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“You’re agreeing too easily.”
“I’m learning.”
That almost made her laugh.
Almost.
They contacted independent attorneys.
Not Moretti lawyers.
Not Teresa.
Not Carlo.
The trust documents were retrieved through court-supervised channels.
The truth was stranger than Teresa explained.
Elena Moretti had created two inheritances.
Not one superior to the other.
Grace and Elias would eventually receive separate authority structures only if they chose to accept them as adults.
Until then, control went to independent trustees.
No one could force the children into family business.
Norah exhaled.
“That’s not division.”
Roman read the final clause.
“No.”
“What?”
His face changed.
“The audit activates when both children are identified.”
Both.
Which meant Matteo needed one child legally erased from Roman’s line.
Not killed necessarily.
Hidden.
Transferred.
Adopted under another identity.
Enough to break the trigger.
Norah felt sick.
“That message.”
Roman nodded.
“Choose which child keeps the name.”
It was not just cruelty.
It was instruction.
Matteo wanted one twin.
Which?
Then Grace’s hospital bracelet caught Roman’s eye.
Different surname.
GRACE HALE.
Elias’s bracelet:
ELIAS HALE.
Norah had used her mother’s maiden name while hiding.
Roman frowned.
“How did the foundation know they were mine?”
Norah looked confused.
“They didn’t.”
“Then why pay Elias’s treatment?”
Silence.
Someone knew before the birth records existed.
Someone had access to prenatal DNA.
Roman called the cardiology clinic.
The billing manager reviewed records.
The anonymous donor had included a reference code.
V-409.
Roman stared.
Flight 409.
Norah whispered:
“That can’t be coincidence.”
Roman thought back.
The commercial flight.
The ticket he bought at the last minute.
The Denver crisis that forced him onto it.
Someone had constructed the entire encounter.
“Who knew I’d take this flight?”
“Carlo?”
“Yes.”
“Teresa?”
“Possibly.”
“Matteo?”
“If someone told him.”
Then Roman remembered the frantic businessman whose first-class ticket he bought.
The man accepted five thousand dollars too quickly.
Roman asked agents to identify him.
His name:
Daniel Mercer.
Employee of a logistics company owned by Matteo Voss.
Roman went still.
They had put him on this flight.
Norah did not randomly encounter Roman.
Roman had been placed across from her.
“Why?” she whispered.
Roman looked at the twins.
“To force me to acknowledge them publicly.”
“But that activates the audit.”
“Yes.”
“Matteo wouldn’t want that.”
“No.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“Unless someone else wants the audit activated.”
There were now two forces moving around them.
One trying to hide the children.
One trying to expose them.
Then Roman’s phone rang.
Carlo.
Finally.
Roman answered.
Carlo said only one sentence:
May you like
“Do not trust Teresa.”
Then gunfire erupted on the line.
