Chapter 11 - THE MAN WHO HAD PROTECTED US WAS THE ENEMY'S SON
Nathan confronted Luca in a secure office.
I insisted on being there.
Luca didn’t deny it.
“Vincent is my father.”
Nathan stared at him with a level of betrayal I had seen only once before.
“You’ve worked for me twelve years.”
“Yes.”
“You stood beside me at my father’s funeral.”
“Yes.”
“You never thought this was worth mentioning?”
Luca gave a bitter laugh.
“My father never acknowledged me. My mother was a waitress he kept in an apartment and visited when it suited him.”
He looked toward the window.
“When I was sixteen, she told me who he was.”
“Why work for me?”
“At first?”
Luca met Nathan’s eyes.
“To get close enough to destroy you.”
Nathan’s hand tightened.
“And later?”
“I learned the wrong Drake raised the right son.”
The room fell silent.
Luca explained that years earlier he had discovered what Vincent had done to Daniel.
He had secretly moved Daniel from one facility to another when Vincent ordered him killed.
Daniel’s memory was damaged.
Luca gave him a false name and kept him hidden.
“Why didn’t you tell Bella’s mother?”
“I tried to find Hannah.”
“You failed for twenty-four years?” I asked.
Luca looked ashamed.
“She was better at disappearing than we were at searching.”
Then he handed Nathan a flash drive.
“I’ve collected evidence against Vincent for nine years.”
Nathan stared at him.
“Why now?”
“Because Hannah’s death means he found her first.”
My body went cold.
“What did you say?”
Luca opened a folder.
My mother’s medical records appeared.
Three months earlier, someone had accessed them using a false authorization.
Two weeks before she died, an unfamiliar doctor had been added to her treatment team.
That doctor had ties to a private clinic controlled by one of Vincent’s shell companies.
I felt sick.
“Are you saying my mother was murdered?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Nathan immediately contacted authorities.
An independent toxicology review was ordered.
Two days later, the preliminary results arrived.
A medication had been found in my mother’s system at a level inconsistent with her prescription history.
The investigator spoke carefully.
“It may have worsened her condition.”
I gripped the table.
Nathan stood beside me.
“Who authorized it?”
The investigator opened another document.
“The physician says he received instructions from someone claiming to be Hannah Carter’s family representative.”
“Who?”
He turned the page.
The signature was unmistakable.
May you like
Bella Carter.
Someone had forged my name to change my mother’s treatment.
