Chapter 4 - The Father No One Was Supposed to Find
Damian spent the next forty-eight hours dismantling every false assumption surrounding my life.
He discovered that Adrian's real name was Gabriel Bell.
Gabriel Bell had worked under Damian's father.
He had been a financial auditor.
He had uncovered embezzlement inside the company.
And he had disappeared eleven years earlier.
I stared at the file.
“Is he alive?”
Damian didn't answer immediately.
“I don't know.”
“But you think he is?”
“There are recent financial records.”
“Where?”
“In a shell company.”
“Whose?”
Damian looked at me.
“Selene's.”
I felt sick.
Selene had been secretly moving money through accounts connected to Gabriel.
But why?
The answer came from a former Bellucci accountant named Henry Shaw.
Henry agreed to meet Damian in a diner outside the city.
I was there too.
Henry looked at me.
“You’re Mara Bennett.”
“Yes.”
He studied my face.
“You look like your mother.”
“My mother?”
“She knew something.”
“What?”
Henry glanced at Damian.
“Your mother was investigating Bellucci Maritime before she died.”
My chest tightened.
“My mother died in a car accident.”
“That's what everyone was told.”
I stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
Henry lowered his voice.
“The brakes were cut.”
Damian went still.
“Who ordered it?”
“I don't know.”
“You have a guess.”
Henry swallowed.
“I have evidence.”
He reached inside his coat.
Before he could hand it over, the diner window shattered.
A bullet struck the wall.
Henry fell.
Damian grabbed me and pulled me down.
Security rushed inside.
Another shot.
Then silence.
Henry was alive.
Barely.
The envelope had disappeared.
Someone had taken it.
That night, Lily asked me why I looked sad.
I told her I was tired.
She climbed beside me.
“Is Mr. Bellucci sad too?”
“Why?”
“Because he keeps looking at you like he wants to tell you something.”
I smiled.
“You notice too much.”
She hugged me.
Then whispered:
“I think he likes you.”
I laughed.
“Go to sleep.”
But my heart wouldn't settle.
Because I had noticed it too.
Damian's attention had changed.
Not with desire alone.
With concern.
With trust.
With something frighteningly close to tenderness.
Then the worst discovery came.
A DNA report appeared on Damian's desk.
He had ordered it privately.
The result was almost certain.
Gabriel Bell was Lily's biological father.
But Gabriel Bell was not only an auditor.
He was Damian's half-brother.
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Lily was Damian's niece.
And Selene knew.
