Chapter 4 - Her Father Was Not Who Raphael Thought He Was
Tessa received a message from an unknown number at 11:42 p.m.
DON'T TRUST THE MAN YOU MARRIED.
She stared at it.
For several seconds, she did nothing.
Then another message arrived.
YOU'RE RUNNING TO NEPAL BECAUSE YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED.
Tessa's stomach tightened.
She looked around the empty corridor.
No one.
She stepped outside.
The mountains were black against the night.
She typed.
WHO IS THIS?
The reply came instantly.
SOMEONE WHO KNOWS YOUR FATHER.
Tessa stopped breathing.
She had spent years trying not to think about her father.
Elias Ward had been brilliant.
Charming.
Absent.
He disappeared for months at a time.
As a child, Tessa had believed he traveled for research.
As a teenager, she had understood there were things he didn't tell her.
After her mother's death, Elias became worse.
He drank.
He withdrew.
He stopped explaining where he went.
Then one summer, he left for Nepal.
He never came home.
His body was supposedly lost in a mountain accident.
Tessa had mourned him.
But somewhere deep inside, she had never believed the story.
She typed again.
PROVE IT.
A file arrived.
Inside was a scanned notebook.
Her father's handwriting.
Tessa recognized it instantly.
She opened the first page.
The first sentence made her hands shake.
The Serrano family isn't what everyone thinks.
She read faster.
Elias had worked for Raphael's father.
Not as a scientist.
As an intermediary.
He had helped move money.
Weapons.
Information.
People.
But Elias had eventually discovered that Raphael's father was using humanitarian programs as fronts for illegal operations.
He had tried to leave.
The consequence was immediate.
Someone threatened Tessa's mother.
Then her mother died.
The official cause was cancer.
But the notebook contained a different possibility.
Poison exposure.
Repeated low doses.
Tessa covered her mouth.
“No.”
She flipped the page.
One line appeared underlined three times.
If I die, protect Tessa from the Serranos.
Her phone slipped from her hand.
She sank onto a bench.
She could barely breathe.
All these years, she'd thought Raphael's family had been the one thing that gave her mother access to better medical treatment.
All these years, she'd believed she had fallen in love with a man whose darkness began with him.
Now she wondered whether his family's shadow had reached her long before she met him.
Back in New York, Raphael was reading the same notebook.
Tomas stood silently nearby.
“Is this authentic?”
“We checked the handwriting.”
“And the records.”
“Everything matches.”
Raphael closed his eyes.
His father had never told him about Elias.
Never mentioned Tessa's family.
Never mentioned the humanitarian network.
His father had spent years teaching Raphael that trust was weakness.
Apparently, the first person he should have distrusted was his own father.
There was one more page.
Raphael read it.
A name.
Mara Bell.
He recognized it.
His father's old accountant.
Dead twenty years.
Under the name was a coded account.
Tessa had never seen it.
Raphael had.
It was connected to Sloan.
His eyes hardened.
“Sloan.”
Tomas looked up.
“What?”
“Find out everything about her.”
“We already did.”
“No.”
Raphael pushed the notebook across the table.
“This is bigger than an affair.”
Tomas read the page.
His expression changed.
“She worked for your father.”
“Yes.”
“And she approached you?”
“Years ago.”
“Why?”
Raphael's gaze hardened.
“That is what I'm about to find out.”
Meanwhile, in Nepal, Priya found Tessa sitting outside the clinic.
“You look like you've seen a ghost.”
“My father.”
Priya sat beside her.
“What about him?”
Tessa handed her the phone.
Priya read the messages.
Her face paled.
“You never told me this.”
“I didn't know.”
“You believed he died in an accident.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
Tessa looked toward the mountains.
“Now I think someone wanted me to believe it.”
Priya was quiet.
Then she said,
“Do you know why I asked you to come back here?”
Tessa looked at her.
“No.”
“I found something six months ago.”
“What?”
“A patient record.”
Priya hesitated.
“Your name.”
Tessa frowned.
“What about it?”
“You were treated here nine years ago.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Priya shook her head.
“You were treated in the public records.”
“But there was another file.”
“What file?”
“One marked classified.”
Tessa stood.
“Show me.”
Priya opened a locked cabinet.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
The label bore a date.
The same date Raphael had nearly died.
Tessa opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Her father.
Raphael.
And another man.
Serrano's father.
They were standing together.
But that wasn't what frightened her.
In the background stood a woman.
Sloan Mercer.
Young.
Smiling.
Alive.
Tessa stared.
“She was there.”
Priya nodded.
“With your father.”
Tessa whispered,
“Then this was never about Raphael's mistress.”
“It was about me.”
Before Priya could answer, the clinic lights went out.
The door slammed.
A gunshot shattered the window.
Tessa dropped to the floor.
Priya hit the alarm.
Another shot.
Someone shouted outside.
Tessa crawled toward the cabinet.
The envelope was gone.
She searched frantically.
Nothing.
Then a voice came through the broken window.
“Ward!”
Tessa froze.
She knew that voice.
It belonged to a man she had not heard in nine years.
“Come outside.”
Priya looked at her.
“Who is that?”
Tessa's face had gone white.
“My father.”
The man outside laughed.
“No, sweetheart.”
May you like
A shadow moved beyond the broken glass.
“I'm the man who killed him.”
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