Chapter 12 - Beneath Moretti Tower
The tunnel entrance was behind a storage wall in the underground garage.
My father had built it during a period when men in his profession considered escape routes part of architecture.
Police entered first.
Empty.
Charles had left lights burning along the corridor.
He wanted us to follow.
At the end was an old records room.
Charles Bennett waited inside.
No army.
No dramatic weapon.
Just an old man with a leather folder.
That somehow made him worse.
“You hurt children for documents?”
“I didn't hurt Leo.”
Everyone kept saying that.
“Who did?”
Charles looked at Ethan.
“Ask him.”
I turned.
My brother stared at the floor.
No.
“Ethan?”
He swallowed.
“Leo's leg was already injured when I found him.”
“When?”
“Before I disappeared.”
“Who was there?”
He couldn't answer.
Then Ava spoke from behind Ramirez.
“Leo told me.”
We turned.
She shouldn't have been there.
But she had followed Caroline upstairs before officers stopped her.
“What did Leo tell you?”
“He fell from the window.”
Silence.
Not struck.
Not attacked.
Leo had tried escaping weeks earlier.
He climbed from the basement window.
Fell.
Broke his leg.
Then Rebecca locked him downstairs again without medical care.
The truth wasn't less horrifying.
Just different.
Charles smiled.
“Rebecca is cruel. But cruelty isn't the secret I brought you here for.”
He opened the folder.
My father's original trust.
The version I knew was an amendment.
The first version named Ethan as beneficiary of certain assets.
But another child was listed.
Thomas Moretti.
Not me.
A second Thomas.
Born before me.
Died at age four.
I stared.
“Who was he?”
“My father's first son,” Ethan whispered.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
“How?”
“Dad told me before he died.”
Our father had named me after his dead child.
Then built the trust so assets connected to the first Thomas transferred through a separate bloodline if one existed.
It sounded irrelevant.
Until Charles placed down a birth record.
The first Thomas hadn't died.
He had been removed from the family after a custody dispute.
Raised under another surname.
Vale.
I looked toward Marianne.
Her surname.
Charles smiled.
“Marianne was his daughter.”
My pulse slowed.
Rebecca.
Marianne's daughter.
Rebecca was descended from my father's first son.
Rebecca wasn't merely Ethan's widow.
She was a Moretti descendant.
A distant branch deliberately erased from family history.
And Leo and Maya?
Their inheritance now intersected both branches.
“That’s what this was about?”
“Initially.”
Charles had discovered the old trust decades earlier.
He manipulated Marianne's network.
Encouraged Rebecca's relationship with Ethan.
Not because of romance.
Because a marriage between the branches could consolidate dormant assets worth hundreds of millions.
Rebecca eventually learned.
Then wanted control herself.
Ethan discovered everything.
Then tried dismantling it.
Charles looked toward Ava.
“But Ethan created another heir.”
Ava.
Outside Rebecca's bloodline.
Her legal recognition could fracture Charles's entire succession plan.
That was why everyone needed Ethan's signature.
Not to recognize Ava.
To renounce her.
Ethan stepped forward.
“Never.”
Charles smiled.
“I know.”
That surprised us.
Then why bring us here?
He handed me the leather folder.
“Because I'm done.”
Ramirez frowned.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“No.”
Charles looked exhausted.
“I expect you to arrest me.”
It was too easy.
Then my phone rang.
Hospital.
Leo.
I answered.
“Uncle Thomas?”
“Yes.”
His voice trembled.
“Rebecca came back.”
I froze.
“What?”
“She says she's taking Maya.”
May you like
Behind him, I heard screaming.
Then the line went dead.
