Chapter 9 - The Wrong Heir
Tyler did not know any of this.
That became obvious when Giovanni confronted him privately.
No threats.
No guards.
Just a DNA report on a table.
Tyler laughed.
“You expect me to believe this?”
“I don’t expect anything.”
“You’re saying my father isn’t my father?”
“I’m saying Alexander manipulated the test.”
Tyler looked toward me.
“This is because of her?”
There it was again.
The maid.
The servant.
The woman he could reduce whenever reality frightened him.
“You poured wine over me,” I said. “I didn’t rewrite your DNA.”
“Shut up.”
Giovanni stood.
Tyler immediately stepped back.
“Sit down.”
Tyler sat.
That humiliation should have satisfied me.
It didn’t.
He was still cruel.
But for the first time, I saw the terrified boy beneath the tuxedo.
Rebecca arrived twenty minutes later.
She slapped Tyler.
Hard.
Not because of me.
Because he had contacted the press.
“You stupid child!”
“Tell me who my father is!”
“I don’t know!”
Everyone froze.
Rebecca admitted she had relationships with both Alexander and Lorenzo during the period Tyler was conceived.
Alexander knew.
He exploited the uncertainty.
He told Lorenzo Tyler was his.
Why?
Money.
Lorenzo secretly created a trust for Tyler.
Twenty million dollars.
After Lorenzo’s death, the trust vanished.
Giovanni had never known.
“Who took it?” he asked.
Rebecca stared at the floor.
“Alexander.”
So the clinical-trial conspiracy had not merely protected a pharmaceutical scandal.
It financed theft.
Blackmail.
Identity manipulation.
But none of that explained me.
“Why does Alexander care who my father is?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Because Margaret threatened him with it.”
“With what?”
“She said if Alexander ever hurt you, she would expose the real paternity records.”
My stomach tightened.
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca looked toward Giovanni.
Then Tyler.
“Alexander was terrified Hannah would eventually compare her DNA to yours.”
Mine to Giovanni’s?
Sofia stood abruptly.
“No.”
Rebecca started crying.
“I never knew until years later.”
Giovanni looked between us.
“Hannah isn’t my sister.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
Relief came too quickly.
Then she whispered:
“But she may be Tyler’s.”
Tyler went completely still.
That would mean—
Alexander?
Lorenzo?
Neither explanation fit cleanly.
Rebecca covered her face.
“I told you. The records were switched.”
Suddenly every phone in the room vibrated.
A message from Margaret’s number.
A photograph showed Mom sitting beside Alexander.
She was alive.
Alexander stood behind her.
Beneath it:
Bring the locket and original Moretti ledger.
Hannah comes alone.
Tyler read the message.
Then looked at me.
For the first time since the ballroom, there was no arrogance in his face.
Only fear.
“Hannah…”
May you like
He swallowed.
“What if you really are my sister?”
