Chapter 12 - The Heir in the ShadowsEva Moretti was alive.
Young.
Composed.
And terrifyingly calm.
Her face appeared on every screen in my mansion.
She looked at the girls like she had been waiting for them.
“Who taught you to hate me?” I asked.
Eva smiled.
“No one.”
“Then why?”
“Because you forgot me.”
“I never knew you existed.”
She laughed.
“Exactly.”
Camilla stepped forward.
“I remember you.”
Eva's smile disappeared.
“You shouldn't.”
Camilla froze.
“You were taken from me.”
“No.”
Eva's voice became colder.
“I was given away.”
Camilla shook her head.
“Never.”
“You chose Lila.”
“What?”
“You signed.”
Camilla went pale.
“I never signed anything.”
Eva nodded.
“That's what they told you.”
She raised a document to the camera.
It carried Camilla's signature.
Camilla stared.
“That isn't mine.”
“Your fingerprints are.”
Camilla looked at me.
“I swear.”
I believed her.
But belief had become useless.
I needed evidence.
“Why are you working with Voss?”
Eva laughed.
“I'm not.”
“Then who are you working for?”
“No one.”
“You control my empire.”
“I control what they stole from you.”
She leaned closer.
“I'm taking it back.”
“From whom?”
“Everyone.”
Eva explained what had happened.
After birth, she was transferred to a private research facility.
Marco discovered the facility.
He tried to rescue her.
Voss stopped him.
Eva was raised under observation.
Trained.
Educated.
Conditioned.
Her memory was unusually strong.
She remembered conversations from childhood.
Faces.
Numbers.
Passwords.
The researchers realized she could retain information after the drugs.
So they gave her access.
Financial accounts.
Corporate records.
Encrypted databases.
By fourteen, Eva knew more about the Moretti organization than I did.
By sixteen, she had found the names of everyone involved.
By eighteen, she had built a network.
And now she had taken control.
“You were the experiment,” I said.
Eva shook her head.
“No.”
She pointed toward Lila.
“She was.”
Then Sofia.
“She was too.”
Then herself.
“I was the result.”
I felt something inside me crack.
“You're still my daughter.”
Eva's expression changed.
For the first time, she looked young.
Almost like a child.
Then the expression disappeared.
“Don't call me that.”
“Why?”
“Because daughters are loved.”
Silence.
“You never knew me.”
“I never had the chance.”
“That isn't the same as trying.”
I stared at her.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe that was the weapon they had used.
Not just drugs.
Not just money.
Absence.
They had separated a father from his children before he even knew they existed.
Eva sent a file.
Inside were photographs of me.
Every year.
Twenty years.
She had followed my life from the shadows.
She knew my habits.
My enemies.
My mistakes.
She knew Lila's favorite song.
She knew Camilla's fears.
She knew mine.
Then she sent one final image.
A photograph of the Moretti family at a wedding.
My father.
My mother.
Marco.
Me.
And a fourth person standing at the edge.
An older woman.
My grandmother.
Underneath:
She started the project.
I stared.
“My grandmother?”
Eva nodded.
“She believed the family could engineer children.”
“For what?”
“Survival.”
I thought of my grandfather's old medical journals.
The strange notes.
The family illnesses.
The obsession with blood.
It all connected.
Our empire hadn't begun with clubs and warehouses.
It had begun with a family obsessed with controlling its own future.
Eva continued.
“Voss wanted to sell the sequence.”
“Marco wanted to cure himself.”
“Hale wanted the science.”
“And you?”
She looked directly at me.
“I wanted my sisters.”
The room went silent.
She continued.
“I took your empire because it was the only way to keep them alive.”
I looked at Lila.
She was crying.
Eva's expression softened.
“I never wanted her hurt.”
“You let Hale poison her.”
“To protect her from Voss.”
“Six months of blindness.”
“I know.”
“You call that protection?”
Her jaw tightened.
“No.”
A pause.
“I call it a mistake.”
Then she looked over her shoulder.
“Because someone else took control of the experiment.”
“Who?”
Eva's face changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
“The person who created the fake records.”
“Voss?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Hale?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Eva whispered:
“Your mother.”
The room went silent.
I stared.
“My mother died eight years ago.”
Eva nodded slowly.
“That's what you were told.”
Then every screen went black.
A single sentence appeared.
COME HOME, VINCENT.
I looked at Camilla.
She was crying.
“My mother used to say that.”
“What?”
“Come home.”
I turned toward the window.
A black car had just stopped outside.
The passenger door opened.
An elderly woman stepped out.
White hair.
Walking cane.
I knew her face.
My mother.
Dead for eight years.
May you like
Standing in my driveway.
Watching me.
