Chapter 10 - The Person I TrustedThe Answer Was Standing Beside Me
Nobody spoke.
The room felt frozen.
My father's handwriting stared back at me.
The person who betrayed me is the person Daniel trusts most.
Victor spoke first.
"It's me."
I looked at him.
He gave a tired smile.
"You've always trusted me."
"Did you betray my father?"
"No."
"Then why say that?"
"Because I betrayed you."
The words landed hard.
Victor admitted he had moved money.
He had forged documents.
He had manipulated business deals.
He had fed information to Samantha.
But he swore he never killed my father.
"I thought I could control the network," he said.
"You couldn't."
"No."
"Who could?"
Victor looked at Claire.
Claire stared back.
"My mother."
Emily whispered,
"She always could."
We drove to an abandoned office building that had once belonged to my father.
Victor knew a hidden entrance.
Inside, we found a room filled with filing cabinets.
Claire opened one.
Inside were photographs.
Dozens.
My father.
Claire's mother.
Victor.
Margaret.
And Claire.
A photograph of Claire at twenty-four.
She was standing beside my father.
He had his hand on her shoulder.
I stared at it.
"What was he telling you?"
Claire looked at the photograph.
"The truth."
"Which was?"
"He believed your mother was going to kill him."
"Did you warn him?"
"Yes."
"Did he listen?"
"No."
"Why?"
"He thought he could stop her."
I turned away.
"How did he die?"
Claire's voice broke.
"He was poisoned."
Victor spoke quietly.
"The autopsy was falsified."
"By whom?"
He looked at me.
"Your mother's people."
My father had been erased.
His death turned into an accident.
His business passed into hidden hands.
I had inherited a company without realizing I had inherited a war.
Then I found something inside the bottom drawer.
A tape recorder.
Old.
Dusty.
I pressed play.
My father's voice filled the room.
"If you're listening, Daniel, then someone failed."
I stared at the machine.
"I know my son will not understand why I kept everything from him."
A pause.
"I did it because he is good."
My eyes filled with tears.
"Good people are easy to manipulate."
Another pause.
"Daniel, if you trust someone because they love you, ask yourself whether they love you enough to tell you the truth."
The recording crackled.
Then came a sentence that changed everything.
"Claire Bennett is not who you think she is."
I looked at her.
She went completely still.
The recording continued.
"She is the only person in this entire story I believe."
I exhaled.
My father was warning me.
Not against Claire.
For her.
Then another voice entered the recording.
A woman's.
My mother's.
"You should have killed me when you had the chance."
My father's voice replied,
"I was never willing to kill the mother of my son."
Then a gunshot.
The recording ended.
Nobody moved.
I looked at Claire.
"My mother killed him."
Claire nodded.
"But she wasn't alone."
"What do you mean?"
Claire picked up another folder.
Inside was a photograph of two people leaving my father's office on the night he died.
One was my mother.
The other was someone I recognized immediately.
I couldn't breathe.
It was Samantha.
Emily whispered,
"No."
Victor grabbed the photograph.
"That's impossible."
But it wasn't.
Samantha had been there.
The entire night.
She wasn't just recruited to seduce me.
She had been connected to my father from the beginning.
Then Emily noticed something.
The date.
Samantha had been fifteen years old.
She couldn't have been involved.
We all went silent.
Claire looked at me.
"That's not Samantha."
"Then who?"
She pointed at the photograph.
The woman standing beside my mother.
A woman with Samantha's face.
But older.
The caption beneath the photo read:
Lydia Vale.
Claire's mother.
And beside her was one final name.
Daniel's biological mother.
I stared at the paper.
My entire childhood had been a lie.
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My mother wasn't my mother.
And the woman I thought was Samantha's mother was mine.
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