Chapter 3 - The Brother Who Was Never Supposed to ExistMy mother died when I was twelve.
My father told me I was an only child.
There was never a photograph.
Never a birthday card.
Never a forgotten name in conversation.
Only child.
That was the phrase I grew up with.
But my attorney placed a birth certificate on her desk and pushed it toward me.
“Read the name.”
I did.
Nathaniel James Bellamy.
Date of birth:
Four years before mine.
Mother:
Eleanor Bellamy.
Father:
Thomas Bellamy.
My father's name.
I looked up.
“Who is he?”
“We're still investigating.”
“Why didn't my father tell me?”
“He may not have had a choice.”
That answer terrified me more than the certificate.
The next document was a trust agreement.
Then a property deed.
Then corporate correspondence.
Then photographs.
The final photograph showed my father standing beside a teenage boy.
The boy had his eyes.
His jaw.
His smile.
Mine too.
I looked at the date.
Twenty-one years before the divorce hearing.
“He was alive?”
My attorney nodded.
“He was.”
“Where is he?”
“We don't know.”
I stared at the photograph.
The world had suddenly become a room with a hidden door.
And Gavin had known about it.
That afternoon I confronted him.
He was in his office overlooking downtown Washington.
“You knew about Nathaniel.”
Gavin didn't look surprised.
That was my first answer.
“Yes.”
“You knew I had a brother?”
“I knew there was someone named Nathaniel.”
“Don't lie to me.”
He finally looked up.
“Cassandra, there are things you don't understand.”
I laughed.
“You've been saying that for thirteen years.”
He stood.
“Your father was involved in things you don't understand.”
“What things?”
His silence told me I had found the right question.
Then Sloane entered.
She stopped when she saw me.
Gavin's expression changed.
“Why are you here?”
“To ask my husband why he knows more about my family than I do.”
Sloane looked between us.
“What is she talking about?”
Gavin snapped.
“Leave.”
She didn't move.
“You told me her family was dead.”
I turned toward Sloane.
“What did he tell you?”
She looked uncomfortable.
“That your father killed himself after losing everything.”
My stomach tightened.
“My father did not kill himself.”
Sloane went pale.
Gavin shouted,
“Enough.”
That was when I realized something.
Sloane wasn't merely his mistress.
She was being lied to too.
I left.
That night, my private investigator called.
“We found Nathaniel.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“Baltimore.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then why hasn't anyone heard from him?”
There was silence.
“Because he's been using another name.”
“What name?”
“Ethan Vale.”
I searched the name.
Nothing.
Then my investigator sent me a photograph.
A man standing outside a warehouse.
Thirty-something.
Dark hair.
Same eyes as my father.
My brother.
I drove to Baltimore the next morning.
The warehouse door opened before I knocked.
A man stood there.
He looked at me.
And neither of us spoke.
Finally he said,
“You have Father's eyes.”
I started crying.
He didn't hug me.
He simply stepped aside.
“Come in.”
Inside was a wall covered in photographs.
My father.
Gavin.
The company.
Board members.
Bankers.
Politicians.
And me.
Dozens of photographs of me over thirteen years.
I stared at them.
“Why were you watching me?”
Nathaniel's expression hardened.
“I wasn't watching you.”
He pointed toward the photographs.
“I was watching Gavin.”
“Why?”
“Because he killed our father's company.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He walked toward a table and opened a file.
“Your father didn't die because he was broke.”
“He died because he discovered what Gavin was doing.”
I felt the floor disappear beneath me.
Nathaniel continued.
“Your father invested in Gavin because he believed Gavin was building the future.”
He opened another file.
“Then he discovered Gavin was stealing intellectual property from him.”
I looked at the documents.
Patent assignments.
Software architecture.
Transportation algorithms.
All originated with my father's company.
“So Gavin stole the technology?”
“More than that.”
Nathaniel placed a final document in front of me.
A contract.
Signed twenty-two years earlier.
At the bottom was my father's signature.
And beside it:
Gavin Rourke.
I stared.
“This was before I met him.”
Nathaniel nodded.
“Exactly.”
Then he looked directly into my eyes.
“Cassandra, Gavin didn't build that company with your money.”
He pushed another paper toward me.
“He built it with our father's stolen technology.”
I looked at the final line.
And felt my blood turn cold.
Because beneath the contract was a second signature.
May you like
Mine.
But I had been six years old when it was signed.
