Chapter 12 - The Brother Who Was Supposed to Be DeadNora ran.
Lorenzo grabbed her wrist.
“Wait.”
“That's my brother.”
“You don't know what we're walking into.”
She pulled free.
“I know his voice.”
They entered the tunnel.
The air smelled of damp earth and metal.
At the end was a steel door.
Lorenzo opened it.
A man sat inside.
Thin.
Pale.
Scar across his neck.
Nora froze.
“Daniel?”
The man looked up.
For three years, she had imagined her brother's final moment.
His face at death.
His funeral.
His grave.
But the man standing before her was alive.
“Nora.”
She ran to him.
They embraced.
Daniel cried into her shoulder.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I was supposed to be.”
Lorenzo stood nearby.
“Who did this to you?”
Daniel looked at him.
“Your family.”
Lorenzo's face hardened.
“What?”
“Your father saved me.”
A pause.
“Then your uncle betrayed him.”
Daniel explained everything.
After the warehouse attack, Lorenzo's father had secretly moved Daniel to the hospital.
He wanted to expose Victor.
But Victor discovered the plan.
Mateo intercepted the transfer.
Daniel had been held in an underground facility ever since.
“Why didn't you escape?”
Daniel looked down.
“Because I wasn't alone.”
A door opened behind them.
An elderly man walked in.
Lorenzo stared.
His father.
Impossible.
The man was older.
Weak.
But unmistakable.
“Dad?”
His father looked at him.
“I was hoping you'd never find this place.”
Lorenzo stepped forward.
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I had no choice.”
“You always had a choice.”
His father lowered his eyes.
“I made the wrong ones.”
Nora stepped closer.
“Did you order Daniel's death?”
He looked at her.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“Mateo.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor wanted control of everything.”
Lorenzo's father reached for the ledger.
“There is something you don't understand.”
“What?”
“The ledger isn't the evidence.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“Then what is?”
His father looked at Nora.
“Daniel.”
Everyone froze.
“What?”
“Daniel saw the original agreement.”
Daniel's face tightened.
His father continued:
“The ledger can be dismissed as forged.”
“But Daniel's testimony cannot.”
Lorenzo understood.
That was why Leo had kept him alive.
That was why everyone wanted Nora.
Because Nora could lead them to Daniel.
Then suddenly Daniel staggered.
Blood appeared on his shirt.
A tiny red dot glowed on his chest.
“SNIPER!”
Lorenzo shoved him down.
The shot missed his heart by inches.
Another bullet shattered the light.
Daniel whispered:
“They found us.”
Then the emergency tunnel doors began locking one by one.
May you like
And from the darkness ahead came Leo's voice.
“You should have stayed dead, Daniel.”
