Chapter 4 - THE HEIR WHO NEVER KNEW HE HAD A DAUGHTER
Norah read the name until the letters blurred.
"No."
Vincent stood perfectly still.
"No," she repeated. "That's impossible."
"My father was married to my mother for twenty-two years."
"Your mother could have been married to someone else before that."
"She wasn't."
Norah thrust the paper toward him.
"Then explain this!"
Vincent took the birth certificate and studied the ink.
His expression had changed. The cold control that usually defined him had been replaced by something more dangerous: uncertainty.
"My father had a daughter," he said quietly. "A baby who died shortly after birth."
"That's what he told you?"
"That's what the family was told."
Norah shook her head.
"My mother raised me. She never said anything about the Marinos."
"Maybe she thought that was the only way to keep you alive."
Vincent reached for his phone.
"I need a DNA test."
"No."
"Norah—"
"You don't get to decide what happens to me just because your name is on a piece of paper."
She turned toward the door.
Vincent caught himself before reaching for her.
"You're right."
The admission surprised them both.
He lowered his phone.
"I'm not asking you to believe me. I'm asking you to let me find out who forged that document."
A knock interrupted them.
Teresa entered with a small metal box.
"I found this in the old music room," she said. "It was hidden behind the piano bench."
Norah recognized the scratched initials on its lid.
E.H.
Her mother's initials.
The box contained a silver locket, a handwritten ledger, and a cassette tape.
Norah opened the locket.
Inside was a tiny photograph of Evelyn holding a newborn baby.
On the other side, someone had engraved a date.
October 17, 2006.
The same date as the photograph.
Teresa placed the ledger on the desk.
"I was here when your mother left, Miss Hale. She came to the estate in the middle of the night and begged Carmine to protect you."
"Did he?"
Teresa looked down.
"He promised he would."
"And then?"
"He ordered her out of the house."
Norah felt a bitter laugh rise in her throat.
"Of course he did."
"There's more," Teresa said. "Your mother wasn't the only person who disappeared that night."
Vincent opened the ledger.
Every page contained numbers, names, and coded references to shipping containers.
At the bottom of the last page, Evelyn had written a sentence.
The money wasn't stolen. It was used to save the thirty men.
Vincent read it aloud.
Teresa crossed herself.
"Then the warehouse fire wasn't an accident."
"No," Vincent said. "Someone wanted those men erased."
Norah picked up the cassette.
"Can we play this?"
Vincent nodded toward the security room's old audio equipment.
The recording began with static.
Then came Evelyn's voice.
"If you're hearing this, it means I failed to keep the truth buried."
Norah covered her mouth.
Her mother sounded young. Frightened. Alive.
"The men at Belladonna weren't all criminals. Some were workers. Some were witnesses. Carmine believes he lost his money because I betrayed him, but he never understood what I discovered."
A door slammed somewhere in the recording.
Evelyn continued, speaking faster.
"The person who ordered the fire was—"
The tape clicked.
Silence.
Vincent pressed the play button again.
Nothing.
The final section had been physically cut from the cassette.
Norah stared at the machine.
"Someone removed the ending."
Teresa nodded.
"And they knew exactly what was on it."
A guard appeared at the door.
"Mr. Marino, your father is asking for you."
Vincent rose.
"Tell him I'm coming."
The guard hesitated.
"He asked for Miss Hale too."
Norah followed Vincent back to the living room.
Carmine lay motionless beneath the sheets, his eyes open and fixed on the ceiling.
When Norah approached, he turned his head.
"I owe your mother an apology."
She folded her arms.
"You're going to need more than an apology."
A faint, humorless smile crossed his face.
"Yes. I suppose I am."
He motioned for Vincent to close the door.
Then he looked at Norah.
"The man who ordered the fire is still alive."
"Who?"
Carmine's lips trembled.
"Your father."
Norah felt the room tilt.
"That's impossible. My father is—"
"Not dead," Carmine whispered. "Not missing. Not a stranger."
He reached toward her with a shaking hand.
"Your father is the man who has been standing beside Vincent for the last fifteen years."
Vincent stopped breathing.
Outside the room, a familiar voice called out.
"Boss? We need to talk."
It belonged to Daniel Cross.
The same man who had stood at Evelyn's funeral.
May you like
And the man Vincent had trusted with every secret in his empire.
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