Chapter 7 - The Second Result
For several seconds nobody moved.
Marcus looked at Veronica's stomach as if the answer might somehow still be there six years later.
"What second result?"
"I don't know."
Giovanni opened files from the drive.
Most were encrypted.
Raymond sat beside him.
Together they began breaking through old folders while Marcus stood beside Veronica.
"Did anything unusual happen during your pregnancy?"
"Everything was unusual."
"Medical complications?"
"No."
"Twins?"
Her eyes widened.
"No."
Marcus immediately regretted asking.
Amelia appeared from behind the chair.
"Was I supposed to have a twin?"
"No," Veronica said quickly.
Giovanni looked up.
"Found it."
The room silenced.
The second test had nothing to do with another baby.
It was Veronica.
Her DNA.
Marcus frowned.
"Why test Veronica?"
Giovanni opened another document.
Then stopped.
"What?"
Giovanni looked at her.
"Your father was Daniel Thompson?"
Veronica stiffened.
"Yes."
Marcus knew almost nothing about her father.
"He died when I was twelve."
Giovanni slowly turned the screen.
A photograph showed a younger Vittorio Duca standing beside Daniel Thompson.
Not as employer and employee.
As partners.
Veronica stared.
"My father knew yours?"
Marcus read the accompanying records.
Daniel Thompson had once worked as a forensic accountant.
Twenty years earlier, he had discovered hidden Duca accounts tied to Vittorio's illegal operations.
But instead of exposing them, Daniel had helped restructure them.
Then he'd tried to leave.
Three months later, he died in what police called a highway accident.
Veronica covered her mouth.
"No."
Marcus felt sick.
"Your father may have had evidence against mine."
Giovanni nodded.
"Vittorio believed Daniel hid it before he died."
"And he thought Veronica knew where."
"Exactly."
Suddenly everything changed again.
Veronica had not been hired accidentally.
She had been brought into the Duca mansion.
Watched.
Studied.
Her employment itself had been a trap.
"My mother told me I got that job because someone recommended me."
Giovanni nodded.
"Father arranged it."
Veronica sat down.
Marcus crouched before her.
"Look at me."
She couldn't.
"Veronica."
Finally she did.
"I didn't know."
"I know."
"I swear—"
"I know."
This time she believed him.
It was the first uncomplicated trust between them in six years.
Giovanni continued reading.
"Catherine thought Daniel's evidence passed to Veronica. Vittorio kept her close hoping she'd reveal it."
"But I didn't even know it existed."
"Maybe your mother did."
Veronica's head snapped up.
Her mother.
Ruth Thompson.
The woman who asked questions without speaking.
The woman who had begged Veronica not to take the Duca job.
Veronica grabbed her phone.
No answer.
She called again.
Nothing.
Danielle.
No answer.
Fear exploded.
"We need to go."
Marcus stood.
"Where?"
"My mother's."
They reached the Thompson home twenty-eight minutes later.
The front door was open.
Veronica ran.
Marcus caught her arm.
"Behind me."
"My mother is inside."
"Which is exactly why you're behind me."
For once, she obeyed.
The house was empty.
Drawers opened.
Pictures removed.
The place had been searched.
Veronica found her mother's phone smashed beneath the kitchen table.
"Mama?"
Nothing.
Marcus's men swept upstairs.
No blood.
No bodies.
Then Amelia noticed something.
"Mom."
Veronica turned.
"What?"
"Grandma's clock is wrong."
A wooden clock hung above the refrigerator.
4:17.
It had stopped years earlier, but Ruth refused to replace it because Daniel had bought it.
"It always says 8:12," Amelia said.
Veronica stared.
She took the clock down.
Something rattled.
Marcus opened the back.
Inside was a key.
And a note.
V, if the Ducas ever come looking, go to Union Station. Locker 3103. Trust the one who admits what he did, not the one who claims innocence.
Veronica read it twice.
Marcus looked at Giovanni.
Giovanni looked back.
One admitted framing Veronica.
The other claimed he had not known.
Trust the one who admits what he did.
Giovanni.
Marcus understood immediately.
Veronica did too.
"No."
Giovanni whispered, "Your mother knew."
"Knew what?"
"That Marcus would eventually find you."
Veronica's hands shook.
They went to Union Station.
Locker 3103 contained one battered leather briefcase.
Inside were accounting records, photographs, recordings, and a handwritten journal belonging to Daniel Thompson.
Enough evidence to explain two decades of Duca history.
But one item mattered more.
A letter addressed to Veronica.
She opened it.
Daniel had known he might die.
He wrote that Vittorio Duca had become obsessed with controlling the family empire and that Catherine had helped him hide crimes even from Marcus and Giovanni.
Then came the sentence that made Veronica stop.
If anything happens to me, Ruth knows the truth. She also knows Marcus Duca is not his father's son in the ways that matter. Do not judge the boy for Vittorio's sins.
Marcus read it.
Boy.
Daniel had written the letter when Marcus was twenty.
Before Marcus became the man Veronica knew.
At the bottom was another line.
Catherine will eventually come for these records. If she does, she will use whatever you love most.
Veronica looked at Amelia.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Marcus answered before she could.
Catherine's voice came through.
"Marcus."
"Where is Ruth?"
"Alive."
Veronica grabbed the phone.
"Let me talk to her."
"Bring the briefcase."
"If you've hurt my mother—"
"Midnight. Old Duca textile warehouse."
Marcus took the phone.
"You're not getting the records."
Catherine laughed.
"I don't need all of them."
"What do you need?"
"One page."
"Which?"
"The page proving Vittorio ordered Daniel Thompson's death."
Veronica stared at Marcus.
Catherine continued.
"Because if that page becomes public, the Duca empire collapses."
Marcus looked at Veronica.
Then at Amelia.
For most of his adult life, the empire had been everything.
His father's legacy.
His name.
His power.
Marcus answered without hesitation.
"Then let it collapse."
Veronica stared at him.
Catherine went silent.
Marcus continued.
"You can have every page. You can have every account, every building, every dollar with my father's name attached."
His eyes remained on Amelia.
"But you don't get them."
Catherine's voice hardened.
"Midnight."
The call ended.
Veronica whispered, "You'd give it all up?"
Marcus looked at her.
"I already lost six years because I valued the wrong things."
May you like
He glanced at Amelia.
"I'm not losing another night."
