Chapter 10 - THE TWO CHILDREN AND THE FINAL SECRET
The video went black.
Nobody moved.
Daniel stared at the empty screen.
“Tell me he was lying.”
I looked toward Victoria.
She had been standing silently near the fireplace.
“Is it true?”
She didn't answer.
“Victoria.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Your father was not the man who raised you.”
I felt my hands go cold.
“What?”
She lowered herself into a chair.
“Your mother had an affair before she married your father. She became pregnant, but your father accepted you as his own.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“He loved you, Charles. He raised you as his son. He never treated you differently.”
“Who was my biological father?”
Victoria looked toward the photograph of the newborn twins.
“Samuel Cross.”
The room fell silent.
Daniel stepped backward.
“So he's my grandfather?”
Victoria nodded.
“And yours, Lyla.”
I couldn't breathe.
The man who had spent twenty years manipulating the Whitmore family was not merely an attorney.
He was the biological grandfather of my children.
And he had orchestrated the events that destroyed our lives.
“Why?” I asked.
Victoria looked down.
“Your father wanted to give you control of the company. Samuel believed the family fortune belonged to him. He had spent decades managing your grandfather's investments and thought he deserved everything.”
“And Sophia?”
“She discovered that he was stealing money. She threatened to expose him.”
I looked at Daniel.
“That's why she died?”
Victoria nodded.
“Samuel ordered the accident. Richard helped arrange it. Your father discovered the truth afterward and tried to protect the children.”
“By hiding them?”
“He believed that was the only way.”
I turned away.
For years, I had blamed myself for losing my sister.
I had blamed fate for losing my ability to walk.
I had blamed my father for not doing enough.
But the truth was that almost everyone around me had been part of a carefully constructed lie.
I looked at Evelyn.
“Why did you never tell me?”
She approached slowly.
“Because I was afraid. Every time I tried to come back, someone threatened Lyla. When I discovered Daniel existed, I tried to find him too. But Richard had already taken him.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Were you the one who sent me the photograph?”
She nodded.
“I wanted you to know you weren't alone.”
He lowered his head.
For the first time, I saw the anger in his expression give way to grief.
Then Lyla stepped between us.
“Can we stop being sad now?”
Nobody answered.
She looked at me.
“You said we were a family.”
I knelt carefully.
My legs still hurt, and standing for long periods remained difficult. The doctors had warned me that recovery would take time.
But I was standing.
And I had no intention of wasting another day.
I held out my arms.
Lyla ran into them.
Daniel hesitated.
Then he joined us.
Evelyn wrapped her arms around all three of us.
For the first time in twenty years, I held my sister.
And for the first time in my life, I held both my children.
But Samuel Cross was still out there.
Marcus entered the room.
“Sir, we've located him.”
“Where?”
“His private residence in Connecticut.”
“Send a team.”
“Already done.”
He hesitated.
“There's something else. We found Richard Ashford's body.”
I closed my eyes.
“Confirmed?”
“Yes.”
I looked toward Victoria.
“Then Samuel is our last witness.”
Marcus nodded.
But before we could leave, the estate's security system sounded.
A message had appeared on the main monitor.
PRIVATE CALL — NO IDENTIFICATION
Marcus answered through the speaker.
A woman's voice filled the room.
“Charles?”
I froze.
I knew that voice.
It was soft, familiar, and impossible.
“Who is this?”
A pause.
Then the woman spoke again.
“It's Sophia.”
Daniel dropped the photograph.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
I stepped toward the monitor.
“That's not possible.”
“I know what they told you,” she whispered. “But they lied about more than my death.”
I felt my heart pounding.
“Where are you?”
“I can't tell you yet.”
“Are you alive?”
Silence.
Then she said:
“Charles, listen carefully. Samuel isn't the man you need to fear most.”
I stared at the screen.
“Who is?”
Her voice trembled.
“Your father.”
I couldn't move.
“My father is dead.”
“I know. But before he died, he left something behind. Something that proves he planned all of this.”
The call began breaking up.
“Sophia, wait!”
Her final words came through.
“Find the third watch.”
The screen went black.
I looked at the gold watch Lyla had brought to the gala.
Then I remembered something.
My father had owned a third family watch.
One I had never seen.
One that had disappeared from his study the night he died.
I turned toward Victoria.
“Where is it?”
She looked genuinely terrified.
“I don't know.”
But Daniel was staring at the photograph of Sophia.
He slowly turned it over.
There was a faint handwritten message on the back that none of us had noticed before.
The third watch is with the child who was never supposed to be born.
Daniel looked up.
“Charles?”
I turned.
He was holding another document.
A hospital record.
It listed three newborns, not two.
Three children.
The third child's name had been blacked out.
And beside the entry was a handwritten note.
Transferred under the authority of Samuel Cross.
I stared at the paper.
Lyla.
Daniel.
And a third child.
Somewhere in America, another member of my family had been living under a false identity for twenty years.
I looked at the two children beside me.
“I promise you,” I said quietly, “I'm going to find the truth.”
For once, I wasn't making that promise as a billionaire.
I was making it as a father.
Outside, the sun was rising over Manhattan.
The family I thought I had lost was finally beginning to come together.
But as Marcus collected the documents, his phone vibrated.
He checked the message.
Then his face changed.
“Sir…”
“What is it?”
He turned the screen toward me.
A photograph showed a young woman standing outside our estate.
She had the same eyes as Evelyn.
The same smile as Sophia.
And she was wearing an antique gold watch.
Beneath the photograph were seven words.
I know what happened to the third child.
I stared at the screen.
May you like
Then the woman sent one final message.
And I'm not coming alone.
