Chapter 8 - THE DAUGHTER NO ONE REMEMBERED
I refused to believe it.
“My name has always been Elena Ruiz.”
Richard shook his head.
“Your father changed it after a legal dispute. The documents were sealed, but I remember the case.”
“What dispute?”
He looked at Dominic.
“I think the two of you need to hear this together.”
According to Richard, my mother had once been married to a man named Thomas Moretti, a distant cousin of Dominic's father. Their marriage had ended before I was born, and my mother had later married the man I remembered as my father.
But the records contained a discrepancy.
Thomas Moretti had died before my birth.
The court file listed me as his posthumous daughter.
I stared at Richard.
“Are you saying I'm related to Dominic?”
“By blood, possibly. But we need proper records before drawing conclusions.”
Dominic stepped back.
For the first time since meeting Lily, he looked genuinely frightened.
If I were related to him, our relationship would have been built on a truth neither of us knew.
I felt ill.
“No,” I whispered. “My mother would have told me.”
“Perhaps she intended to,” Richard said gently. “Perhaps she believed the name change was the safest option.”
Dominic called his attorney.
Within an hour, we had access to the sealed court records.
The documents confirmed that my mother had briefly been married to Thomas Moretti before meeting my stepfather. Thomas had died in an accident when I was an infant.
But one page was missing.
The page that identified my biological father.
My mother was too weak to answer questions when we visited her that evening. She listened as I explained what Richard had found, then began to cry.
“I never wanted you to grow up surrounded by that family,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Because I knew what they were capable of.”
“Was Thomas my father?”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
The room fell silent.
Dominic sat in a chair near the window, his face unreadable.
I looked at my mother.
“Then what happened between us six years ago?”
She took my hand.
“You and Dominic are not related. Thomas was a cousin of Dominic's father, but he was not a blood relative of the branch you feared. The court records were altered to protect you from a different dispute.”
Richard examined the documents again.
The missing page had been deliberately removed from the official copy.
The original record, stored in an archive, identified Thomas as the legal father but contained a separate biological declaration.
My mother had never seen the declaration.
Neither had I.
Dominic arranged for a DNA test through an independent laboratory, using samples he provided voluntarily and one of mine from a medical record with my consent.
The results arrived three days later.
We were not close biological relatives.
But the test revealed something else.
Lily was indeed Dominic's daughter.
There had never been any doubt about that.
The revelation brought relief, but it did not explain why someone had altered my childhood records.
Then Richard called.
He had discovered that the name change had been requested by a lawyer who later represented Anthony Moretti.
The same lawyer had handled the paperwork surrounding Anthony's supposed death.
We met him at his office.
He was elderly, frightened, and clearly unprepared for the questions we brought.
“I was told the records needed to be sealed for the child's protection,” he said.
“Who told you?” Dominic demanded.
The lawyer looked down.
“Your father.”
Dominic's expression hardened.
“Why?”
“Because Thomas had discovered the Northstar transfers. He believed someone in the family had used his identity to authorize transactions he never approved.”
My mother had been protecting me from a financial crime that had begun before I was born.
The man who raised me had died trying to uncover it.
And the man I had loved had unknowingly been part of the same family secret.
When we returned to the car, Dominic held the door open for me.
“I know this has been difficult,” he said.
“Difficult doesn't begin to cover it.”
“I won't ask you to trust me just because the test says Lily is my daughter.”
I looked at him.
“Good.”
“But I want to earn it.”
For the first time, I believed he understood what that would require.
Then his phone rang.
His security chief had found Anthony.
He was at the Moretti family cemetery.
May you like
Standing beside the grave bearing his own name.
And he was waiting for Dominic.
