Chapter 9 - THE WEDDING THAT NEVER HAPPENED
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The chapel stood on a wooded property outside the city, its stone walls covered in ivy and its windows boarded shut.
Vincent and I arrived shortly before midnight.
He had insisted on coming with me despite the demand that I come alone. I had insisted that he leave his men far enough away not to be seen.
Neither of us intended to give Malcolm Voss exactly what he wanted.
Inside, candlelight flickered across the old pews.
Isabella sat at the altar, her hands tied but her face lifted defiantly. Beside her stood Malcolm Voss, an elderly man with silver hair and a silver ring on his right hand.
Vanessa waited near the doorway.
Her face was pale, and the expensive confidence she had worn at the engagement party was gone.
“You should have accepted the ten million dollars,” she told me. “You could have left New York and never learned any of this.”
“I'd rather know the truth.”
“Truth doesn't make you happy.”
“No. But lies make me someone else's prisoner.”
Vanessa looked away.
For the first time, I wondered whether she had ever been happy herself.
Voss held out his hand.
“The ledger.”
“We don't have it,” Vincent said.
“Then the recording.”
“Gone.”
Voss sighed.
“You've become disappointingly predictable, Vincent.”
He turned toward me.
“But you have something I want.”
I touched the silver ring in my pocket.
“The ring?”
“The ring is a key. It opens a compartment in the altar. Inside is the last document Anthony Moretti failed to destroy.”
I walked toward the altar, but Vincent caught my wrist.
“Don't.”
Voss smiled.
“Still trying to protect her. Richard would have been proud.”
Vincent went completely still.
“You knew my biological father.”
“I worked for him before Anthony took everything.”
“Then why help Anthony murder him?”
Voss's smile vanished.
“Because Richard believed people deserved the truth. Anthony believed the truth belonged to whoever had the power to control it. I chose the man who paid me.”
I felt a wave of disgust.
“And you helped him target my mother?”
“I helped him preserve an empire.”
“You helped him destroy lives.”
Voss shrugged.
“History rarely remembers the difference.”
I inserted the ring into a small opening beneath the altar.
A hidden compartment slid open.
Inside was a sealed envelope, a hospital bracelet, and a photograph of two newborn babies lying in adjacent bassinets.
One bracelet read GRACE ELIZABETH MITCHELL.
The other read VINCENT RICHARD COLE.
The names were unmistakable.
But the photograph had a handwritten note on the back.
The children were never switched.
I looked at Vincent.
Voss laughed softly.
“Anthony didn't need to switch babies. He simply stole one and falsified the records. Richard's son was Vincent all along. Grace was Elizabeth's daughter, and Richard's biological child as well.”
My knees weakened.
Vincent was Richard's son.
I was Richard's daughter.
We shared the same biological father.
The laboratory report Vanessa had sent was not the lie I had first suspected. Its claim that Anthony was my father was false, but the danger of our connection had been real.
Vincent and I stared at each other in horror.
Then Isabella spoke.
“Not so fast.”
Everyone turned.
She had worked one hand free and was holding a small recording device.
“Anthony falsified more than the birth records,” she said. “He arranged the evidence to make sure no one could tell which child belonged to which mother.”
Voss drew his weapon.
“Give me that.”
Isabella pressed the button.
Anthony's voice filled the chapel.
“Richard's son stays with me. Elizabeth's daughter stays with Elizabeth. If either child learns the truth, the other becomes leverage.”
The recording continued.
Voss's voice answered, “And if the children ever meet?”
“Then we make sure they believe they're related. Fear is cheaper than loyalty.”
The recording ended.
Vincent looked at Voss with a fury so deep it seemed to drain the air from the room.
“You fabricated the family connection.”
“I didn't fabricate anything,” Voss snapped. “Anthony did. I merely ensured the records survived.”
“Why?”
“Because your father was right about one thing. The truth is useful only when someone powerful can control it.”
Vanessa suddenly lunged toward the altar.
She grabbed the envelope and ran for the side door.
I followed.
She reached the chapel steps before I caught her arm.
“Let go!”
“Give me the envelope.”
“You don't understand what he'll do to me!”
“Then help us stop him.”
She stared at me, breathing hard.
For a moment, I thought she might surrender.
Instead, she struck me across the face and shoved me toward the stone railing.
I lost my balance.
Vincent appeared in the doorway just as I fell.
He caught my wrist.
The impact dragged him to his knees, his injured side screaming beneath the bandage.
“Grace!”
He hauled me back onto the steps.
Vanessa fled into the darkness.
Voss had disappeared from the chapel.
And Isabella stood at the altar, holding the final document.
She opened it with shaking fingers.
The document wasn't a birth certificate.
It was a marriage record.
Dated twenty-six years earlier.
Signed by Elizabeth Mitchell and Richard Cole.
And beneath their names was a second signature.
Anthony Moretti, Witness.
Vincent stared at it.
“My father witnessed their marriage?”
Isabella nodded.
“He knew Richard was Grace's father. He knew Vincent was Richard's son. And he spent twenty-five years ensuring neither of you would ever discover the truth.”
I looked toward the dark road where Vanessa had vanished.
“Why would he want to keep us apart?”
Isabella's face crumpled.
“Because Richard left his entire fortune to his biological children.”
Vincent looked at the document again.
“And the fortune is still out there?”
“Yes,” Isabella whispered.
“But Anthony didn't hide it for himself.”
She turned the final page.
At the bottom was a list of beneficiaries.
Two names.
Grace Mitchell.
Vincent Richard Cole.
And beneath them, in handwriting that made Isabella begin to cry, was a final instruction.
If both children are alive, tell them what happened to their mother.
Isabella looked at me.
“Grace, your mother didn't die from cancer alone.”
Then she turned to Vincent.
“And your mother wasn't killed in a car accident.”
A sound came from the chapel's rear entrance.
Slow applause.
Malcolm Voss stepped into the candlelight, holding a phone.
“You've finally found the truth,” he said.
“Unfortunately, you've found only half of it.”
He pressed a button.
A live video appeared on the screen.
A woman sat in a hospital bed, her face pale but unmistakably familiar.
My mother.
Older than the last photograph I had of her.
Alive.
May you like
Voss smiled.
“Now, Grace, let's discuss the price of getting her back.”
