Chapter 8 - THE FIRSTBORN HEIR
The announcement changed everything.
Luca's board members demanded an emergency meeting.
His attorneys warned him that the family trust could be challenged.
And men who had once bowed their heads when he entered a room suddenly began asking whether he was capable of protecting the empire.
But Luca wasn't thinking about the empire.
He was thinking about me.
"You're staying at the estate," he said.
I folded my arms.
"I'm not a prisoner."
"I'm trying to keep you alive."
"And I'm trying to be your wife, Luca. Not another secret you lock away."
He stared at me.
Then he sighed.
"You're right."
He took my hand.
"I'm sorry."
It was the first time I'd heard him apologize without making excuses.
That afternoon, Victoria arrived.
She looked exhausted.
But she had brought something.
A sealed recording.
"My father made this before he died," she explained.
Luca inserted the drive into his computer.
The video began.
His father appeared on screen.
Older.
Tired.
But unmistakably himself.
"If Luca is watching this, then Salvatore has finally made his move."
He paused.
"I need you to understand that I never wanted to hide the truth from you."
He explained that twelve years earlier, Salvatore had arranged the medical fraud to prevent Luca from producing an heir.
But there had been another complication.
Victoria had become pregnant before Luca's accident.
And during the chaos surrounding his hospitalization, the baby had disappeared.
The hospital claimed the child had died.
But Luca's father never believed it.
He discovered that a nurse had signed the transfer papers.
A nurse named Evelyn's mother.
My heart stopped.
Luca turned toward me.
I could barely speak.
The recording continued.
"My son, the child was not lost. Someone took him. And I believe that person was trying to secure control of the family trust."
The video ended.
Luca stood silently.
Victoria began crying.
"I thought my baby died."
My mother had been telling the truth.
She had helped move the child.
But she hadn't taken him to Salvatore.
She had hidden him.
To protect him.
"Where?" Luca demanded.
Victoria looked at my mother.
My mother lowered her head.
"With a family who couldn't have children."
"Who?"
She took a breath.
"The Bennetts."
I froze.
Bennett.
My father's surname.
My mother's former surname.
I looked at her.
"What are you saying?"
She began to cry.
"Evelyn, there is something I never told you about your birth."
The room seemed to tilt.
"You were adopted," she whispered.
I stared at her.
"No."
"I raised you as my daughter. I loved you as my daughter. But you weren't born to me."
I looked at Luca.
He was watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
My mother continued.
"Your biological mother was Victoria."
Victoria covered her mouth.
I couldn't move.
The woman sitting across the room was my birth mother.
And the man I had married was the father of the child I was carrying.
Luca stared at my mother.
"Then whose child is Evelyn?"
My mother whispered:
"Your father's firstborn."
Silence.
Twelve years ago, Victoria's baby had been taken.
The baby had been raised under another name.
And now that baby was sitting in Luca's living room.
His wife.
His father's firstborn child.
I looked at Luca.
He looked at me.
Neither of us spoke.
Then his phone rang.
The caller was Salvatore.
Luca answered.
His uncle's voice was calm.
"Congratulations, nephew. You've finally discovered the truth."
"Where are you?"
"That doesn't matter."
"What do you want?"
Salvatore laughed.
"I want you to understand something. Your marriage was never an accident."
My blood turned cold.
He continued.
"Your wife was selected for you long before you met her."
May you like
Then he said the words that destroyed the last piece of certainty I had.
"And the child she's carrying is the reason I allowed you to marry her."
