Chapter 4 - Bloodlines and BetrayalMarcus got Elena out through the rear service corridor with one torn sleeve and a bullet grazing his shoulder.
Two of Alejandro’s guards were wounded.
One attacker escaped.
Another was captured.
The third died before he could be questioned.
But Isabella was gone.
By the time Alejandro heard what had happened, every gate at the estate was locked.
He stood in the study while a doctor stitched Marcus’s shoulder.
“You heard Isabella?”
Marcus nodded.
“I’d swear to it.”
Alejandro turned toward Elena.
She still held Daniel’s letter.
“What else did he write?”
Elena’s face had gone gray.
“This isn’t the time.”
“If Isabella tried to kill you for it, it’s exactly the time.”
Elena looked toward the hallway.
Sophie was asleep upstairs under guard.
Then Elena gave him the letter.
Alejandro read.
Once.
Twice.
Then a third time.
His eyes stopped on the final paragraph.
“That’s impossible.”
Elena said nothing.
“I would remember.”
“Daniel wrote that we were both drugged.”
Alejandro walked to the fireplace.
Memories returned in fragments.
The charity fundraiser four years earlier.
A headache after his second drink.
Sebastian insisting he should rest in a private suite.
A woman crying somewhere.
Waking before dawn with blood on his knuckles and no memory of the previous six hours.
Sebastian told him two men attacked him.
Doctors found sedatives in his bloodstream.
He had believed the attack was intended to rob him.
“Where were you?” he asked.
Elena swallowed.
“At the same hotel.”
“What do you remember?”
“Very little.”
Her voice trembled.
“I was catering the event. Someone handed me champagne. I remember feeling dizzy. I remember trying to find an elevator.”
She looked down.
“Then nothing until morning.”
Alejandro felt sick.
If they had been drugged and manipulated into the same room, neither had consented.
Whatever had happened was not romance.
It was a crime committed against both of them.
“We need a DNA test,” Elena said.
“Yes.”
“But Sophie doesn’t learn any of this unless we’re certain.”
“Agreed.”
“And if you are her father, you don’t suddenly decide you own her.”
Alejandro stared at her.
“Is that what you think I would do?”
“I don’t know you.”
That answer hurt more than it should have.
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
The DNA test was arranged privately.
Alejandro provided a sample.
Elena used Sophie’s toothbrush rather than frighten her.
Marcus personally transported both samples to a laboratory unaffiliated with Moretti businesses.
Results would take forty-eight hours.
Meanwhile, Isabella vanished.
Sebastian remained in New York.
Alejandro invited him to dinner.
Marcus hated the idea.
“It’s reckless.”
“It’s necessary.”
“You already know he poisoned you.”
“I know what he did. I don’t know why.”
Sebastian arrived at eight.
Alejandro poured whiskey.
He did not drink.
Neither did Sebastian.
They sat opposite one another.
“You’ve been distant,” Sebastian said.
“I nearly died.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it tends to affect a man’s mood.”
Sebastian laughed softly.
Then Alejandro placed a photograph on the table.
Daniel Carter entering North Atlantic Freight.
Sebastian’s expression barely changed.
“Accountant.”
“You knew him?”
“Maybe.”
“He died.”
“So?”
Alejandro placed another photograph.
Sebastian meeting Daniel in a parking garage.
Now Sebastian stopped smiling.
Alejandro leaned back.
“My accountant died. I nearly died. My sister disappeared.”
Sebastian’s eyes sharpened.
“Isabella disappeared?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“No.”
“Interesting.”
Sebastian stood.
“I don’t like this conversation.”
“You’re not supposed to.”
He headed for the door.
Alejandro said, “Sit down.”
Sebastian stopped.
For the first time since childhood, the two men looked at each other like enemies.
“You don’t order me,” Sebastian said quietly.
Alejandro’s voice dropped.
“I just did.”
Sebastian turned.
“After everything I’ve done for you?”
“Name one thing.”
“I buried bodies beside you.”
“You buried problems you helped create.”
“I protected this family.”
“You poisoned my wine.”
Silence.
Sebastian’s face emptied.
Alejandro placed the hidden-camera still on the table.
Sebastian looked at it.
Then laughed.
A small, exhausted laugh.
“You finally found it.”
Marcus and six armed men stepped from surrounding rooms.
Sebastian did not reach for a weapon.
Alejandro stared.
“Why?”
Sebastian looked almost disappointed.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
“Your father ruined mine.”
“Our fathers were brothers.”
“Exactly.”
Sebastian leaned forward.
“My father built half the business your father inherited. Then your father pushed him out and called it restructuring.”
“That happened before we were born.”
“And we inherited the consequences.”
“You tried to murder me over inheritance?”
“No.”
Sebastian smiled.
“I tried to murder you because you were about to discover what Isabella and I built.”
“The drug network.”
Sebastian’s expression flickered.
Alejandro noticed.
“So that part is true.”
Sebastian sat back.
“You have no idea what you’re sitting on, Alex. Ports. Trucks. customs officials. Political contacts. Your father built an empire and you spent ten years trying to make pieces of it legitimate.”
“That was the point.”
“No. The point was power.”
Alejandro stood.
“Where is Isabella?”
Sebastian said nothing.
Alejandro moved closer.
“Where is my sister?”
Sebastian smiled.
“She’s not running from you.”
“What does that mean?”
“She’s waiting for something.”
“For what?”
Sebastian’s gaze shifted toward the ceiling.
Toward the floor above.
Toward the bedroom where Sophie slept.
Alejandro’s blood turned cold.
He grabbed Sebastian by the collar.
“What does Isabella want with Sophie?”
Sebastian laughed again.
“You still haven’t figured it out.”
Marcus struck him across the jaw.
“Talk.”
Sebastian spat blood.
“Four years ago, Isabella needed leverage.”
Alejandro went still.
“She arranged the gala.”
Elena appeared in the doorway.
She had heard.
Sebastian looked at her.
“The drugs in your glasses. The hotel room. All of it.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Alejandro looked ready to kill him.
Sebastian continued quickly.
“She wanted an heir she could control.”
“What?”
“If Alejandro died without children, ownership of several family trusts transferred to Isabella.”
He smiled at Alejandro.
“But if he had a child whose existence only she knew about... she had something even better.”
Elena whispered, “Sophie.”
Sebastian nodded.
“Daniel discovered the medical records.”
Alejandro’s fists clenched.
“Did Isabella know Elena became pregnant?”
“Eventually.”
“Why didn’t she take Sophie?”
“Because Daniel figured out enough to scare her. He hid evidence. He told her if anything happened to his family, everything would reach federal authorities.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“So she killed him.”
Sebastian looked away.
That was answer enough.
Alejandro lunged.
Marcus caught him.
“Not now!”
Alejandro roared, “She murdered him!”
Sebastian shouted back, “I DID!”
Everything stopped.
Elena stared.
Sebastian’s face crumpled for the first time.
“Isabella ordered it.”
His voice broke.
“But I arranged the crash.”
Elena crossed the room and slapped him.
Hard.
Sebastian accepted it.
“You took my husband.”
“Yes.”
“You took Sophie’s father.”
Sebastian looked toward Alejandro.
“No.”
Elena’s hand dropped.
Sebastian whispered, “I took the man who chose to be her father.”
The distinction shattered her.
Hours later Sebastian was placed in a secured basement room.
Alejandro wanted him alive.
He wanted Isabella.
At 3:14 a.m., Marcus’s phone rang.
The lab.
The technician had expedited the result.
Marcus read silently.
Then looked toward Alejandro and Elena.
“Probability of biological paternity: 99.9997 percent.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Alejandro sat down.
Neither spoke.
Upstairs, tiny footsteps sounded.
Sophie appeared at the top of the staircase in pajamas, hugging Mr. Buttons.
“Mommy?”
Elena hurried toward her.
Sophie looked past her.
At Alejandro.
“Why is everybody awake?”
Alejandro could barely answer.
“Bad dreams.”
Sophie came down two more steps.
Then held out her rabbit toward him.
“Mr. Buttons helps.”
Alejandro looked at his daughter.
His daughter.
And for the first time in years, the most feared man in New York felt tears gather in his eyes.
Before he could respond, the mansion’s alarms began screaming.
Marcus spun.
A guard shouted through the radio.
“BREACH AT THE EAST GATE!”
Another voice followed.
“Vehicle incoming!”
May you like
Then an explosion shook the windows.
Isabella had come home.
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