PART 2: THE MAN WHO LEFT THEM TO DIE
The pH๏τograph trembled slightly in my hand.
Not because I was afraid.
Because the man behind the wheel was someone I had trusted with my life.
Adrian Vance.
My younger brother.
For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
Adrian had disappeared eighteen months earlier after a shipment went missing. I’d been told he’d moved to Europe to start a legitimate business. I’d even sent him money to make sure he could live comfortably.
Now his face was staring back at me from a pH๏τograph taken outside my warehouse.
And he’d been driving the vehicle that dumped a dying woman and two newborn babies in the snow.
“Where is he?” I asked.
My security chief, Marco, swallowed.
“We tracked the vehicle to a private property outside Naperville. It was abandoned two hours ago.”
“Find him.”
“Already sending men.”
“No.” I looked at him. “Find out who helped him. I want every name, every phone call, every payment.”
Marco nodded.
Then I glanced toward the bedroom.
“Nobody tells her until I know what happened.”
The woman was awake when I returned.
She was sitting against the pillows, holding one of the twins against her chest while Rebecca carefully checked the baby’s temperature.
The other little girl slept in a bᴀssinet beside the bed.
When I entered, the woman immediately stiffened.
I stopped several feet away.
“May I come in?”
She looked confused.
Then she nodded.
I placed the pH๏τograph on the bedside table.
“Do you recognize this man?”
Her entire body went rigid.
The baby began fussing.
She pulled the blanket closer around her daughter.
“Where did you get that?”
“He was driving the vehicle that brought you to my warehouse.”
She looked at the pH๏τograph again.
Then she whispered:
“Adrian.”
“You know him?”
She nodded.
A tear slid down her cheek.
“He’s the father of my children.”
I felt something тιԍнтen in my chest.
“What’s your name?”
She hesitated.
“Isabella.”
“Isabella what?”
“Isabella Moretti.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But the expression on her face told me she had been waiting for someone to recognize it.
“How long have you known my brother?”
“Three years.”
“And the babies?”
She looked down.
“They’re his daughters.”
I stared at her.
“Why would my brother leave his own children to die?”
Isabella began shaking.
“Because he doesn’t believe they’re his.”
I frowned.
“What?”
She looked at me with exhausted eyes.
“His father told him they weren’t.”
I leaned forward.
“His father?”
“Your father, Elias.”
The room seemed to lose its air.
My father, Victor Vance, had been ᴅᴇᴀᴅ for eleven years.
Or so I had believed.
I looked at Rebecca.
She quietly stepped outside, leaving the door slightly open.
Then I turned back to Isabella.
“Tell me everything.”
Isabella took a shaky breath.
“Adrian and I met in Boston. He was using another name. He told me he worked in international shipping.”
I said nothing.
“He was kind to me. He never spoke about his family, and I never asked. I was working as a medical ᴀssistant at a private clinic. We fell in love.”
She paused to adjust the blanket around the baby.
“When I discovered I was pregnant, he was happy. He said he wanted to marry me.”
“Then what happened?”
“About two months later, a man came to my apartment. He said he was Adrian’s uncle. He told me Adrian had been arrested and that I needed to disappear before I became involved in his family’s business.”
My jaw тιԍнтened.
“Did he give you a name?”
“Victor.”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so, too. I had seen your father’s pH๏τograph in Adrian’s apartment. The man who came to see me looked exactly like him.”
I gripped the arm of my chair.
“What did he want?”
“He offered me money to leave. I refused. Then he showed me pH๏τographs of Adrian with another woman and said Adrian had never intended to marry me.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I didn’t believe him. I tried calling Adrian, but his number was disconnected.”
“And you were beaten?”
Her breathing became uneven.
“Not immediately. They took me to a house outside the city. They told me Adrian had chosen his family over me. They wanted me to sign a document saying the babies belonged to someone else.”
I stared at her.
“Someone else?”
She nodded.
“They said the children were heirs to a property trust. They wanted me to give up all parental rights.”
“Who were they?”
“I don’t know. Men who worked for your father. One of them called himself Mr. Cross.”
She swallowed.
“When I refused, they started hurting me.”
My hands curled into fists.
“How long?”
“Almost three weeks.”
I looked at the marks on her arms.
“Who helped you escape?”
“No one.”
She looked toward the twins.
“One night, I heard them arguing. They said the babies were going to be taken away. They said I was no longer useful.”
Her voice broke.
“I managed to get out through a basement window. I ran until I couldn’t feel my feet. I didn’t know where I was going.”
She looked at me.
“Then I saw your warehouse.”
I remembered the blood in the snow.
The tiny bodies beneath her coat.
“Why did they leave you there?”
Isabella looked terrified.
“Because they wanted you to find me.”
I went still.
“Why?”
She looked directly at me.
“Because they knew you would recognize Adrian’s car. They wanted you to think he had betrayed you.”
I stared at her.
“Why would someone want me to fight my own brother?”
Isabella’s lips trembled.
“Because your brother isn’t the one who ordered them to hurt me.”
She reached beneath her pillow and pulled out a small plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a silver signet ring.
My father’s ring.
I recognized the engraved V immediately.
“Where did you get that?”
“One of the men dropped it when I escaped.”
I picked it up.
There was a tiny scratch across the engraved crest.
I remembered that scratch.
I had made it when I was seventeen, during an argument with my father.
My blood turned cold.
“Victor is alive,” I whispered.
Isabella nodded.
“He never died.”
I left the room and went straight to my office.
Marco was waiting.
“Boss?”
I placed the ring on the desk.
“Find my father.”
Marco stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
“Then make the impossible happen.”
He picked up the ring carefully.
“Are you certain?”
“I know my father’s belongings. I know his handwriting. I know his face. And I know that ring.”
Marco lowered his voice.
“If Victor is alive, the entire organization could be compromised.”
I looked at him.
“It already is.”
I walked to the window.
For eleven years, I had built my empire believing I was carrying on my father’s legacy.
I’d expanded his shipping business, taken control of his warehouses, and removed the men who had tried to challenge me.
But if Victor had been alive all this time, then every decision I’d made might have been part of someone else’s plan.
“Get me Adrian,” I said.
Marco nodded.
“And the woman?”
“Her name is Isabella. She and the girls stay here. Nobody questions them, nobody moves them, and nobody enters their rooms without Rebecca’s permission.”
“Understood.”
I turned.
“One more thing.”
“Yes, boss?”
“Find out what property trust Isabella was talking about.”
That evening, I returned to the nursery.
The twins were awake.
One was staring at the ceiling, moving her tiny fingers. The other was asleep against Isabella’s shoulder.
Rebecca had named them Baby A and Baby B on their medical charts, but Isabella finally told me their names.
“Lily and Grace.”
I smiled faintly.
“Beautiful names.”
She looked at me.
“I chose them before everything happened.”
I nodded.
“Then they’ll keep them.”
Isabella watched me for a moment.
“Why are you helping us?”
I looked at the two babies.
“Because someone left them to die on my property.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I met her eyes.
“Because they’re innocent. Because you protected them when you could barely stand. And because my brother’s name is on the vehicle that brought you here.”
She looked away.
“Adrian wasn’t always like this.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He loved music. He used to play piano for me. He talked about having a normal home, a garden, and children who wouldn’t grow up afraid of their own father.”
I listened.
“Do you still love him?” I asked.
She didn’t answer immediately.
Then she whispered:
“I love the man I knew. I don’t know who he is anymore.”
I understood more than I wanted to.
I had spent years believing power could protect the people I cared about.
Yet I had failed to protect my own family from a man who was supposed to be ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.
I looked at the sleeping twins.
“Whatever happens, they won’t grow up in fear.”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“Promise me something.”
“What?”
“If Adrian comes here, don’t let him take them.”
I nodded.
“He won’t take them without your consent.”
She seemed to relax slightly.
Then she reached for my hand.
“There’s something else I haven’t told you.”
I waited.
She glanced toward the nursery door.
“Before I escaped, I heard your father speaking to someone on the phone.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the twins had to be alive when they arrived at the warehouse.”
My stomach тιԍнтened.
“Why?”
She looked at me.
“Because he wanted a DNA test.”
At 11:30 p.m., Marco returned.
He had found Adrian.
My brother was being held at a private apartment in the city, guarded by two men who had once worked for my father.
I ordered them to bring him to the mansion.
When Adrian entered my office, I barely recognized him.
His face was bruised. His shirt was torn. His hands were trembling.
But he wasn’t looking at me.
He was looking at the pH๏τograph of Isabella and the twins on my desk.
“Where are they?” he demanded.
I remained seated.
“Alive.”
His eyes closed.
“Thank God.”
I studied him.
“You left your family in the snow.”
He shook his head violently.
“No.”
“Your car was at my warehouse.”
“I know.”
“You drove it there.”
“Yes, but—”
I slammed my palm against the desk.
“Then explain!”
Adrian flinched.
For several seconds, he couldn’t speak.
Finally, he looked at me.
“Father told me Isabella had been killed.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“He said she died during childbirth. He showed me a death certificate. He said the babies had been placed with another family because I wasn’t fit to raise them.”
I stood.
“And you believed him?”
Adrian’s eyes filled.
“He showed me pH๏τographs of a woman who looked like Isabella lying in a hospital bed. He told me she had died because of me.”
“Then why was your vehicle at the warehouse?”
“Because I found out the truth.”
He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket.
“I received a message three nights ago. It said Isabella was alive and that she had the original documents proving Father was stealing from the family trust.”
I took the paper.
It contained a location and a time.
“Who sent this?”
“I don’t know. I went to the warehouse because I was told she’d be there.”
“Was she?”
“No. Only the car was there. Someone had stolen it from the garage.”
I stared at him.
“You’re telling me you didn’t dump her there?”
Adrian shook his head.
“I swear on my life.”
I studied his face.
He looked terrified.
Not like a man who had been caught.
Like a man who had just discovered that his entire life had been manipulated.
Then he said something I hadn’t expected.
“Elias, Father has been looking for the twins for a reason.”
“What reason?”
Adrian swallowed.
“Their mother inherited something from her grandmother. A trust worth nearly two hundred million dollars.”
I leaned forward.
“Why would Isabella inherit that?”
“Because her grandmother was married to a man named Charles Vance before she married Isabella’s grandfather.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Charles Vance was my grandfather.
Adrian continued.
“The trust was created for the descendants of his first marriage. Isabella’s grandmother was the only surviving beneficiary. When she died, the inheritance pᴀssed to her grandchildren.”
I stared at him.
“Then the twins…”
“Are the legal heirs.”
The room went silent.
My father hadn’t been trying to destroy Isabella because she was Adrian’s girlfriend.
He had been trying to control the inheritance.
And the two newborn girls were the only people standing between him and nearly two hundred million dollars.
I looked at Adrian.
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“Because I didn’t know until three days ago.”
He lowered his head.
“I thought Father was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. I thought the family trust had been settled years ago.”
I studied him.
Then I asked:
“Who told you to go to the warehouse?”
Adrian reached into his coat and removed a second piece of paper.
This one contained a name.
MARCO DE LUCA.
My security chief.
I stared at it.
“Where did you get this?”
“From the man who sent me the message.”
My office door opened.
Marco stepped inside.
“Boss, we have a situation.”
I looked up.
“Close the door.”
He stopped.
His eyes moved to the paper in my hand.
Then to Adrian.
For the first time in fifteen years, Marco looked afraid.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
I placed the paper on the desk.
“Your name.”
He didn’t move.
Adrian stood.
“Tell him the truth, Marco.”
Marco’s hand drifted toward his jacket.
I raised my pistol.
“Don’t.”
He froze.
Then, from somewhere down the hall, a baby began crying.
All three of us turned toward the nursery.
Marco looked at me.
“Boss, you don’t understand. Those children are not safe here.”
I тιԍнтened my grip on the gun.
“Why?”
He looked directly at me.
“Because your father is already inside the house.”
A moment later, the lights went out.
And through the darkness came an old man’s voice.
“Elias, my son. It’s time we discussed what belongs to this family.”
END OF PART 2
