Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO HAD BEEN DEAD FOR TWENTY YEARS
Her name was Alessandra Fiero.
Rowan had attended her funeral at eleven years old.
He remembered the black dress she was buried in.
The closed white roses around the coffin.
His father standing so rigidly beside him that Rowan had mistaken grief for anger.
He remembered touching the polished wood and whispering goodbye.
Now a photograph said goodbye had been a lie.
Marcus traced the yacht registration within an hour.
It belonged to a trust based in Malta.
The trust connected to a villa outside Lugano, Switzerland.
And the villa had one resident listed under a false surname.
Alessandra Moretti.
Rowan stared at the report.
“She’s alive.”
Dalia sat across from him in a safe apartment he rarely used.
Doctor’s orders had been simple.
Rest.
Dalia had apparently interpreted that as sit while investigating international financial crimes.
Bobby slept beside the sofa, his head across her feet.
“You don’t have to look at it again,” she said.
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because if I stop looking, I’ll start remembering.”
She understood.
Memory could be crueler than evidence.
“Do you want to contact her?”
“No.”
That answer was immediate.
Dalia said nothing.
Rowan looked at her.
“You think I should.”
“I think you should do whatever keeps you from wondering for the next twenty years.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You always give people orders?”
“I manage households.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is to Mrs. Hargrove.”
He almost smiled.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown international number.
Everyone in the room went still.
Rowan answered.
“Hello?”
A woman spoke.
“My son.”
His entire body froze.
Dalia watched color leave his face.
The voice continued.
“You have your father’s habit of making silence threatening.”
Rowan found his own voice.
“You’re dead.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Rowan—”
“I stood beside your coffin.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You don’t get to start there.”
Dalia looked away.
The intimacy of pain deserved privacy.
But Rowan reached for her hand.
He didn’t look at her when he did it.
She let him hold on.
Alessandra spoke again.
“If Dominic knows you found the ledger, you are in danger.”
“He’s been poisoning me.”
Silence.
“So you know.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“From Switzerland?”
“I have watched from farther places.”
The admission nearly broke him.
“Why?”
“Because staying dead kept you alive.”
Rowan laughed once.
There was nothing amused in it.
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
Alessandra inhaled.
“Your father discovered Dominic was moving money through criminal partnerships without permission. Daniel’s father was involved. They were preparing to remove your father from the company.”
“Then what?”
“Your father confronted them. There was violence.”
“Specifics.”
“Dominic shot Daniel’s father.”
Dalia’s stomach dropped.
“Daniel knows?” she asked.
Alessandra heard.
“Who is that?”
“Dalia Ashford.”
Silence.
Then: “Daniel’s Dalia?”
Rowan’s eyes sharpened.
“You know her?”
“No. I know of her.”
Dalia went cold.
“How?”
“Daniel talked about you.”
“To whom?”
“My daughter.”
Rowan stood.
“What daughter?”
Another silence.
Too long.
His hand tightened around Dalia’s.
“Mother.”
Alessandra’s voice softened.
“Celeste.”
No one moved.
Rowan actually laughed.
It sounded broken.
“Celeste Marsh is my sister?”
“Half-sister.”
Dalia covered her mouth.
This changed everything.
The engagement.
The merger.
The manipulation.
The hidden mother.
“Who is her father?” Rowan asked.
“Edmund Marsh.”
“The man who raised Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“And you had a child with him after you supposedly died?”
Alessandra’s voice cracked.
“No.”
Rowan stopped.
“She was born before.”
He went completely still.
“Before what?”
“Before I married your father.”
The truth unfolded slowly.
Alessandra had been nineteen when she fell in love with Edmund Marsh.
Their families refused the match.
When she became pregnant, her father separated them and arranged for the baby to be raised privately by Edmund’s sister.
Alessandra later married Anthony Fiero.
Years passed.
Celeste grew up believing Edmund was her uncle.
Then the woman raising her died.
Edmund took Celeste into his home and presented her publicly as a distant relative before eventually claiming her as his daughter.
Daniel had grown up beside her.
Not knowing the truth at first.
“But Dominic knew,” Alessandra said.
“How?”
“He helped arrange everything.”
Rowan closed his eyes.
Of course.
Dominic knew everyone’s secrets.
That was how he built power.
“When did you fake your death?”
“After Anthony learned Celeste existed.”
Rowan’s head lifted.
“My father forced you out?”
“No. He wanted to bring her into the family.”
That surprised him.
“Then why?”
“Because Edmund threatened you.”
Rowan’s hand tightened.
“You were eleven.”
Alessandra began crying.
“He said if I tried to take Celeste, he would expose your father, destroy the Fiero company, and make sure you disappeared before you reached adulthood.”
“So you vanished.”
“I thought I could protect you from outside.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I know.”
“You let Father die believing you were gone?”
Silence.
“He knew.”
That hit harder.
“My father knew you were alive?”
“Yes.”
“And never told me.”
“He believed knowledge would put you in danger.”
Rowan turned away.
Two parents.
Both making decisions for him.
Both calling secrecy love.
Dalia recognized the anger because she had lived beneath the same kind of lie with Daniel.
“Why does Dominic want Celeste to marry Rowan?” she asked.
Alessandra answered carefully.
“Because Celeste has a blood claim.”
“To Fiero?” Marcus asked.
“Yes.”
Rowan frowned.
“She’s not my father’s daughter.”
“No. But the original Fiero trust passes through my lineage as well as Anthony’s.”
Marcus swore quietly.
If Rowan became medically incapable and Celeste married him, her position became almost impossible to challenge.
Dominic could control the corporation through her.
Dalia looked at Rowan.
“Does Celeste know she’s your sister?”
Alessandra did not answer quickly enough.
“Yes.”
Rowan’s face hardened into something Dalia had never seen.
“She agreed to marry me knowing?”
“Yes.”
He released Dalia’s hand.
For one second she thought he might break the phone.
Instead he put it on the table.
“Where are you?”
“Switzerland.”
“Stay there.”
“Rowan—”
“Stay there until I contact you.”
He ended the call.
Dalia stood.
“Rowan.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Tell me there’s an explanation.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He looked at her.
“Good.”
Then the door alarm sounded.
Marcus checked the monitor.
Mrs. Hargrove stood outside.
Alone.
Soaked from rain.
She had driven herself.
Marcus opened the door.
The older housekeeper entered carrying a leather bag.
She looked at Rowan.
“You need to come home.”
“Why?”
“Your uncle has called the family council.”
Rowan frowned.
“On what authority?”
“Emergency succession.”
Silence.
Mrs. Hargrove placed a document on the table.
A physician’s declaration.
Rowan Fiero temporarily medically impaired and unfit to exercise executive authority pending evaluation.
Rowan read the signature.
His private doctor.
Dr. Theodore Miles.
The man who had treated him for eight years.
Dalia whispered, “They’re doing it now.”
Mrs. Hargrove nodded.
“And there’s more.”
She looked at Dalia.
“They know she survived.”
“How?”
Mrs. Hargrove’s expression cracked for the first time in twenty-two years.
“Because I told them.”
Bobby stood.
A growl rolled through the room.
Rowan’s eyes became cold.
“Explain.”
Mrs. Hargrove slowly opened the leather bag.
May you like
Inside was a bloodstained knife.
“I told them because they already had my grandson.”
