Chapter 6 - THE DEAD MAN’S SECRET
I hated Matteo Marchetti before I ever saw his photograph.
Then Damian showed it to me.
And hatred became heartbreak.
Daniel.
The man who had bought me coffee every morning for three months.
The man who had told me he worked in logistics.
The man who kissed my forehead the night before he vanished and promised he would call after a business trip.
The man whose number stopped working two days later.
He was smiling in Damian’s photograph beside a black sports car.
Matteo Marchetti.
Same dark hair.
Same scar.
Same crooked smile.
I sat down because my legs would not hold me.
“He lied about everything.”
Damian remained across from me.
“Almost everything.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“He told me he wasn’t married.”
“He wasn’t then.”
“He told me his name was Daniel.”
“That was his middle name.”
That made me angrier.
“So he gave me enough truth to make the lies easier.”
Damian did not defend him.
Good.
Because I might have hated Damian too if he had.
“When did he marry Isabelle?”
“About three months after he disappeared from your life.”
I closed my eyes.
My hands shook.
“Did he know I was pregnant?”
“We don’t know.”
Vincent entered holding a leather ledger found in the Bellrose building.
“We might.”
Inside were handwritten payment records.
Most were coded.
One page had Matteo’s name.
Not as a buyer.
As an investigator.
Matteo had paid a private detective to look into Bellrose six weeks before his death.
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
Damian scanned the pages.
“He discovered something.”
Another envelope was tucked inside.
It contained photographs.
Me leaving a grocery store.
Me entering my apartment.
Me attending a prenatal appointment.
I stared.
“He was watching me?”
Damian turned over one image.
On the back, Matteo had written:
GRACE — 31 WEEKS. THREE HEALTHY. SHE DOESN’T KNOW.
I covered my mouth.
“He knew.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“He knew.”
“Then why didn’t he come back?”
There was no answer.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I cried.
Quietly.
Again.
It seemed grief had infinite versions.
Grief because my babies were dead.
Grief because they were alive without me.
Grief because the man I had loved had lied.
Now grief because he knew about his children and still stayed away.
Then Damian found another sheet.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He handed it to me.
A letter.
Not addressed.
Never sent.
Grace,
If you ever read this, then I failed to fix the mess I created before it reached you.
My real name is Matteo Daniel Marchetti.
I should have told you from the beginning.
I met you while trying to live outside my family’s world. Then my uncle learned about you. I was told that if I stayed, you would become leverage against the family.
I believed leaving would protect you.
I was wrong.
When I discovered you were pregnant, I tried to come back. Marcus told me you had moved and wanted nothing to do with me. I hired someone anyway.
Now I know Bellrose has marked your pregnancy.
I don’t know why.
I am trying to stop it before you ever learn you were in danger.
If I do not make it back, tell my children I wanted them.
Tell Grace I was a coward before I was anything else.
And tell her I loved her.
— Matteo
I read it twice.
Then I pressed it against my chest.
Damian stared out the window.
“Marcus intercepted him.”
“You think Marcus lied to him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Vincent answered.
“Money.”
But Damian shook his head.
“Not enough.”
He looked toward Matteo’s investigation files.
“Marcus already had money.”
I remembered Voss’s recording.
If Grace learns the real identity of the triplets’ father, Marcus Bell loses everything.
“What did Matteo own?”
Damian looked at me.
“Twenty-eight percent of Marchetti Holdings.”
“And after he died?”
“His shares transferred according to his trust.”
“To whom?”
Damian went still.
Vincent swore softly.
I already knew.
“Marcus?”
“Temporarily,” Damian said.
“Temporarily?”
“Matteo’s trust stated that if he died without acknowledged children, voting control of his shares would be managed by the family trustee until Damian’s succession review.”
“And the trustee was Marcus.”
“Yes.”
My heart pounded.
“But if Matteo had children?”
Damian stared at Enzo playing on the carpet.
“They inherit his shares.”
There it was.
Not just trafficking.
Not just greed.
Power.
Three babies stood between Marcus Bell and control of hundreds of millions of dollars.
“So he stole them.”
Damian nodded slowly.
“He likely planned to hide their identity permanently.”
“But Matteo and Isabelle adopted them.”
“Matteo must have figured out enough to arrange the adoption without exposing that he was the father.”
I frowned.
“Why adopt his own children?”
Rachel, who had been quietly reading the paperwork, answered.
“Because if he openly acknowledged paternity, Marcus would know his plan failed.”
She looked at the files.
“He may have intended to get the children legally out of Bellrose first and then reveal the truth.”
“But he died eleven days later.”
Nobody had to say the next part.
The car crash.
Damian made the call.
Within an hour, investigators reopened everything.
The crash report showed brake failure.
The mechanic who inspected Matteo’s car disappeared two days later.
Not an accident.
Murder.
Marcus had killed Matteo and Isabelle.
Then, through some cruel twist he had not planned for, emergency guardianship transferred the triplets to Damian.
Marcus could not kill Damian’s wards without raising questions.
So he waited.
And profited.
Until I walked into Rosalie’s Diner.
Until Sofia called me Mama.
That night, Damian found me sitting outside the nursery.
“You should sleep.”
“I’m afraid.”
He sat beside me.
“Of what?”
“That I’ll wake up and they’ll be gone again.”
He didn’t give me some useless promise that nothing bad would happen.
Instead he said, “Then I’ll sit here.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Minutes passed.
Then an hour.
Eventually Sofia woke.
I brought her into the hallway.
She stared at Damian.
“Da.”
He froze.
I looked at him.
“Did she just—”
“No.”
“Damian.”
“She said something else.”
Sofia pointed at him.
“Da!”
I laughed.
He looked genuinely alarmed.
“You think the city’s most feared man is scared of one syllable?”
“Yes.”
He took Sofia reluctantly.
She rested her head on his shoulder.
His expression softened.
Something warm moved through me.
Dangerous.
Complicated.
Real.
Then Vincent appeared at the end of the hallway.
“We found Marcus.”
Damian stood.
“Where?”
“Marchetti Tower.”
Damian frowned.
His own company headquarters.
Vincent continued.
“He’s called an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning.”
“About what?”
Vincent looked at me.
“He’s presenting documents claiming Grace knowingly sold the triplets.”
May you like
My blood went cold.
“And he has signed paperwork to prove it.”
