Chapter 7 - Bianca Learned Why Her Father Needed Claire

Bianca stared at her uncle.

“My father isn’t here.”

Vincent nodded.

“I know.”

“Then your trap failed.”

“No.”

He held up his phone.

“Charles has been listening through your security channel.”

Bianca’s face changed.

Julian looked toward the ceiling.

“Hello, Charles.”

A speaker crackled.

Charles’s voice came through.

“You idiots.”

Claire closed her eyes.

Damian looked at Bianca.

She looked devastated.

Vincent walked closer.

“Tell them.”

Charles said nothing.

Julian placed the original hospital ledger on a metal table.

Then a second file.

Not Romano.

MOREL FAMILY TRUST.

Bianca stared.

“What is that?”

Vincent answered.

“Your grandfather’s estate.”

Charles shouted through the speaker:

“Do not open it.”

Bianca stepped forward.

Julian opened it.

Inside was a clause.

Charles Morel would inherit full control of the Morel estate only if he produced a legal heir before age thirty-five.

Bianca frowned.

“He had me.”

Vincent looked at her.

“No.”

Silence.

Bianca stopped.

“What?”

Vincent’s expression softened.

“You were born three years after Claire.”

“Yes.”

“After the deadline.”

Bianca looked at the document.

Then at Claire.

Understanding arrived slowly.

“He needed a child.”

Vincent nodded.

Claire whispered:

“Me.”

“Yes.”

Charles’s voice came through the speaker.

“My father was going to give the company to Vincent.”

Vincent looked toward the speaker.

“Because you had no heir.”

Charles shouted:

“I built that company.”

“And you stole a newborn to keep it.”

Claire closed her eyes.

Damian’s expression hardened.

Bianca whispered:

“You told me Mom couldn’t have children.”

Charles said nothing.

Vincent answered for him.

“She had difficulty conceiving.”

Bianca looked at him.

“But she had me.”

“Yes.”

Claire stared at Charles’s voice in the ceiling.

“So I wasn’t only a child you wanted.”

Silence.

“I was a deadline.”

Charles finally spoke.

“You became my daughter.”

Claire’s voice broke.

“That happened after.”

Nobody moved.

Charles said:

“I loved you.”

Claire cried.

“I know.”

She pressed both hands against the table.

“That is what makes this worse.”

Julian slid the Romano trust file toward Damian.

“I moved Claire’s money because Charles asked me to.”

Damian looked at him.

Julian continued.

“He wanted the trust hidden before anyone connected Claire to Elena Romano.”

Charles shouted:

“That’s a lie.”

Julian smiled sadly.

“No.”

He produced signed instructions.

Charles Morel.

Multiple transfers.

Multiple shell companies.

Bianca stared.

“Dad.”

Charles’s voice disappeared from the speaker.

He had disconnected.

Damian looked at Julian.

“So you did help him steal it.”

“Yes.”

“And now you want credit for moving it somewhere else?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

Julian pointed at Vincent.

“My father helped falsify the hospital record.”

Vincent looked at him.

“Julian spent twenty years trying to buy back the evidence.”

Dr. Lang frowned.

“From Charles?”

“From everyone.”

Julian looked ashamed.

“I thought if I controlled the documents, I could protect my father’s name.”

Damian stared.

“Another son protecting a guilty father.”

Julian nodded.

“Yes.”

“Then what changed?”

“My father died.”

Silence.

Julian looked at Claire.

“And on his last day, he asked me whether the baby had ever learned the truth.”

Claire’s face softened slightly.

Julian continued.

“I realized none of us had protected children.”

“We protected adults.”

Dr. Lang looked down.

That sentence landed hardest on him.

Julian pushed a flash drive across the table.

“Every transfer.”

Damian did not touch it.

“Where is Claire’s money?”

“Safe.”

“Where?”

“In an escrow account under her legal birth identity.”

Claire frowned.

“My legal birth identity doesn’t exist.”

Julian looked at the hospital ledger.

“It will.”

Marco stepped closer.

“You staged Vincent’s disappearance to force Charles to expose himself?”

“Yes.”

“That was stupid.”

“Yes.”

“Dangerous.”

“Yes.”

Damian asked:

“And Rachel?”

Julian’s expression changed.

“I frightened her.”

“You chased her.”

“I needed the trust copy she saw me carrying.”

“You could have asked.”

Julian gave a bitter smile.

“No one in this family asks.”

Damian stared at him.

“You will apologize to her.”

“If she will let me.”

“And then you will speak to police.”

Julian nodded.

“I already called them.”

Sirens sounded outside.

Bianca looked toward the entrance.

Then her phone rang.

Her father.

She answered.

“Dad?”

Charles was breathing hard.

“Come home.”

Bianca’s eyes narrowed.

“Why?”

“Now.”

Then a sound came through the phone.

Glass breaking.

Claire looked at her.

Bianca whispered:

“Dad?”

Charles’s voice returned.

But he was no longer talking to Bianca.

He was talking to someone in the room with him.

“No.”

A second voice answered.

A woman.

Older.

Calm.

“Thirty-four years is long enough, Charles.”

Claire froze.

Bianca’s face went white.

She knew the voice.

“So do I.”

Damian looked at her.

“Who is it?”

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Bianca stared at the phone.

“My mother.”