Chapter 4 - The Daughter Vincent Russo Tried to Hide
Rachel looked at Damian as though he'd spoken in a language she didn't understand.
“Your sister?”
Damian didn't answer immediately.
He was looking at the bracelet.
The tiny gold clasp.
His father's initials.
The date engraved beneath them.
He remembered seeing that bracelet in Vincent's study years earlier.
His father had been holding it beneath a lamp.
When fourteen-year-old Damian asked who it belonged to, Vincent had snapped the velvet box shut.
“Something that has nothing to do with you.”
Now Rachel stood before him, trembling.
Apparently, it had everything to do with him.
“No,” Rachel said.
She backed away from the table.
“My father was Daniel Foster. He worked at the shipyard. He died when I was twelve.”
Anthony lowered his voice.
“Daniel was a good man.”
Rachel turned on him.
“You don't get to tell me about my father.”
“Rachel—”
“He taught me to ride a bicycle. He sat through every terrible school play. He worked overtime so I could go to college.”
Her voice cracked.
“He was my father.”
Damian stepped forward.
“And nothing changes that.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because someone has spent years hiding something about your family. And you deserve to know what it is.”
Rachel pressed her good hand against her forehead.
“My mother never told me.”
Anthony nodded.
“She was afraid.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Rachel looked from one brother to the other.
“Afraid of what? Having money? Having a different name?”
Anthony's face tightened.
“Afraid that someone would hurt you to get it.”
Damian picked up the declaration of paternity.
“I want the original records examined. I want to know who prepared this document, who changed it, and why.”
Then he faced Anthony.
“And I want proof before anyone tells Rachel who her father was again.”
Anthony nodded.
For once, he didn't argue.
Ethan returned with a report from the estate's security office.
“The emergency authorization was submitted remotely through a credential belonging to Victoria. Her phone wasn't used.”
“Where did it come from?” Damian asked.
“A workstation at Vale Holdings.”
Malcolm's financial firm.
Damian glanced toward the library.
“Keep Victoria here. No one from Malcolm's office enters this property.”
“Understood.”
Rachel stepped toward the door.
“I need to see my mother.”
“I'll take you,” Damian said.
She shook her head.
“Please. I need to speak to her without anyone telling me what I'm supposed to believe.”
Damian held her gaze.
Then stepped aside.
“Ethan will arrange a driver. Dr. Harris should examine that shoulder again tomorrow.”
Rachel paused.
“You won't stop me?”
“No.”
That seemed to surprise her.
She left without looking back.
Damian watched until she disappeared down the hallway.
Anthony spoke quietly.
“She looks like Evelyn.”
Damian turned.
“Don't.”
“What?”
“Don't make her carry your memories.”
Anthony lowered his eyes.
Damian picked up the photograph again.
The woman in blue.
The baby.
Vincent's troubled expression.
“What happened to Evelyn after the warehouse fire?”
“She married Daniel Foster the following year. He already knew about Rachel.”
“Did she love him?”
Anthony looked almost offended.
“Very much.”
“Then at least someone in this mess did something decent.”
Anthony sat heavily.
“Daniel knew Rachel wasn't his by birth. He never treated her differently.”
Damian stared at the photograph.
He thought about the way Rachel had defended Daniel without hesitation.
Whatever secrets Vincent had kept, the man who raised her had given her something far more valuable than the Russo name.
A family she trusted.
Damian looked back at Anthony.
“Why return tonight?”
Anthony hesitated.
“Because the wedding changes everything.”
“How?”
“Malcolm convinced Dad to place certain holdings in a protected family trust. The trust includes properties, investment accounts, and a controlling interest in Russo Maritime.”
Damian frowned.
“I'm the majority owner of Russo Maritime.”
“Through a voting agreement. Not outright.”
“That's not possible.”
“Read your father's trust amendments.”
“Whitaker reviewed them.”
Anthony looked at him.
“Whitaker disappeared eight years ago. Malcolm has been handling the trust ever since.”
Damian felt a familiar uneasiness.
He'd signed estate paperwork after Vincent's death.
Hundreds of pages.
At the time, he'd been dealing with federal investigators, rival families, and the collapse of three shipping contracts.
He'd trusted Malcolm to manage the inheritance.
Malcolm had handled his father's accounts for nearly thirty years.
He'd attended family dinners.
Bought birthday gifts.
Helped Damian through some of the darkest years of his life.
And tomorrow, he was supposed to witness Damian's marriage.
Anthony continued.
“There's a clause that allows a successor spouse to approve certain trust settlements after the marriage.”
“Victoria?”
“If the paperwork goes through as Malcolm prepared it.”
Damian felt cold.
“Why would I agree to that?”
“Because he put it in the documents you signed for the wedding.”
Damian turned toward Ethan.
“Get everything Malcolm sent us.”
Ethan nodded.
But before he could leave, Victoria appeared at the far end of the hallway.
She wasn't wearing the diamond necklace she'd worn at dinner.
Her makeup was gone.
She looked older without it.
“Damian, I need to speak to you.”
“Not now.”
“Please.”
He glanced at Anthony.
“Give us a minute.”
Anthony reluctantly stepped away.
Victoria approached the table.
“I heard what you said about Rachel.”
Damian didn't answer.
“Is she really Vincent's daughter?”
“We're trying to establish that.”
Victoria covered her face.
“Oh, God.”
Damian watched her.
“You knew there was another child.”
“I knew Malcolm was afraid of someone making a claim.”
“And you threatened Rachel because of it?”
Victoria lowered her hands.
“He told me she had stolen documents.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At first.”
“And when she told you she hadn't?”
Victoria looked away.
“I was angry. I was frightened.”
“That doesn't excuse what you did.”
“I know.”
Damian leaned against the table.
“Tell me what Malcolm has on you.”
Victoria's lips trembled.
“My sister.”
Damian frowned.
“Laura?”
Victoria nodded.
Laura Sinclair was a single mother living outside Charleston.
Her nine-year-old son, Owen, had a serious heart condition.
Damian had met them twice.
He remembered Owen showing him a drawing of a red race car.
“Malcolm arranged Owen's treatment,” Victoria said.
“You told me your foundation covered it.”
“It did. Until we discovered that most of the foundation's money had been borrowed against future donations.”
“By whom?”
“Malcolm controlled the accounts. He said he was restructuring them.”
Damian stared at her.
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I was ashamed.”
“So you let him use a sick child to control you?”
Victoria wiped her eyes.
“He told me the wedding would stabilize the funding. He said if I refused to sign, the hospital would stop Owen's care.”
“And Rachel?”
“He said she was working with people who wanted to destroy the trust.”
Damian's expression hardened.
“You had a chance to come to me.”
“I know.”
“You had more than one.”
Victoria nodded.
Tears ran silently down her cheeks.
“I was afraid you'd think I only wanted your money.”
Damian looked at her for a long moment.
“Instead, you made sure I couldn't trust you.”
Victoria accepted the words without defending herself.
Then she reached into her dress pocket.
A small folded receipt lay in her palm.
“Malcolm wanted me to burn this.”
Damian took it.
It was a shipping receipt from Vincent's old guest wing.
A sealed wooden case had been transferred to the estate three days earlier.
The description read:
PRIVATE ARCHIVE — VINCENT RUSSO.
Damian looked up.
“Why bring it here?”
“Malcolm said the estate records had to be reconciled before the wedding.”
“Who delivered it?”
Victoria hesitated.
Then whispered, “A man who knew your father.”
She pointed to the signature at the bottom.
Damian recognized it.
Charles Baird.
His father's former chief accountant.
The man who'd supposedly retired to Florida seven years earlier.
Anthony reappeared in the doorway.
He saw the receipt and stopped.
“Damian, where did you get that?”
“Victoria.”
Anthony took the paper.
His face changed.
“Charles Baird was at the warehouse the night it burned.”
Damian looked at him.
“You're certain?”
Anthony nodded.
“And he was the last person I saw before someone hit me from behind.”
Damian reached for his phone.
But Ethan entered before he could call anyone.
He carried a thin envelope recovered from Malcolm's wedding packet.
“Boss, you need to see this.”
Inside was a trust document bearing Damian's signature.
Dated three weeks earlier.
The signature looked perfect.
Damian stared at the page.
“I never signed this.”
Anthony read the heading.
Then looked up.
“Damian, according to this amendment, tomorrow's wedding transfers control of the disputed Russo inheritance to Malcolm's management company.”
Damian grabbed the document.
A clause halfway down the page caught his eye.
It referred to a beneficiary whose name had been deliberately withheld.
And beneath that clause was an instruction.
IF THE UNDISCLOSED BENEFICIARY IS LOCATED, HER CLAIM MUST BE EXTINGUISHED BEFORE THE MARRIAGE IS SOLEMNIZED.
Damian slowly raised his head.
“Rachel wasn't just being threatened.”
May you like
He looked toward the empty hallway.
“Someone has put a deadline on her life.”
