Chapter 6 - THE CHILD WHO WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO EXIST
“Another child?”
Damian read the sentence twice.
Then he looked at me.
“Olivia was already seven when Grace wrote this.”
Walter nodded.
“Yes.”
“So who was Grace afraid would disappear?”
I felt my heart pounding.
For one terrible moment, I thought of Lily.
My daughter was seven now.
The same age I had been when my mother died.
The coincidence made my hands go cold.
Walter studied the letter.
Then his face changed.
“There's a date.”
He turned the page toward the overhead light.
In the corner, written so faintly it was almost invisible, was June 12.
Two days before the bank withdrawal.
“Grace was warning Rebecca,” Walter whispered.
“About Olivia?” Damian asked.
Walter shook his head.
“About Nicholas.”
I stared at him.
“But Rebecca said Nicholas died when he was four.”
Walter didn't answer.
Damian stepped closer.
“Walter.”
The elderly accountant looked exhausted.
“I attended the funeral.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
Walter took a long breath.
“The hospital provided a death certificate. There was a closed casket. Rebecca never saw the body.”
Damian looked toward the cassette player.
“And Evelyn worked at that hospital.”
Walter nodded.
I felt sick.
Eleven years ago, three lives had been tied together.
My mother's.
Mrs. Castellano's.
And a little boy nobody in the family was supposed to know existed.
“What did Victor want?” I asked.
Walter looked at me.
“Control. Money. Leverage.”
“Through a sick child?”
“Through everyone who loved that child.”
Damian took out his phone and called Marcus.
“Find Rebecca. Bring her back to the mansion. Nobody threatens her. Nobody touches her. I need her to tell me what happened.”
He ended the call.
Then turned toward me.
“Olivia, I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Do you remember anyone visiting your mother shortly before the hospital fire?”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered a kitchen.
Rain hitting the window.
My mother standing beside the stove.
A man wearing a dark coat.
He had spoken quietly.
My mother had been crying.
I opened my eyes.
“There was a man.”
Walter leaned forward.
“What did he look like?”
“I don't remember his face.”
“Anything else?”
I struggled.
Then something came back.
“A watch.”
Damian frowned.
“A watch?”
“He kept looking at it. It made a ticking sound.”
Walter's face turned pale.
Damian held up the old silver pocket watch.
“This one?”
I shook my head.
“No. His was gold.”
Walter whispered something.
“What?” Damian asked.
“Victor had a gold wristwatch. An old-fashioned one. He was proud of it.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“There was something else.”
I could almost hear the man's voice.
A sharp, impatient whisper.
Then my mother's answer.
She's only a little girl.
I opened my eyes.
“He said my mother had until Friday.”
Walter gripped his cane.
“Friday was the day she disappeared.”
Damian walked toward the door.
“We need the bank records, the hospital files, and every document connected to Victor Salerno.”
Walter shook his head.
“Damian, Victor vanished years ago.”
“Then we'll find out where he went.”
I looked at the blue coat.
My mother had hidden letters, photographs, and recordings inside it.
She had known danger was coming.
Yet she'd still found time to sew my name into the lining.
That realization hurt more than any financial secret.
She had been planning for a future she might never see.
We returned to the mansion shortly before midnight.
The guests were gone.
The ballroom had been cleared.
Only a few hundred-dollar bills remained beneath one table.
I stopped when I saw them.
The humiliation of the evening came rushing back.
Damian noticed.
He bent down and picked up one bill.
Then another.
Marcus helped him collect the rest.
Neither man said a word.
Finally, Damian placed the money into an envelope.
“This belongs to Walter,” he said.
I looked at him.
“You didn't have to do that.”
“Yes,” he answered. “I did.”
It was a small gesture.
But after everything that had happened, it mattered.
Rebecca waited in Damian's office.
Her makeup was gone.
She wore an ordinary gray sweater.
Without the diamonds and the expensive dress, she looked smaller.
More human.
But her expression hardened when she saw me.
“Why is she here?”
Damian answered.
“Because this concerns her mother.”
Rebecca glanced at the envelope in his hand.
“What's that?”
He placed Grace's letter on the desk.
Rebecca read it.
Her face crumpled.
“No.”
I watched her hands begin shaking.
“You knew about my mother,” I said.
Rebecca looked up.
“Olivia—”
“You knew she was frightened. You knew she had a daughter.”
Rebecca pressed the paper to her chest.
“I didn't know what Victor was going to do.”
“Then what did you know?”
She began crying.
“I thought I could save my son.”
Damian sat opposite her.
“Tell us.”
Rebecca stared at the floor.
“Victor told me Nicholas needed an operation overseas. He said Mother wouldn't authorize the money.”
“Mother would have helped him,” Damian said.
Rebecca shook her head.
“Victor convinced me she wouldn't.”
Walter looked devastated.
“He lied to you.”
Rebecca nodded.
“He said if I transferred the money, he'd arrange everything.”
Damian leaned forward.
“Where did the money go?”
“To an account I didn't control.”
“And Nicholas?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Evelyn told me he died three weeks later.”
The room fell silent.
I looked at her.
“Did you ever see him again?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
Damian stood.
“Did Victor tell you what happened to Grace?”
Rebecca's eyes filled.
“He said she had stolen the ledger and disappeared.”
I felt a surge of anger.
“You believed him?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“I wanted to.”
Those four words were terrible.
And truthful.
For the first time, I understood how fear could make someone cooperate with cruelty.
Not excuse it.
But explain it.
Damian opened a file Marcus had recovered from Evelyn's suitcase.
Inside were hospital invoices.
Travel receipts.
A photograph of a small boy sitting in a wheelchair.
Rebecca reached toward it.
“Nicholas.”
Her voice broke.
I watched her touch the photograph with one finger.
Then Damian turned over the final page.
It was a hospital payment record.
Dated six years after Nicholas's supposed death.
The patient identification number matched the boy's original file.
Damian looked up.
“Rebecca.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
May you like
He placed the document in front of her.
“Your son was receiving medical treatment six years after you buried him.”
