Chapter 8 - The Child in the Trust
Daniel returned to the mansion just after sunset.
Margaret was being held for formal questioning, and Ethan remained missing. Inspector Valli had issued alerts to surrounding airports and border authorities, but the medical plane had vanished from tracking systems after crossing the mountains.
Ivy and Skye sat together in Carlo’s former study.
Sofia had given them warm pajamas and soup. The bread bag rested on the desk near Claire’s photograph.
Daniel sat in front of them.
“You told Doctor Sofia about Christopher.”
Ivy nodded.
“Who is he?”
“Chris is big,” Skye said. “He knows numbers.”
“Did he live with you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Was Claire his mother?”
Both girls shook their heads.
“Who told you he was mine?” Daniel asked.
Ivy looked at the portrait of Carlo.
“Grandpa.”
Daniel glanced at Sofia.
“My father died before they were born.”
Ivy pointed at the portrait again.
“Not that grandpa. The other one.”
“Did Christopher call someone Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
“What was his name?”
The twins looked at each other.
Then Skye said, “Thomas.”
Daniel knew no Thomas connected to Claire.
He asked Paolo to search Claire’s known history, medical files, employment records, and family contacts.
The first result arrived twenty minutes later.
Thomas Bennett was Claire’s father.
Official records showed he died seven years earlier.
Celeste, seated near the fireplace, shook her head.
“That isn’t true.”
Daniel turned to her.
“My father disappeared, but I never found proof of his death. The death certificate was filed in another country. There was no funeral.”
“Why would someone fake his death?”
“To hide what he knew.”
Celeste explained that Thomas Bennett once worked as an accountant for a European development bank. Decades earlier, he audited several companies connected to the original Moretti shipping empire.
Daniel searched his father’s archived correspondence.
Carlo had exchanged letters with Thomas for years.
One letter referred to a protected beneficiary whose identity could not be disclosed until Daniel assumed full control of the family trust.
Another warned that Margaret had discovered irregularities in the succession documents.
Daniel read every page twice.
The Moretti trust did not simply transfer wealth from parent to child. Carlo had rewritten part of it before his death. A confidential provision granted voting control to Daniel and any legally recognized children when Daniel reached thirty-five.
If Daniel had a child, Margaret and Ethan’s temporary control would have ended earlier than they claimed.
The twins alone would remove Margaret from power.
A four-year-old son would have done so even sooner.
Daniel understood why Ethan had hidden Christopher.
But not how the boy could be Daniel’s.
Daniel had known Claire for three years before she vanished. She had never been pregnant during the early part of their relationship.
Sofia examined the dates.
“Christopher could not be Claire’s biological child if the age is correct.”
“Then why was he registered under her false identity?”
“To keep him connected to her confinement,” Celeste suggested.
Daniel looked at the medical file Valli’s officers had recovered.
The records listed Christopher Bell as a dependent placed under Claire’s guardianship by private agreement.
The agreement was signed by Thomas Bennett.
Three months before Thomas supposedly died.
A new message arrived from Inspector Valli.
A passport record showed that Thomas Bennett entered Switzerland six weeks earlier using an alias.
He was alive.
Daniel called Valli.
“Could Thomas be helping Ethan?”
“We do not know. But a surveillance camera near the airfield captured a man entering the medical plane.”
Valli sent the image.
The man appeared elderly, with silver hair and a walking cane. His face was turned away from the camera.
He carried a small boy in his arms.
A woman walked beside him beneath a dark hood.
Daniel enlarged the image.
The woman’s face could not be seen, but she wore a thin gold bracelet.
Claire’s bracelet.
Daniel’s phone received another call.
This time, the number was hidden.
Daniel answered.
Ethan spoke.
“You should have left the children at the lake.”
“Where is Claire?”
“Safe for the moment.”
“And Christopher?”
“Safer than he would be with you.”
“You forged my paternity.”
Ethan laughed quietly.
“That is what Margaret believes.”
“What do you believe?”
“I believe your father made a mistake that can still be corrected.”
Daniel looked toward Carlo’s portrait.
“What mistake?”
“He gave your inheritance to a child who should never have existed.”
The call disconnected.
Daniel lowered the phone.
Behind him, Lauren entered the study carrying a sealed envelope.
She had avoided the family since the confrontation at the monastery. Her face was pale, and she looked as though she had not slept.
“I found this in Ethan’s office.”
The envelope was addressed to Daniel in Carlo’s handwriting.
Daniel opened it.
Inside was a legal declaration and a laboratory report dated five years earlier.
The declaration identified a frozen embryo created during a medical procedure Daniel had undergone after a serious accident in his twenties. Daniel had preserved genetic material as a precaution, then forgotten about it.
The report stated that someone had accessed the stored material without his authorization.
A successful pregnancy had followed.
Daniel read the name of the woman who carried the child.
It was not Claire.
It was Margaret Moretti.
May you like
Not as the mother.
As the person who had signed the authorization.
