It did not belong to some criminal.
It did not belong to one of Chloe’s friends.
It belonged to a man I had trusted since I was twenty-three years old.
A man who had stood beside me at my wedding.
A man who had carried Valeria out of the hospital the day she was born.
A man who had identified Isabella’s body after the crash because I had been too shattered to do it myself.
My older brother.
Daniel Vance.
I looked up.
“Why is Chloe speaking to my brother?”
Nobody answered.
Chloe’s lips trembled.
I stepped toward her.
“Why did my wife call Daniel twelve times before she died?”
Chloe began shaking her head.
“Alexander—”
“Why are you calling him?”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Tears ran down her face.
“Then what is it?”
She looked toward the hallway, where the distant sound of police cars entering the property could now be heard.
And then she said the one sentence that made everything we had watched that morning seem almost insignificant.
“Daniel isn’t your brother.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Chloe wiped her face.
Marisol suddenly whispered, “Don’t.”
Chloe looked at her.
“You knew?”
Marisol’s silence answered the question.
I stepped backward.
My daughters stood behind me.
My dead wife’s note lay open on the desk.
The mysterious bottle remained in my hand.
Outside, police officers were entering my home.
And the people around me—my fiancée, my housekeeper, even my own daughter—were carrying pieces of a life I apparently knew nothing about.
I looked at Chloe.
“Who is Daniel?”
Her eyes locked onto mine.
And what she said next almost brought me to my knees.
“He’s Valeria’s biological father.”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and
