Chapter 2 - The DNA Test
Dr. Rafael Reyes arrived twenty minutes later carrying a rapid genetic testing kit.
He had known Luca since childhood.
When I explained who Emma might be, he stared at her for several seconds.
“Sebastian, are you certain you want to do this here?”
“I want certainty now.”
Emma narrowed her eyes when Rafael approached with the swab.
“It won’t hurt,” he said.
“Do Uncle Sebastian first.”
Rafael glanced at me.
I almost laughed.
“Do what she says.”
He collected my sample.
Only then did Emma cooperate.
The machine required forty-five minutes.
They were the longest forty-five minutes of my life.
Clara paced.
Emma drew.
I stood at the windows remembering the last conversation I’d had with Luca.
He had accused me of ignoring money being diverted from humanitarian foundations.
I’d demanded proof.
He’d called me blind.
Two days later, he disappeared.
For thirteen years, those angry words had been the final conversation between us.
The machine beeped.
Rafael checked the tablet.
His face changed.
“Sebastian.”
“Tell me.”
He turned the screen.
PROBABILITY OF RELATIONSHIP: 99.8%
RELATIONSHIP CONSISTENT WITH PATERNAL NIECE
I closed my eyes.
Luca had survived.
Long enough to love someone.
Long enough to have a daughter.
And then he had died for real.
I crouched before Emma.
“The test says we’re family.”
She smiled.
“I already knew.”
“How?”
“Because we have the same eyes when we’re sad.”
Clara began crying.
I hugged Emma.
She stiffened at first.
Then her little arms wrapped around my neck.
“Forgive me, Luca,” I whispered.
Emma pulled away.
“Why are you saying sorry to Daddy?”
“Because I couldn’t protect him.”
She considered that.
“Mom says nobody can go backward.”
“She’s right.”
“Then protect me now.”
Something inside me changed.
I stood.
“Mateo.”
He entered immediately.
“Lock down the building.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Full lockdown?”
“Nobody enters. Nobody leaves. Audit every camera, badge, printer, and communication terminal.”
I handed him the photograph with the red cross.
“Find the machine that printed this.”
Then I turned toward Clara.
“You and Emma are going to my mountain residence.”
Clara immediately shook her head.
“I’m tired of running.”
“You’re not running.”
I looked toward the city below.
“I’m removing you from where the war is about to begin.”
Emma tugged my sleeve.
“Are you going to fix the wolf?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Mateo.
“I’m gathering the pack.”
Forty minutes later, Mateo returned.
“The photograph contained a hidden printer code.”
“Location?”
“Floor forty.”
“Whose office?”
He hesitated.
“Harrison Crowe.”
That mattered.
Harrison administered the Vale family trusts.
He had worked for my father.
He had signed the reports concerning Luca’s supposed death.
And he was one of only two men with complete access to succession records.
The other was Victor.
“Where is Harrison?”
“With Victor in the boardroom.”
“Move them downstairs.”
“To the secure conference room?”
“Yes.”
Before Clara left, she placed Luca’s leather journal in my hands.
I opened it.
Companies.
Account numbers.
Shell corporations.
Then names.
Dead heirs.
One cousin who supposedly fell from a yacht.
A young woman who died during a routine medical procedure.
Another relative erased from family records after an accident.
All of them had claims on various Vale trusts.
On the final page was Luca’s name.
Beneath it:
HE WASN’T THE FIRST. HE’LL BE THE LAST IF SEBASTIAN WAKES UP.
I noticed torn paper along the binding.
“A page is missing.”
Clara nodded.
“Luca removed it.”
“What was on it?”
“The name of the person who betrayed him.”
“Did he leave any clue?”
“One.”
She looked at me.
“He said the traitor wore a golden falcon.”
My mind flashed to Harrison’s hand.
His ring.
A gold falcon.
I looked at Mateo.
“When you bring Harrison downstairs, make sure that ring stays on his finger.”
Mateo’s expression changed.
May you like
“You think it’s him?”
“I think we’re thirteen years late finding out.”
