SHE’S CARRYING MY HEIR — BUT HIS PREGNANT WIFE HAD THE LAST WORD

The photograph showed a man with silver at his temples, a narrow scar along his chin, and eyes almost identical to Richard's. The file identified him as Michael Romano, Vittorio's younger brother, whose death had supposedly occurred in a boating accident two decades earlier. Alexander had been told that Michael's body was never recovered, but the family had held a memorial and closed the matter.

“He's alive,” Alexander said.

“Apparently,” the prosecutor replied. “And he's willing to testify that you ordered your father's death.”

Clare felt the hospital room grow cold. Grace slept against her shoulder, unaware that the past had followed them into the first week of her life.

Alexander asked for the evidence. Michael's statement had been delivered through counsel, and his current location was being withheld. He claimed that Alexander had attended a private meeting with Richard and Leonard, then instructed them to make Vittorio's death look accidental. He also claimed that he had kept quiet because Richard threatened to expose Michael's own criminal dealings.

“It sounds like a lie,” Clare said after the prosecutor left.

“It could be,” Alexander answered. “But the recording proves I was at a meeting. The witness can twist that into anything.”

“You told me what you said. You didn't order the crash.”

“I know what I intended. A court has to decide what the evidence proves.”

That answer frightened her because it was honest. Alexander was no longer hiding behind certainty, but uncertainty left them vulnerable.

Daniel discovered that Michael had been using a false identity in another state. He had changed his name, married, and lived quietly until Richard's arrest. Investigators suspected he had resurfaced to bargain for immunity. If he could blame Alexander, he might protect himself from the crimes he had committed alongside Richard.

Vanessa provided another lead. Her father had once told her that Michael was the family's “insurance policy,” a man who knew where every body was buried, literally and figuratively. She believed Michael had helped create the shell companies and had been the one to arrange the payments to the driver.

The prosecutor requested a controlled meeting. Alexander agreed to attend with counsel, but Clare refused to let him go without a plan for Grace and herself. She stayed at the hospital under the same protective measures, and Evelyn remained with her.

Michael arrived at the meeting in a plain gray suit, carrying no visible fear. He looked at Alexander with something like pity.

“You were always the good son,” Michael said. “Vittorio wanted you to inherit the business because you could make violence look respectable.”

“You disappeared.”

“I survived.”

“Did you arrange the crash?”

Michael smiled. “Your father was going to destroy everything. Richard asked me to scare him. Leonard arranged the car. I thought the driver would force him off the road and leave him alive. I didn't know Vittorio would die.”

“That's the same excuse Leonard used.”

“Because it's true.”

Michael then claimed Alexander had approved the plan, but when the prosecutor played the full recording, the story began to unravel. Alexander's words had been followed by a question about keeping Vittorio safe. The edited version Michael provided had cut that sentence out.

The prosecutor asked why Michael had submitted an incomplete recording.

Michael's confidence cracked. He demanded a lawyer and tried to end the meeting. Investigators stopped him before he could leave and secured the original file from his counsel.

But before he was taken away, Michael leaned toward Alexander.

“You think this ends with me? Richard has one last card. He knows what happened to your mother—and he has a document that could destroy your daughter's inheritance.”

That night, a sealed letter arrived at the hospital, addressed to Clare. Inside was a birth certificate for a child born twenty-three years earlier, with Elena Romano listed as the mother and a blank space where the father's name should have been.

The child had been born six months before Alexander.