Chapter 17 - THE HEIR WHO CAME BACK ANGRY|
Adrian refused to speak inside the station.
He led them to a small diner outside the city, chose a booth near the emergency exit, and ordered coffee he barely touched.
Clara watched him carefully.
He had Dominic's eyes, but his expression was harder. There was no hesitation in the way he assessed the room, no trace of the quiet restraint Dominic had learned through years of managing his father's empire.
Adrian looked like a man who had spent his life expecting betrayal.
"Why did Rinaldi raise you?" Dominic asked.
"Because he needed an heir who owed him everything."
"You were my brother."
"Not according to the people who signed the papers."
Adrian explained that he had grown up believing his biological parents had abandoned him. Rinaldi told him the Kretti family had rejected him because he was born sickly and unlikely to survive.
At fourteen, Adrian discovered the truth in a file hidden inside Rinaldi's study.
He confronted the man who had raised him.
Rinaldi responded by sending him away to a private school overseas and warning him never to return.
"I came back six months ago," Adrian said. "I found out about the trust, the workshop, and the woman who could unlock it."
Clara stiffened.
"Me."
"Yes."
"Why didn't you contact me?"
"Because I needed to know whether you were working with Rinaldi."
Dominic leaned forward.
"She was never working with him."
"I know that now."
"How?"
Adrian looked at Clara.
"Because he tried to have her killed."
The diner seemed to grow quieter.
Adrian explained that Rinaldi had paid an intermediary to arrange the warehouse attack. The intended target was Clara, not Samuel. The message about the trust was designed to make her believe Samuel had betrayed her, forcing her to abandon the investigation.
"Why would Rinaldi want me dead before my thirty-fifth birthday?" Clara asked.
"Because the trust doesn't simply contain property. It contains the original ownership records for several companies. If you claim it, you gain the right to challenge decades of transfers."
"Can he lose everything?"
"Not everything. But enough to expose him."
Dominic studied his brother.
"Why help us now?"
Adrian's face changed.
"Because I spent thirty years believing you had stolen my life. Then I discovered that we were both prisoners of the same man."
The words settled between them.
Dominic looked away.
"I didn't know you existed."
"I know."
"I would have looked for you."
Adrian laughed bitterly.
"Would you? Or would you have done what Father did and protected the family name?"
Dominic had no easy answer.
Clara intervened.
"You're both asking the same question in different ways. What matters now is what you choose to do with the truth."
Adrian looked at her for a long moment.
"You're the first person in this family who hasn't tried to tell me what I owe."
"Then don't make me regret it."
A faint smile appeared on his face.
He placed a small flash drive on the table.
"This contains Rinaldi's private accounts, correspondence, and a recording of him discussing the trust. But there's one file I couldn't open."
Dominic picked it up.
"What is it?"
Adrian turned to Clara.
"A video recorded by your father shortly before he died."
Clara felt her heart race.
"My father left a video?"
"Yes. He knew someone was watching him. He hid the file behind the pattern archive."
"What's on it?"
Adrian hesitated.
"Your father says he was not the man who gave birth to you."
Clara went completely still.
"Then who was?"
May you like
Adrian looked at her.
"That's the question Rinaldi has spent thirty-four years trying to keep unanswered."
