Chapter 16 - THE ONE CAMILLA WANTED
Dante doubled Isabela’s security.
She hated it.
Two guards outside her room.
A car whenever she left.
Tracking on her phone.
Dante expected arguments.
He got them.
“I am not Sofia.”
“No.”
“I don’t need permission to leave.”
“No.”
“So tell your men to stop following me into grocery stores.”
“No.”
Isabela stared at him.
“You are impossible.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By everyone?”
“Mostly you.”
Despite everything, she smiled.
It disappeared when Marta entered carrying the photograph Camilla had sent.
“She wants Isabela.”
Dante nodded.
“Why?”
Marta sat.
“Because Helena chose her.”
Isabela looked at her mother.
“That’s not enough.”
“To Camilla, it is.”
Marta explained what Helena and Camilla had been like as teenagers.
They were close.
Almost inseparable.
Helena was the only person Camilla trusted.
When Helena discovered the original Blue Protocol, she wanted to expose it.
Camilla begged her not to.
She feared Alessandro would destroy the family.
Helena chose Marta’s safety over Camilla’s fear.
Camilla never forgave her.
Years later, Helena married Dante.
Another choice Camilla interpreted as abandonment.
Then Sofia was born.
Helena devoted herself to her daughter.
Camilla’s resentment deepened.
“She loved Helena,” Marta said.
“But in a possessive way.”
Isabela understood.
“Every time Helena chose someone else, Camilla saw betrayal.”
“Yes.”
“And now Helena chose me.”
“Yes.”
Dante’s phone rang.
Marco.
Camilla had surfaced.
New York.
She had walked into a television studio voluntarily.
She wanted a live interview.
The interview aired that evening.
Camilla denied directing the Blue Protocol.
She admitted knowing about parts of it.
Claimed she had secretly worked to dismantle the program from within.
Vale, she said, was lying to save himself.
Alessandro manipulated everyone.
Victoria created the system.
Camilla presented herself as another victim.
For some viewers, it worked.
Then the interviewer asked about Helena.
Camilla’s face changed.
“I loved my sister-in-law.”
“Did you order the sedative that contributed to her death?”
“No.”
“Dr. Vale says you did.”
“He is a criminal.”
“Your brother says Helena feared you.”
“My brother has hated me since childhood.”
Dante watching at home almost laughed.
Then Camilla looked directly into the camera.
“Isabela Reyes knows the truth.”
Everyone in the room went still.
The interviewer frowned.
“The nanny?”
Camilla smiled.
“She has Helena’s final recording.”
Isabela looked at Dante.
“We don’t.”
Not one covering Camilla’s direct role.
Unless another existed.
Camilla continued.
“I invite Isabela to release it.”
“If she doesn’t, perhaps people should ask why.”
The interview ended.
Dante understood.
“She knows about another recording.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere Helena expected you to find.”
They searched everything.
Closet.
Storage unit.
Music box.
Original hospital.
No recording.
Then Sofia provided the clue again.
She was drawing at the kitchen table.
A woman.
A bed.
A yellow square.
“What’s that?”
Isabela asked.
“Mommy’s nightlight.”
Helena had kept a yellow glass nightlight beside Sofia’s crib.
After Helena died, Camilla removed most nursery items.
But Sofia remembered.
Dante found it packed inside an attic box.
They opened the base.
Memory card.
Helena appeared again.
This recording was different.
She was crying.
“Camilla came to me tonight.”
“She admitted everything.”
“She believes she is saving our family.”
“She isn’t.”
“She is becoming Alessandro.”
Helena looked off camera.
“I told her I would expose the program tomorrow.”
“She said she wouldn’t let me.”
Then a voice came from outside the frame.
Camilla.
“You’re choosing strangers over us.”
Helena answered.
“They’re children.”
“They are not strangers.”
“You always do this.”
“What?”
“You choose everyone else.”
“Camilla, listen to yourself.”
“No.”
“You chose Marta.”
“You chose Dante.”
“You chose Sofia.”
“And when exactly were you going to choose me?”
Helena’s face filled with sorrow.
“I did.”
“For years.”
“But loving you does not mean letting you hurt people.”
A long silence.
Then Camilla entered frame.
Younger.
Angry.
Crying.
“I can’t let you destroy everything.”
Helena whispered.
“Then you’ll have to destroy me first.”
The video ended.
It did not show the injection.
But it established motive.
Threat.
Intent.
Enough to destroy Camilla’s public narrative.
Isabela wanted to release it.
Dante stopped her.
“That’s what Camilla expects.”
“So?”
“She asked for the recording on television.”
“She wants it public.”
“Why?”
Dante replayed it.
Then understood.
“The timestamp.”
Helena’s camera clock was wrong by two hours.
The video appeared to have been recorded after her official time of death.
If released without forensic verification, Camilla could claim the entire thing was fabricated.
Again.
Another contamination trap.
They sent the device to three independent labs first.
Authentication would take time.
Camilla knew that.
She used the delay.
That night, she released her own edited version.
Helena’s sentences rearranged.
Camilla’s threats removed.
It made Helena sound paranoid.
Public opinion split.
Isabela became the center of online accusations.
Gold-digger.
Fake nanny.
Montenegro mistress.
Conspirator.
People stood outside the mansion.
Cameras followed her.
Dante wanted her hidden.
She refused.
“I spent nine years believing my mother died because people wanted silence.”
“I’m not giving Camilla more silence.”
She agreed to one interview.
No payment.
No dramatic claims.
Only facts.
She sat beneath studio lights.
The interviewer asked.
“Why should anyone believe you?”
Isabela answered.
“They shouldn’t believe me because I’m emotional.”
“They shouldn’t believe Dante because he’s powerful.”
“They shouldn’t believe Camilla because she sounds convincing.”
“They should believe evidence after independent experts verify it.”
The interviewer paused.
Isabela continued.
“This story is not about a billionaire family fighting.”
“It is about children who were conditioned, sedated, and treated like assets.”
“Twenty-seven were removed from one facility.”
“They are real.”
“Their families are real.”
“The records are real.”
“So whether people like me does not matter.”
The interview went viral.
Not because Isabela cried.
She didn’t.
Because she refused to make herself the story.
Camilla watched from a hotel room.
And lost control.
She called Isabela directly.
“You think you’re Helena now?”
Isabela stayed calm.
“No.”
“She loved playing savior too.”
“I’m not saving anyone.”
“You ruined my family.”
“No.”
“Your family ruined children.”
Camilla breathed sharply.
Then whispered.
“You took her place.”
“Whose?”
“Helena’s.”
Isabela understood.
This was never only strategy.
It was obsession.
Camilla wanted to punish the person Helena had chosen after death.
“Where are you?”
Isabela asked.
Camilla laughed.
“Closer than Dante thinks.”
A sound came through the phone.
A bell.
Then another.
Isabela recognized it.
The old church where she found Marta.
She looked at Dante.
He understood from her face.
They drove there.
The church was empty.
One candle burned near the blue door.
On the altar sat a phone.
It began playing a live video.
Camilla appeared.
Behind her was a bed.
A child slept beneath white blankets.
Isabela’s heart stopped.
It looked like Sofia.
Dante moved closer.
Then the child turned.
Not Sofia.
Another little girl.
Maybe five.
Camilla smiled.
“You saved twenty-seven.”
“You missed one.”
The camera widened.
A sign on the wall revealed the location.
St. Anne Pediatric Center.
Three miles away.
Dante ran.
At the hospital, alarms were already sounding.
Camilla had entered using a forged medical credential.
The little girl was a former Site 11 patient recovering under protective care.
Camilla had not harmed her.
She had used her as bait.
When Dante and Isabela reached the room, the girl was safe.
Camilla was gone.
But she left another note.
THIS WAS NEVER ABOUT SOFIA.
IT WAS ABOUT WHETHER DANTE WOULD CHOOSE HIS DAUGHTER OR YOU.
Isabela stared at the words.
Dante understood before she did.
Camilla was trying to repeat Helena’s old wound.
Force Dante to choose.
Create resentment.
Destroy trust.
But Camilla had made one mistake.
Dante tore the note in half.
“I’m not choosing.”
Isabela looked at him.
“What?”
“Between you and Sofia.”
“That is her game.”
“I’m not playing it.”
He looked toward the recovering child.
“We protect whoever needs protecting.”
“Together.”
For the first time, Isabela saw exactly why Helena had loved him.
Not because he was powerful.
Because despite everything his father had taught him, he was still capable of becoming someone better.
Then Marco called.
Independent forensic results were finished.
Helena’s original recording was authentic.
Every frame.
Every voice.
Every timestamp discrepancy explained by the camera’s incorrect internal clock.
They could release it.
Camilla’s lie was about to collapse.
But before Dante could answer, another message appeared.
From Camilla.
One final address.
The Montenegro family cemetery.
May you like
And four words.
COME HEAR HELENA’S TRUTH.
