Chapter 7 - THE SECOND LIE
Dante wanted to reject the accusation.
Instead he remembered the detonator in Rosa’s drawer.
The tape.
Her lies.
The missing body.
“Proof,” Dante said.
Elias nodded.
“Good.”
“What?”
“You asked for proof instead of shooting me.”
Dante’s expression stayed cold.
“I’m recovering.”
Elias almost smiled.
Bruno did not.
“Talk.”
Elias leaned forward.
“Seventeen years ago, Rosa believed Alejandro had become too dangerous.”
“That part I can believe.”
“She also believed Victor was worse.”
“So she tried to kill both?”
“Yes.”
Dante stared.
“She set the fire.”
“She locked the basement exit.”
“Why did my father survive?”
“Because I broke the lock.”
“And Victor?”
“He escaped through the kitchen.”
Dante looked down at the photograph.
“Where did my father go?”
“I moved him.”
“Where?”
“A clinic in Uruguay.”
“And after?”
“He disappeared.”
“You expect me to believe you lost a Montenegro?”
“He wanted to be lost.”
Dante looked at him.
“Then why are you here now?”
“Because someone found him.”
The answer changed everything.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop using that answer.”
“I genuinely don’t.”
Elias produced another photograph.
A security image.
Alejandro walking through an airport.
Taken six months earlier.
“He contacted me after this was taken.”
“What did he say?”
“That someone was rebuilding Victor’s old network.”
Dante’s voice lowered.
“Victor.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Victor isn’t smart enough.”
Bruno raised an eyebrow.
Elias continued.
“Someone is using his accounts, codes, and old contacts.”
“Then who?”
“Your father believed it was someone younger.”
Dante thought of Camila.
Rafael.
Security.
The hospital.
“How does my accident connect?”
“You were getting close to discovering money missing from the Legacy Trust.”
Dante remembered.
Two weeks before the crash, accountants flagged strange transfers.
He delegated the review.
To Victor.
A mistake.
“Who benefits if I become incapacitated?”
Elias looked directly at him.
“That is the question you should have asked before your accident.”
Dante already knew the answer structure.
The trust passed voting authority to the next eligible Montenegro blood relative.
Victor.
Unless Victor was disqualified.
Then Rosa.
Unless another direct descendant existed.
Dante looked at Elias.
“There’s another heir.”
Elias did not answer.
That was answer enough.
“Who?”
Elias stood.
“I didn’t come here to tell you everything.”
Bruno blocked him.
“You aren’t leaving.”
Elias looked at Dante.
“If I stay, the people following me find you.”
“They already know where I live.”
“Not them.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
Elias suddenly looked toward the stained-glass window.
“Down!”
The glass exploded.
A suppressed rifle round struck the pew where Elias had been sitting.
Bruno pulled Dante behind stone.
Another shot.
Elias ran toward a side door.
Dante shouted.
“Stop him!”
Bruno moved.
Then the chapel lights died.
By the time security surrounded the grounds, Elias was gone.
But he left one thing.
A folded paper beneath the pew.
Dante opened it.
A birth certificate.
Female child.
Born thirty years earlier.
Mother:
Lucia Montenegro.
Dante’s mother.
Father:
Alejandro Montenegro.
Child’s name:
Elena Montenegro.
Dante stared.
He had a sister.
May you like
And nobody had ever told him.
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