Chapter 8 - Salvatore's Secret Trust
That explained why Helena had risked everything.
The children were family.
But Dominic was staring at another file.
“What is this?”
Helena’s face drained.
“No.”
He opened it.
A hospital record appeared.
Then a DNA report.
My name was printed across the top.
Maria Alvarez.
Beside it was another name.
Dominic Moretti.
Relationship probability: biological siblings.
Neither of us spoke.
Then Helena whispered the words that shattered every assumption we had made.
“Dominic, Salvatore Moretti was Maria’s father.”
Dominic reread the report three times.
I could not read it once.
“No,” I said.
Helena’s eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
Dominic looked at her.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before he married your mother.”
I backed away.
“So Dominic is…”
“Your half brother.”
The world seemed to rearrange itself around me.
For six years I had worked in his house.
Passed him in corridors.
Managed his staff.
Raised my daughter in rooms belonging to a family I never knew was also mine.
Dominic stood motionless.
“My father knew?”
“Yes.”
“Did Isabella?”
“Yes.”
“Did Vincent?”
Helena hesitated.
“Yes.”
That answer mattered most.
Because suddenly Vincent’s obsession with me made sense.
I was not merely a housekeeper.
I was Salvatore Moretti’s hidden daughter.
Potentially connected to whatever he had left behind.
Dominic understood the same thing.
“Inheritance.”
Helena nodded.
“Salvatore created a private trust before he died.”
“I administered his estate.”
“Not all of it.”
She opened another folder.
The trust was enormous.
Properties.
Investment accounts.
Minority holdings.
A charitable foundation.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“The beneficiary is unnamed.”
“It was meant for Maria.”
My knees weakened.
“I don’t want any of it.”
“This isn’t about wanting it.”
Helena continued.
“Salvatore’s instructions stated the beneficiary could claim control only after the existence of another direct descendant was confirmed.”
Dominic looked at Lily.
“My daughter.”
“Yes.”
The truth landed heavily.
Lily was not only Vincent’s witness.
She was proof that Salvatore’s hidden bloodline continued.
“What happens if I never claim it?”
Helena’s expression turned grim.
“After a deadline, administration transfers.”
“To?”
“Vincent.”
Dominic swore under his breath.
Salvatore had built the trust while secretly preparing Vincent as an alternate steward.
Then, apparently, he had changed his mind before his death.
Vincent had spent years waiting for the transfer.
Then Maria reappeared inside the Moretti estate without even knowing who she was.
May you like
And later, Lily was born.
The inheritance became unreachable unless Maria and Lily were removed from the equation.
