Chapter 3: Secrets Buried Beneath the Estate
Chapter 3: Secrets Buried Beneath the Estate
Police officers arrived within the hour.
Victor laughed when Maria accused him.
"An old woman's imagination is hardly evidence."
But Maria had spent decades working inside the estate.
She knew every hidden corridor.
Every locked cellar.
Every family secret.
She led the officers beneath the mansion to an abandoned wine tunnel that had been sealed for years.
Behind a loose stone wall they discovered a small wooden chest.
Inside were faded photographs, adoption papers, old letters, and a hospital bracelet dated twelve years earlier.
One document revealed everything.
Gabriel had never died.
He had been secretly taken from his mother after Victor arranged for forged documents claiming the child had perished in the storm.
Victor had feared that Gabriel's inheritance would divide the family's fortune.
Instead, he placed the boy with a caretaker under a different name.
Lucas.
The maid who had rescued the child from the locked room had unknowingly raised him after believing his biological parents had abandoned him.
She loved him as her own.
The silver cross had remained on his wrist since infancy because she believed it was the only clue to his past.
Daniel stood speechless.
The bride stared at the papers through tears.
Every lie she had carried for twelve years collapsed in a single afternoon.
Victor attempted to flee through the gardens.
May you like
He never made it past the front gate.
The police were already waiting.
