The Last Gift

Part 2 — The Truth Behind the Heir

For several seconds, nobody in the hospital room spoke.

Vincent stared at the DNA report as if the words might rearrange themselves into something different.

Probability of paternity: 0%.

The child Sophia had just delivered was not his.

“Who is he?” Vincent asked again, his voice dangerously quiet.

Sophia began shaking her head.

“Vincent, please. You have to understand. I can explain everything.”

“Then explain.”

She glanced desperately at Eleanor.

“Mrs. Moretti, please. Tell him he’s making a mistake.”

Eleanor looked at her with disgust.

“Don’t you dare involve me in your lies.”

Vincent stepped closer to the bed.

“How long?”

Sophia swallowed.

“How long what?”

“How long have you been sleeping with another man while telling me this child was mine?”

Tears rolled down Sophia’s cheeks.

“It was a mistake. It happened before you and I became serious.”

Vincent laughed bitterly.

“Before? You told me the pregnancy was mine. You showed me ultrasound pictures. You watched me buy a mansion for you. You let my mother announce this child as the next Moretti heir.”

“I love you!”

“Don’t use that word.”

His voice suddenly thundered through the room.

“Who is the father?”

Sophia covered her face.

Then a name finally escaped her lips.

“Marco…”

Vincent froze.

Marco Bellini.

His former right-hand man.

The man who had managed several of his Chicago operations before disappearing six months earlier with millions of dollars.

Vincent’s expression turned murderous.

“Marco Bellini?”

Sophia started sobbing.

“He told me he would come back. He promised he would marry me. But when he disappeared, I was terrified. Then you started paying attention to me, and I thought…”

“You thought you could make me raise another man’s child?”

“I was afraid of losing everything!”

Vincent stared at her.

Then he turned toward his guards.

“Find Marco. I want him alive.”

One of his men immediately nodded and left.

Eleanor approached the bed, her hands trembling.

“You let us believe this baby was our blood.”

Sophia reached for her.

“Please, Eleanor. I didn’t mean for things to happen this way.”

Eleanor pulled away.

“Don’t call me that.”

Meanwhile, Vincent’s phone continued vibrating.

His attorney had sent him a photograph.

My wedding ring.

My signed divorce papers.

And the letter I had left beneath them.

He read it again.

You’re finally getting the family you wanted.

For the first time, Vincent understood that I hadn’t left because I was angry.

I had left because I was finished.

He immediately called my number.

The automated voice answered.

“The number you have dialed is currently unavailable.”

He tried again.

Nothing.

“Find Claire,” he ordered.

His assistant hesitated.

“Boss, there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Mrs. Moretti’s attorney filed the divorce petition this morning. She also submitted a request for an expedited hearing.”

Vincent clenched his jaw.

“Cancel it.”

“Sir, she has already signed everything. And according to the attorney, she has no intention of negotiating.”

Vincent stared at the hospital window.

For five years, he had believed I would always be there.

He had thought I would tolerate anything as long as I could keep the Moretti name.

He was wrong.

Three days later, I was sitting in a small café overlooking Elliott Bay in Seattle.

My apartment was still mostly empty. Two suitcases, a few books, and a photograph of my late father were all I had brought with me.

For the first time in years, the silence didn’t hurt.

My phone rang.

It was Daniel.

“Claire, Vincent has called my office seventeen times.”

I smiled faintly.

“That’s a new record.”

“He’s demanding to speak with you.”

“He can speak to you.”

“He says the DNA report was a mistake.”

I looked out at the water.

“Daniel, did you receive the same report I did?”

“Yes. The laboratory confirmed the results twice.”

“Then there’s nothing to discuss.”

Daniel paused.

“There’s something else. Vincent has instructed his accountants to freeze several joint accounts.”

I took a sip of coffee.

“He can keep them.”

“Claire, some of those accounts contain substantial assets.”

“I know. But he doesn’t understand something.”

“What?”

I opened the leather folder beside me.

Inside were documents my father had prepared years before his death.

A trust agreement.

Several property deeds.

And a corporate ownership certificate.

“Most of the assets I care about were never part of the Moretti family.”

Daniel was silent for a moment.

Then he asked, “Are you ready to reveal the truth?”

I looked at the certificate.

Bennett Holdings.

My father’s company had once been one of the largest private investment groups in the Midwest.

Vincent had always believed I was simply the daughter of a retired businessman.

He had never bothered asking what happened to my father’s empire.

He never knew that after my father’s death, I had quietly become its sole beneficiary.

And now, I was ready to return.

“Not yet,” I answered.

“Let him discover what he lost first.”

Back in Chicago, Vincent was having the worst week of his life.

Marco Bellini had vanished, Sophia’s lies were becoming public inside the organization, and Eleanor had refused to return to the hospital.

Worse, the Moretti family lawyers had discovered that the newborn could not legally be registered as Vincent’s heir.

At dinner, Eleanor finally confronted her son.

“Where is Claire?”

Vincent put down his glass.

“I don’t know.”

“Then find her.”

“I have men looking.”

Eleanor shook her head.

“You spent five years making that woman feel unwanted. Now you expect her to come running because your mistress lied to you?”

Vincent’s expression hardened.

“Mother.”

“No. Listen to me. Claire stood beside you when you had nothing. She defended you when this family doubted you. And you repaid her by humiliating her.”

He said nothing.

Eleanor’s eyes filled with tears.

“I wanted a grandchild so badly that I forgot the woman who should have been my daughter.”

At that moment, Vincent’s phone rang.

His head of security was calling.

“Boss, we found Marco.”

“Where?”

“At a private marina outside Miami.”

“Bring him to Chicago.”

There was a pause.

“There’s another problem, sir.”

“What now?”

“Marco claims he has evidence that Sophia wasn’t the only person involved in the deception.”

Vincent slowly stood.

“What evidence?”

“Financial records. He says someone paid him to disappear and leave Sophia behind.”

Vincent’s eyes narrowed.

“Who paid him?”

The answer came quietly.

“Someone from inside the Moretti family.”

And suddenly, Vincent realized Sophia’s betrayal might only be the beginning.