Chapter 13 - Ruby's Father.
Marcus read the recovered sentence twice.
Then he looked at Elena.
"Who is Ruby's father?"
Elena's heart pounded.
"I don't know why that sentence is there."
"It's your voice."
"I know."
"Then answer me."
Elena tried to remember the night the recording had been made.
She had been exhausted, grieving, and speaking into a private case journal for the investigator.
Then she remembered Sophia's sealed letter.
The letter Elena had never opened because it was marked FOR RUBY WHEN SHE IS EIGHTEEN.
It was still in a bank box on the mainland.
Or it should have been.
Marcus ordered the family attorney to check the inventory remotely.
The response came ten minutes later.
The envelope was gone.
It had been accessed three weeks earlier using a forged authorization bearing Elena's signature.
"Damian," Marcus said.
Elena shook her head.
"Maybe."
Then Tomas approached from the resort office carrying a sealed waterproof pouch recovered from Damian's luggage.
Inside was a photocopy of Sophia's letter.
Marcus looked at Elena.
"We don't read this without Ruby someday."
Elena agreed.
But another document sat behind the letter.
A DNA report.
The names on it made Marcus stop breathing.
RUBY HALE.
MARCUS HALE.
Probability of biological paternity: 99.99%.
Marcus stared at the page.
"This is impossible."
Elena felt the world tilt.
"It has to be fabricated."
Marcus looked at the date.
The test had been processed only four months earlier.
Damian had obtained a sample somehow.
Elena immediately understood the leverage.
If the report were real, Sophia had hidden something enormous.
If it were fake, Damian intended to use it to destroy Marcus and Elena publicly.
Either way, the timing was deliberate.
Marcus sank into a chair.
"Sophia was my sister."
"Yes."
"Then Ruby cannot be my daughter."
"Correct."
Tomas frowned at the report.
"Unless the lab compared Ruby to a different Marcus Hale."
Elena looked at him.
Marcus's father had also been named Marcus Hale.
Marcus Hale Senior had died six years earlier.
Sophia was his daughter from a first marriage.
Marcus was his son from a second.
A DNA match between Ruby and Marcus could be misrepresented depending on the test and sample labels.
Elena took the report closer to the light.
At the bottom, in tiny print, she found the truth.
The sample labeled MARCUS HALE was not Marcus Junior's.
It came from stored medical tissue belonging to Marcus Hale Senior.
Marcus looked horrified.
"My father was Ruby's father?"
Elena closed her eyes.
Sophia had not been Marcus Senior's biological daughter.
She had been adopted as a toddler after her mother remarried him.
The family rarely discussed it.
That meant there was no biological barrier.
It also meant Ruby was not merely Marcus's niece by family bond.
She was his half-sister.
Marcus stood in stunned silence.
Elena whispered, "Sophia hid it to protect Ruby."
The larger truth became clear.
If Ruby was Marcus Senior's biological child, she could have a direct claim to shares held in a dormant family trust.
Shares large enough to destroy Damian's takeover plan.
That was why Ruby had become more than a witness.
She was an obstacle.
Marcus looked toward the hallway where she slept.
"They knew."
Elena nodded.
"Damian knew."
May you like
Marcus's face changed from shock to fury.
"Then the fall from the pier may not have been an accident at all."
