Chapter 5 — The Truth Behind His Name

ALESSANDRA’S POV

“Mama?”

I stared at my phone, waiting for her voice to return.

“Mama, please! Answer me!”

Nothing.

The call had ended, leaving me alone with the sound of my own frightened breathing and Damian standing beside me.

“What's happening to her?” I demanded.

He reached for his phone. “I'll send someone to find her.”

“No!” I grabbed his wrist. “Your grandfather just threatened me, and now my mother has disappeared. How can I trust anyone in your family?”

“Alessandra, look at me.”

I refused.

“Please.”

Something in his voice made me lift my eyes.

For once, he wasn't speaking like a billionaire accustomed to getting what he wanted. He looked genuinely afraid.

“I don't know what my grandfather has planned,” he admitted. “But I swear I'll find your mother.”

“And if your family is responsible?”

His jaw tightened.

“Then I'll make sure they answer for it.”

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him.

But after everything I'd learned, love seemed like the easiest way to become blind.

“I'm coming with you,” I said.

“Absolutely not.”

“She's my mother!”

“And that is precisely why I won't let you walk into a dangerous situation without a plan.”

I stepped closer, furious. “You don't get to protect me by making decisions for me, Damian.”

He stared at me for several seconds before finally nodding.

“Then we go together. But you stay beside me, and if I tell you to leave, you leave.”

“Fine.”

“And Alessandra?”

“What?”

“Whatever you discover tonight, remember that you deserve the truth. Even if it destroys my family.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Let's hope you still believe that when the truth comes out.”

The Blackwood estate looked different beneath the evening sky.

The enormous gates stood open, but no guards approached our car. The windows glowed with warm light, creating the illusion of a welcoming home.

I knew better.

Damian parked near the entrance and immediately took my hand.

“You don't have to be brave every second,” he murmured.

I glanced at him. “I'm not brave. I'm terrified.”

“Then be terrified beside me.”

Those words settled somewhere deep inside my heart.

I hated that even now, when everything was falling apart, he could still make me feel less alone.

We entered the mansion together.

Richard Blackwood was waiting in the main hall, dressed in an immaculate black suit. Isabelle stood beside him, her face pale and her hands clasped tightly in front of her.

“Where is my mother?” I demanded.

Richard regarded me without emotion.

“Your mother is alive.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere she cannot interfere.”

I lunged forward, but Damian caught my hand before I could reach the older man.

“Be careful, Alessandra,” Richard warned. “Your temper resembles your father's.”

The room went silent.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

“You knew my father?”

Richard's expression changed almost imperceptibly.

“I knew Daniel Monteverde.”

Daniel.

The name meant nothing to me, yet hearing it spoken aloud felt like discovering a missing piece of myself.

“Who was he?”

Richard glanced at Damian.

“Perhaps your boyfriend should explain.”

Damian's grip tightened around my hand.

“Don't involve her in your games.”

“Games?” Richard gave a humorless laugh. “Your father and I spent twenty years trying to bury the consequences of Daniel's mistakes. And now you bring his daughter into this house as if she were an innocent stranger.”

I turned toward Damian.

“Your father knew about mine?”

His face had gone pale.

“Alessandra, I didn't know Daniel was your father.”

“But you knew his name!”

“I knew the name. I didn't know the connection.”

Richard smiled coldly.

“Your mother was very good at hiding it.”

“Stop talking about her like she's a criminal!” I shouted.

For the first time, Isabelle stepped forward.

“Richard, this is enough.”

He turned toward her.

“You've already caused enough trouble by returning.”

Isabelle flinched, and I noticed the fear in her eyes.

She wasn't simply Damian's missing former lover.

She was afraid of Richard.

“What happened to you three years ago?” I asked her.

Her gaze met mine.

“I found documents proving that Daniel had been framed.”

“Framed for what?”

“Financial fraud. Theft. Betrayal of the Monteverde family.”

I shook my head. “My mother never mentioned any of this.”

“Because she was threatened,” Isabelle whispered.

Richard struck his cane against the floor.

“Enough!”

Damian stepped in front of me.

“No. We've spent years listening to you control every conversation. Tell us the truth.”

His grandfather stared at him with open contempt.

“You sound just like your father.”

“And you sound like a man who's afraid of being exposed.”

For several seconds, neither man moved.

Then Richard turned toward the staircase.

“Bring the documents.”

A servant appeared carrying a sealed envelope.

Richard took it and handed it to Damian.

“Your father kept this hidden. Perhaps it's time you learned why.”

Damian opened the envelope.

Inside were several old photographs, bank statements, and a handwritten letter.

He read the first page.

Then his expression changed so dramatically that I felt my stomach drop.

“What is it?” I whispered.

He didn't answer.

I reached for the letter, but he hesitated before handing it to me.

The handwriting was faded, yet the words were unmistakable.

If anything happens to me, protect my daughter. She must never learn what the Monteverdes did to our family until she is old enough to understand.

At the bottom was a signature.

Daniel Monteverde.

My hands began to shake.

“He knew about me,” I whispered.

Damian looked at me, pain written across his face.

“He was your father, Alessandra.”

Tears blurred my vision.

All my life, I'd imagined my father as a man who had abandoned us. A man who had chosen another life and never looked back.

But the letter suggested something else.

Someone had made sure I never knew him.

Someone had taken that choice away from my mother, too.

I looked at Richard.

“What did your family do to him?”

Richard's expression hardened.

“Daniel made a choice that threatened everything we had built.”

“And you punished him for it?”

He didn't answer.

That silence told me enough to make my blood run cold.

DAMIAN'S POV

I watched Alessandra crumble beneath the weight of a truth she had never asked to carry.

Every instinct in me demanded that I pull her into my arms, promise her that I would fix everything, and take her far away from this house.

But I had no right to promise what I couldn't guarantee.

My family had lied to me for years.

If my father had been involved in Daniel's disappearance, then the man who raised me might have been responsible for destroying the life of the woman I was falling in love with.

And I didn't know how to ask her to trust me after that.

“Alessandra,” I whispered.

She looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“Did you know?”

“No.”

“Would you have told me if you had?”

“Yes.”

She searched my face, desperately looking for a reason to believe me.

Then she stepped away.

“I need some air.”

I wanted to follow her, but Isabelle caught my arm.

“Damian, there's something else you need to know.”

I turned toward her.

“What?”

Her eyes moved toward Richard before returning to mine.

“Daniel didn't disappear because of a financial scandal.”

My blood ran cold.

“Then why?”

She swallowed.

“Because he discovered who had ordered the attack that nearly killed him.”

Before I could ask another question, a gunshot echoed through the mansion.

Alessandra screamed.

I ran toward the sound and found her standing beside the staircase, staring at a shattered window.

A man in black was escaping through the garden.

On the floor lay another envelope, stained with blood.

I picked it up with trembling fingers.

Inside was a photograph of Daniel Monteverde standing beside my father.

On the back, someone had written:

YOUR FATHER DIDN'T DIE THAT NIGHT, DAMIAN.

My breath caught.

Beneath that sentence was another line.

AND THE MAN WHO HELPED HIM DISAPPEAR IS STILL LIVING IN YOUR HOUSE.

I slowly raised my eyes.

Richard stood at the end of the hallway, his expression unreadable.

And for the first time in my life, I wondered whether my grandfather had been protecting our family from a terrible truth—

or protecting himself from the consequences of what he'd done.

Then I heard Alessandra whisper behind me.

“Damian…”

I turned.

She was holding a second photograph.

It showed a younger version of my father standing beside a woman I recognized immediately.

Her mother.

And between them was a little girl.

A girl who looked exactly like Alessandra.

The photograph was dated three years before Alessandra was born.

END OF CHAPTER 5.