Chapter 10
My father’s name on that visitor log should have been impossible.
Antonio Montaro had died before Emmett was born.
I had attended the funeral.
I had carried the casket.
I had watched my mother drop a white rose onto the grave.
Now his signature sat on a hospital record dated two years after his death.
Agent Chen came to the guesthouse at noon.
When I showed her the log, her face tightened.
“We have seen this name before.”
“In what?”
“Accounts tied to the trust.”
“My father is dead.”
“Someone is using his identity.”
Nora looked pale.
“Or someone who was supposed to be dead isn’t.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because my life had become too monstrous for ordinary disbelief.
Agent Chen asked for permission to search the family mausoleum.
Lucille fought it through emergency counsel.
The judge denied her request.
By evening, federal agents opened my father’s tomb.
I stood outside the mausoleum with Emmett inside the car, asleep under Mateo’s watch.
Agent Chen emerged an hour later.
Her face told me before her words did.
“The coffin is empty.”
I sat down on the stone step.
The world moved strangely around me.
My father’s empire.
My mother’s fear.
Amara’s death.
Emmett’s trust.
All of it was tied to a dead man who might not be dead.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I answered without speaking.
A man breathed on the line.
Then a voice I had not heard since childhood said, “Rafael.”
My blood turned to ice.
“Father?”
May you like
A pause.
Then he said, “Do not trust Lucille with the boy.”
